How Do I Handle that Question?

"Why does this only happen in America, Mac?"

This is the question I have spent the last 24 hours responding to. I first caught wind of the shooting in Newtown, CT yesterday evening before the horrifying death toll was revealed. Several hours later, at my friend's house, I checked my Facebook feed and found it riddled with bible verses, messages of comfort and messages of sheer outrage. I placed my alcoholic beverage on the table and a stiffness settled in. I braced the wall and began praying to myself while my 10 Italian, Spanish and Dutch friends continued their drunken conversation. Apparently I looked out of it and a friend called me out. The room turned and I revealed the terrible shooting developments. 20 children dead...

There have been several times in Turkey where I have been called upon to speak on behalf of the calamities of my country. I immediately hesitate because trying to explain certain aspects of America to Europeans often leaves me wondering why these aspects exist in the first place. The holiday of Thanksgiving, for example. But the hardest question I have faced regards gun violence. And if Columbine, D.C., Virginia Tech, and Aurora were not gruesome enough, this massacre of twenty elementary school children is a new low for America.

But as for my answer? It is not a question I easily dismiss. I know people ask questions like these because they legitimately want answers or they earnestly want my opinion. Lack of gun control is the cop out, political excuse. What is comes down to is that anyone who wants badly enough to take innocent lives, can do so. Overly easy access to guns is not the sole problem, in my opinion.  In Switzerland, as a Dutch friend revealed, everyone has a gun in their house for protective measures. So why do these acts seem to "only happen in America?"

As humans, we mostly deal with the same issues in life. Money, love, jobs, family. All people in all countries deal with these. Only a handful snap as a result of one or many and inflict direct damage on others. But one who commits a shooting in a public place is making a public statement. They may seek the attention received from the act or a desire to go out with a bang in a world where it seems like nobody appreciates them. Adam Lanza killed his mother, then proceeded to the elementary school where she taught to make the statement public, to extend the damage infliction farther into the world. Although the motive is unclear, I find myself largely unsatisfied with the current theory  of "a dispute with his mother." We have moved into an age where, for whatever reason, this psychopathic behavior is no longer kept between the two parties, but extends into the larger sphere where innocent lives pay the price.

But one cannot justify psycopathic behavior. The individual is a psychopath precisely because his actions are irrational. But why does America seem to have an abundance of psycopaths? Surely it isn't just the violent video games in which these individuals lose their grasp on reality and act out in a fashion that mimics these games. These games are available all over the world. Perhaps it could be the increased stress, competition or expectations placed on people. As we become part of the system and we find our roles in the giant machine of society, we lose some of our humanness and, as Karl Marx writes, become alienated from our work, from each other and from ourselves. Could this unjustifiable behavior be the result of an industrialized, capitalized society pushing people so incessantly that they pop? Perhaps it is the individualism in America. With a preference toward the individual, are we becoming so narcissistic that we have lost the importance of using the people in our lives to deal with our stresses?

Again I am not trying to explain or justify this behavior. I just want to share what it is like to have to defend a country that, to many over here, seems to be losing control.

I don't recall the last time a news story affected me this much. When I awoke this morning and watched the CBS News story, the extent of the tragedy settled in. I wept for the parents who suffered the loss of a child. I wept for the community of Newtown. I wept for America. I wept for humanity, as we are capable of such love but also capable of such terror. I wept when I realized how little we can do to stop events like this from happening.  Sometimes all we can do is remain grounded in our faith and hope. We must find strength through the collective realization that we are powerless over events like this. And most importantly, we must send our love and prayers to the people that need it most right now.