Pain For Perry

What drives shooters to kill?

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Pain For Perry

K.L. Orion

It’s a weird thing when you’re in Mississippi of all places and you see a town not way too far from your hometown in Iowa on the local news there. Not the national news, the local news. Events have to be pretty significant to be put on the national news, but they have to be even more significant to get a section dedicated to them on the local news of someplace hundreds of miles away. By that point, I already knew why this town was on the news. The event had taken place a few days earlier, and it had rocked our small town Iowa world even when we ourselves were not in small town Iowa. 

I was in Florida the day of the Perry school shooting. It was shocking news. Winter break was officially over, but my family decided that we would miss Thursday and Friday from school to have another four days added to our vacation (speaking of which, I still have work I need to make up). I’m thankful we made that decision. While I do not live in Perry, I quickly realized I did not want to be in Iowa at all that day. My family and I were shocked, but we were spared from the Iowan devastation. That’s part of the reason I waited to write this. I wanted to get an idea of what it was like for my fellow Iowans, my fellow classmates that day. Unfortunately, today (Wednesday, January 10th) marks the second snow day in a row, meaning I’ve only had Monday to interact with my classmates. Beyond a few people asking me if I knew what had happened in Perry, no one discussed it. I was also afraid to bring it up, especially at school.

I know there had to be chaos at my own school that day. Everyone was terrified from what I understand. As much as I wish I was there to see it so I could give you readers a look into a school at the time of a neighboring community’s school shooting, I’m glad I wasn’t there for the same reasons. I didn’t want to be part of that chaos. I didn’t want to see the panic and the fear and the grief right off the bat. I wanted to process this shocking news alone and quietly away from panic. And what better place to do that than on vacation? 

I probably know just as much as my classmates who were in Iowa at the time of the shooting by now. What I just don’t know is how our schools reacted. I wasn’t there, so how could I? Besides some heavy emails from the school administration about sending love to Perry and safety protocols, I know nothing of the school’s initial response to this. 

What I do know is that a sixth grader was killed. Seven others, including the principal, were injured. The shooter himself died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He had a homemade explosive with him that luckily was not used. Now, I could give you more facts, but you can find facts on the millions of news stations pouring them out. What I want to provide is perspective as someone not in Iowa at the time of the shooting, but still devastated from the news. Having relations to the area, this shooting literally hit close to home. But being away from home at the time gave me a unique look on it. The incident at Perry made me think about mass shootings as a whole. Why are there so many? What are we going to do about it? 

The modern world is a violent one. This is for many reasons I think. People are quick to blame video games and the internet, and they aren’t entirely wrong for that thinking. However, blaming only technology is failing to look at the bigger picture. After all, the invention only reflects the inventor. I’ve heard the argument that it stems from godlessness. We have a lack of religion in this country. These atheists are violent and need to be converted! Personally, while that thinking has some points that need to be considered, I think most of it is quite frankly (excuse my language) brainwashed bullshit.

Maybe it’s a gun control issue. Honestly, I hate guns. I hate, hate, HATE them. Unless it is used in some cool action movie or if I need those things for basic survival, I don’t like them. So the American obsession with them disturbs me. I think we need better gun control while we sort out this issue of violence in our country. But there’s the issue right there. Gun control might help us solve our mass shooting problem, but it won’t get rid of the underlying cause of the issue. Guns aren’t living things; they’re tools. Guns are used by people with violent intentions. Where are these violent intentions coming from? 

I think the issue is coming from all of these answers. These answers are the issue. What do I mean? I mean the violence is coming from a difference of opinion. To those of you who say video games are the main reason, you are attacking the passion of so many people. Those people who love video games then feel angry at you. You’ve alienated them, and now they’re going to alienate you back. Those of you who say its godlessness, you have made atheists afraid of you. You’ve made them hate you. You’ve alienated each other. You have no empathy for each other. You are completely split on an issue and are willing to fight the other over it. This even applies to the gun control argument. Both sides will get so heated over gun control that they will feel the urge to be violent towards one another. 

All of this violence stems from many issues. I could probably write book after book about the issues, and even then I wouldn’t have scratched the surface. But I think it can ultimately be summed up into one big general answer. 

Our society suffers from a deadly lack of empathy. 

Photo by Tom Def on Unsplash

It’s easy now to get self-centered. Selfish. Greedy. Stubborn. All of these traits are horrifically present and ever-increasing in the modern world, especially here in the United States. We become so convinced that we alone are right in our thinking that we don’t stop to consider the possibility that maybe we are wrong. We are afraid to. So we don’t consider that possibility. We don’t even hear other people out. We close up and plant ourselves firmly in the ground, willing to die on the hill we stand upon. 

And recently, actually dying on that hill is becoming a more realistic possibility. 

Political polarization is probably one of the key components here. I mean, look at the debates over the last decade. Many of the politicians in them express these stubborn traits, refusing to listen to their opponents and even interrupting them. Political opponents aren’t even opponents anymore. They’re enemies. That is a dangerous way of thinking. And it’s gotten to the point that both sides think the other wants to kill them, and they’re not entirely wrong. We just passed the three year anniversary of January 6th. That event should be a wake-up call. It should show us how dangerously far we’ve gone. How we have lost empathy towards one another. 

(An article I wrote about my thoughts on Jan 6th: Ten Score and Seven Years Ago)

That event also brings light to another issue we have. Americans can’t seem to help but romanticize violence. We won our independence in the Revolutionary War. We pride ourselves in our military power. We have brainwashed ideas of nationalism that often incorporate violent undertones. We created the godforsaken atomic bomb. War games and battle royals are extremely popular in the video game world. We love watching wrestling, action movies, and westerns. Hell, look at the underlying premise of American football! 

(A very interesting article by anthropologist Robert Leonard of Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture: Rituals of American Football)

I love a good action flick. My favorite form of media are giant monster movies where the previously mentioned giant monsters beat the living hell out of each other. Football isn’t evil! Wrestling isn’t evil! Having some national pride is far from a bad thing! But the issue is that we as Americans have a problem with romanticizing violence too much. We have gotten to the point that fighting is so heroic and patriotic that we’ve lost sight of the destruction it can cause. And it’s some of these romanticized violent ideas and the lack of empathy that probably go through a school shooter’s head before they go through with it. Go out with a bang. Take as many people down with me. They’ll remember my name. I’ll get my fifteen minutes of fame. 

Play violence in sports and movies isn’t a terrible thing. But if gone unchecked, it becomes a deadly combination with our increasing lack of empathy. We need to remember the tragedy violence can cause. We need to have more reverence for it. Because if we don’t, I can assure you more children will pay for it with their lives. 

What we need is a kinder world. We all need to be more humble. We all need to be more open-minded. We all need to be calmer. If we want peace, we need to actually strive for it. 

Before I finish off, I’d like to offer my sincere condolences to the citizens of Perry. To the victims of the shooting. To the families of those victims. To the family of the shooter himself. To the community. To the state. To the country. To the world. This is a horrible tragedy. This is also a horrible failure for us as a society. We failed as a whole to provide a kinder world. We as a society created a breeding ground of violence, hatred, and self-centeredness collectively. 

My biggest question of all is for the shooter, who obviously cannot answer my question now. But I think it’s a question we should all consider. 

What hurt you? I don’t mean it in anger or in bitterness. I ask this question sincerely. What hurt you? What hurt you so bad that you thought to do this? What about society made you hate it so much that you thought you had to lash out like this? What hurt you? And could the thing that hurt you hurt someone like you again? Is that thing already hurting someone else? What hurt you so we can find it and make sure no one gets hurt again? 

I can ask this all I want, but no amount of hypothetical questions can ever reverse the tragedy at Perry, Iowa.