A day after shooting, House Democrats erupt in protest

[Sand Rat Expat]

83. I think...

I think the sad truth is that so very many people simply don't care. They make a show of caring, they may donate to a GoFundMe, they may go to a vigil, they may walk in a march... but then they go back to their lives. All these things they've done are good, but after a week, or a month, or 90 days, the incident fades into memory until the next mass shooting.

I think the sad truth is that for the vast majority of people, incidents like these are abstract. It didn't touch them personally by someone they know or love being caught in the bullets' paths. It's one thing to say "That's awful!" and another entirely to feel the grief, sorrow, anguish... and yes, the rage, too.

A lot of people don't like such strong emotions. We as individuals aren't taught to deal with our emotions in a constructive way. Emotions in and of themselves are not positive or negative, it's how we act on them that defines that. But to a lot of people, feeling strong grief or rage is something they seek to escape from, and so they light a candle, and then go back to their normal lives, secretly relieved that it happened to someone else.

The problem is that we're all "someone else" to someone else, and until we as a society decide that enough is enough, there are going to continue to be far too many injured or killed who are "someone else."