It’s time to figure out where we went wrong

It was only a matter of time. As the news of yet another senseless shooting made itself known on the television I began to recognize the names.

Dayton, Ohio. That’s where I used to live. Miami Valley Hospital. That’s where I was born. The last time I was by there the original building had been almost completely swallowed by years of additions and renovations. It is known as the top trauma center around.

The Oregon District. It had been a rather dowdy part of the city and a few years before jobs took us out of the area, some young visionaries had the idea to revitalize it. They renovated the old houses, opened a few new businesses and as far as I knew had achieved their objective.

The Oregon District now consists of 12 city blocks bounded on the north by Fifth Street, on the east by Wayne Avenue, on the south by the Route 35 Expressway and on the west by Patterson Boulevard, once the site of part of the Miami-Erie Canal.

While I’m a little fuzzy about Fifth Street, Wayne Avenue used to be the site of the state mental hospital. Patterson Boulevard is where our first apartment was. Route 35 was the quickest way home after a shift at the Upper Krust deli. Route 35 is also where I was following a dump truck one afternoon when a rock flew off and shattered my windshield. I immediately threw my right arm out so my daughter, who was standing on the front seat, wouldn’t fall. Glass was everywhere. I was in heavy traffic and was never so glad to see an exit sign in my life. My daughter and I were unhurt. I can’t say the same about the windshield.

That’s what used to come to mind when I heard someone talk about the Oregon District. Now it will forever be associated with a disturbed young man who shot innocent people. The story will be in the news for a day or so before sliding into the background just like all the other atrocities before it.

There will be an outcry for gun control, which will fade away before anything can become legal. Gun owners will clutch their weapons to their hearts as yet more mothers and fathers mourn the loss of their children. Once all the tributes have been gathered up and dealt with, we will hear no more about senseless shootings.

Until next time. There is always a next time.

Since gun owners are determined to keep their weapons, why don’t they, as a group, come up with a few ways that they think might work? I say a few ways because no one thing created this phenomenon. We have formed a reality where violence is an acceptable answer to any problem, real or perceived. We think violent video games, movies, and television programs are perfectly acceptable. There are endless contributing factors that shape today’s society.

Perhaps the scariest part of this whole thing is that we don’t know how many of these shootings have been prevented. We only hear about the ones where people died. I want to ask the perpetrators if it was worth it to forfeit their own lives to kill people they don’t even know. I will never understand how anyone can justify the taking of a life just because they can.

This is not a Democrat problem. It is not a Republican problem. It is a problem that we have created. We have raised these children. Perhaps it is time to figure out what we did wrong so the upcoming generation doesn’t have to deal with their own crop of murderers.