Yesterday UCLA experienced something that so many other schools and individuals have faced ... a school shooting. In the wake of this tragedy, everyone will try to twist the events to their own political or personal viewpoint. People will argue who is right or wrong on gun control, or man versus woman or white versus black or religious extremities. I don't want to do any of that. I want to think of the lives lost, the senselessness of the killing and the bickering that follows. In the end this isn't the fault of a gun, or religion or any viewpoint. It is the result of an individual who needed help, who didn't get it. It is the result of people falling through the cracks caused by the rifts in our society.
We can blame no one for ourselves in the aftermath of how we act or react. Me, I'm tired of this senseless violence. I'm tired of the pro versus anti gun debate. I'm tired of everyone twisting and turning, squeezing events like this for personal gain. I'm tired of the violence that goes unnoticed, unreported, because it happens everyday and is "normal" in some neighborhoods. It doesn't get sensationalized like this will.
I suppose in talking about this, I'm part of that problem. I don't want to debate, I don't want to argue. I like to hope that my focus is on the tragedy itself, on trying to find a unifying solution. I don't know what that solution is, but it's not in what's followed every shooting before it.
