It occurs to me that I’ve written a few articles about mass shootings. It may not be enough for a genre, but almost. Here are the four articles from the Friday member series that stand out, covering Virginia Tech, Tucson, Aurora and Newtown:
As astrology students, we naturally want to know about what kind of planetary configuration would be behind somebody who could kill 32 people, then himself. But that is to presume he is in some way special. Who knows, he might be, but murder-suicide happens pretty often, and given the availability of guns in the United States and elsewhere, given how frustrated and hopeless so many people are, and given the way that casual violence is sanctioned, the real wonder is that crimes of this nature don’t happen more often.
Beneath the Guns and Politics, Gender Rage
In the wake of the shootings in Tucson nearly one week ago, the focus of the discussion is on the political causes and implications of the incident. There are many, though what’s also clear is that there are issues below the issue, such as the deep frustration, rage and mistrust that would lead to a nationwide spike in sales of Glock 9mm pistols this week — the same kind used by suspect Jared Lee Loughner.
Dark Knight of the Uranus-Pluto Square
For those of you in the United States who woke up and turned on your TV or the Internet, you were welcomed into the day by the news of an attack in Aurora, Colorado. This took place during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises, a hit movie based on the DC Comics character Batman that premiered earlier in the week. At the late-night show, a 24-year-old gunman released a canister of toxic gas into the dark theater, then opened fire on the crowd. He killed 14 people and injured another 50 — and was taken into custody after the attack.
They began on Dec. 14 with the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. This was, said The Nation, the 16th mass shooting in the United States since the beginning of the year. We watched and grieved the burial of 20 kids, ages six and seven, as well as six of the adults whose job it was to take care of them. We got a look into the dark world of the household from where this well of death had sprung.