Category: shooting

Categories
colorado shooting

A fast verdict

Verdict returned on Aurora gunman, guilty on all 165 counts. I don’t really have any commentary on the case itself, other than profound sadness at the senselessness of it all, anger about gun control issues; the standard feeling I have about mass shootings.

What I did want to comment on is the “speed” of the verdict. 165 counts decided in about 12-13 hours, depending on the article you read. I’ve seen multiple people mention that this is fast or speedy in a sort of wondering way. With that kind of time, it averages out to about 4-5 minutes spent per count.

I actually don’t think it’s that fast, all told. I’m not the world’s greatest expert on juries, but I’ve now actually gotten to serve on one, which is an experience I know isn’t universal, so I thought I’d share a little. It is so not like TV.

The case I served on was civil rather than criminal, but I get the impression the process is fairly similar. (I just haven’t blogged about it before now because, while I’m allowed to talk about it if I want, I’m uncomfortable with the notion of getting in to details.) Anyway, the trial I served on lasted about three and a half days. We had seven questions to consider at the end; I was foreman for the jury. And it basically went like this: I’d read the question out loud, poll the other jurors, and if the answer was unanimous, move on. It took us about 25 minutes to cover 7 questions (averaging <4 minutes per question). And the only reason it actually took that long was because there was one question where we disagreed about a monetary amount and decided to discuss in order to regain our unanimity (which was unnecessary, technically, since I was the hold out, but we wanted to be unanimous if we could), and then a pause when we wrote a question to the judge for clarification just to be sure about something. Had neither of those things happened, we would have finished all seven questions in well under 10 minutes.

So I’m not claiming to know what exactly went on in deliberations, but I’m not necessarily surprised. You don’t really discuss if everyone agrees already. So to me, it doesn’t sound like they rushed, it sounded like the jurors probably agreed on nearly everything and maybe just had a issues they had to talk about. I just wanted to point this out in case there’s an impression that maybe things weren’t given enough gravity just due to speed; if everyone has been attentive and serious about the issues, they probably already know how they will vote on the various charges as they sit down. And if everyone agrees? It’s going to be quick.

I’m guessing the prosecution did a really good job, though obviously I don’t know one way or another. But that’s immediately what it sounded like to me.

Categories
shooting

Politics is not an island

Another school shooting, with 27 dead, 18 of them children. At an elementary school. A fucking elementary school.

I have now seen people rushing both to frame this in a political context and to shout about people commenting on something politically when it’s a horrible tragedy. And it is horrible, and indescribable, and I cannot begin to imagine how the people in the community feel, let alone the families of the victims. I have been crying about this, about people I’ve never met and now will never possibly meet.

Yet I also think it’s bullshit to pretend that this is somehow separate from politics and should not be viewed in that light. A tragedy shouldn’t be used to score cheap, disgusting points in an argument, shouldn’t be used for manipulative posturing that solves nothing. A tragedy shouldn’t be reframed and distorted through the lens of ideology, just like facts shouldn’t be attacked because they’re inconvenient to beliefs.

But.

At the same time, politics is not an island and the availability of firearms in this country is a fucking political decision. The decisions we make as a country politically are felt by everyone who lives here, and those decisions have consequences, both bad and good. Things that happen in this country likewise should effect the political debate and should effect the decisions we make for the future. Things that make us angry, that make us cry are not sacrosanct. They are even more important because they tear at our very hearts.

Politics is about deciding what country we want to live in. It should be about having an honest conversation about problems and tragedies, and being able to stand up and say enough, this has to fucking stop.

That is not the same as politicizing.

I’m sick of writing posts like this. I don’t want to have to be afraid that someone I have never met with a gun and a dearth of morals or self control or mental health will end my life at a grocery store or a movie theater or a mall, or do the same to my niece when she is supposed to be in the safest of places. And because I don’t live on an island, that fear, that problem is not mine alone to solve.

Like it or not, how we solve problem together is politics.

ETA: My friend Kat has made a very good point in comments so please read that. Also, on LJ, Dan has pointed out:

I agree that it’s inherently a political issue. My problem with immediately discussing political solutions (everything from “ban all the guns now” to “if those kids had been carrying, this wouldn’t have happened”) is that people tend to make very, very bad decisions in the wake of a tragedy. “USA-PATRIOT” comes to mind.

Which is also a very, very good point. I would still say we need to take this energy and go into debate. But let it be a reasoned debate. 
Categories
colorado shooting

Senseless

I got hit with the news about the shooting in Colorado about five minutes after I woke up this morning.

This has hit a lot of people hard, as it should. And a lot of nerds, because it was at the premiere for The Dark Knight Rises. If you’re at the midnight showing for a movie like that, you’re part of the nerd legion.

But I think it’s different even when it’s something that happens in your home. I’ve been to that theater before. Not often, because it’s pretty far from my house, but I’ve seen a movie there, meeting up with friends. I know people that live near that part of Denver. It’s my backyard.

A little over thirteen years ago, I sat in my best friend’s living room and we held on to each other like we were going to drown as the news from the Columbine massacre came rolling in. We’d both graduated from high school a little less than a year before it. I’d been to Columbine before for school stuff. I’d casually met some of the students at marching band events.

This feels the same. You feel helpless, because people are hurting and there is absolutely nothing you can do. You wonder how anyone could have so much hatred and despair in their heart that they could even conceive of doing something like this, let alone actually set out to make it happen.

It’s senseless. It’s a thing that literally makes no sense, a thing you can’t understand because you aren’t someone who could ever descend to that level. You watch a screen and cry for strangers and feel relieved and just a little guilty that it was no one you personally know and like. Because you also know of course that everyone there was someone to a lot of people, and they are crying for real instead of in the throes of empathetic pain.

And you’re reminded that this could have been you, or your friends, or your parents. It still could be, at any time, because these things happen and far more often than they ever should. There is a sickness that crops up with terrifying and depressing regularity, bursting out and claiming a group of victims in an instant and then disappearing while it incubates again. This needs to stop, be cured, but the how is a question that never seems to get answered, lost in a tide of political posturing.

I hope the injured recover. I hope the families who lost people today will find solace for their pain. And I hope that this won’t act as some sort of sick signal for others to go out and try to hurt and kill people, as happens sometimes. There’s already too much of this in the world, every day.

Stay safe, everyone. All my love to you.