Is there any value in generally calling them insane, or mentally ill? Certainly we know that the vast majority of mentally ill people are utterly harmless, and do not deserve our fear and suspicion.
I think the problem stems from most people’s need to “make sense” of horrific tragedies like this. They can’t imagine a circumstance under which they themselves would do such a thing, and thus find it incomprehensible that someone else would have anything like a coherent reason to do it, and so they conclude “he must be insane.”
But I think we too often suffer from a poverty of imagination. A fella named Tom Ferebee pulled a small switch that dropped a revolutionary piece of ordnance that directly murdered around 66,000 people (over two-thirds of them civilians) and injured 69,000 more. A Major in the Army Air Forces at the time, he rose to the rank of Colonel, retired, became a real estate agent, and died at home at the age of 81. He was awarded the Silver Star.
He may not have been fully aware of the actual potential magnitude of that switch-flip, but he surely knew that a whole lot of unsuspecting people were about to die as a result. What the hell, we were at war, it was a job that needed to be done, and he was convinced that he was the man to do it. Who knows what nightmares (if any) the next 55 years held for him? It’s certain that if he refused to do the job, there would have been a long line of patriotic young men ready and eager to perform this duty for flag and nation and apple pie and mom. In the end, many believe that ending WWII with the atomic bomb saved more lives than it cost. We’ll never know for sure.
But war is, apparently, a Special Circumstance. Hell as it is, it’s made up of state-sponsored murder, with kids in their teens trained and equipped and paid to take lives, and awarded medals if they do it well and efficiently. We’re used to the idea that our boys (and girls these days) are trained to place a specific value on an enemy life, and when that value is in doubt, to end it before that enemy ends them. A mass murderer makes this same calculus more or less alone, without the dubious benefit of the President and the Departments of State and Defense telling them which way to point the weapon.
When someone signs up for military service, one kind of cedes decision-making control to the brass. One does what one is told, or faces stiff consequences. If one has no desire to ever be compelled to kill, one avoids military service at all costs… 'cause one never knows when Uncle Sam is gonna need one, and in what capacity.
And yet, even in civilian life, sometimes the feeling that one is surrounded by enemies, that one needs to do something about them… I strongly believe that it could happen to just about anyone. Some of us are strong enough to resist the call of violence. Some of us are comfortable enough to never feel it. Some of us are unfortunate enough to feel it… and unable to resist it. Sometimes that’s a result of mental illness.
But more often it’s a result of unfortunate circumstances, a perfect storm of motive and opportunity and irresistible pressures unknown to bystanders… People can and do make what appear to be perfectly evil decisions that are based upon unassailable logic and widely understandable motives. Is that illness? Is that insanity?
No. Life has no measurable value except that which we ourselves place upon it. When the Cypress Street Viaduct collapsed onto the Nimitz Freeway during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing 42 people, did Nature shed a bitter tear? Did the concrete pause in regret? Did the sun slow in its arc to note the occasion? Did the swallows in San Juan Capistrano stop singing? Probably not. We people noticed, and mourned, because we did not want to be the victims of such a tragedy, nor do we like to see others suffering when their loved ones perish in such an event.
But we are not outside observers who have no effect on the experiment. We’re in the petri dish. We’re part of the system. A falling tree is a force of nature, as is an offended bear, a hurricane, or a “madman” with a gun. We can try to avoid these things, or minimize their effects. We can build stronger structures outside of floodplains, we can try to avoid getting between a bear and her cubs… but you can’t prevent the wind and rain, nor should you exterminate all bears. You can make every effort to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to get their hands on a gun, particularly guns which make it ludicrously easy to kill a whole lotta people in very little time. And while that’s working its way through the political system (or not), you can try to avoid treating the people who feel the need to use those weapons like incomprehensible “raving lunatics.” You usually won’t identify them in time to prevent all attacks. You’d have a much better chance of saving lives and helping the aggrieved if society’s path of least resistance was something other than cheap weaponry at Wal*mart.
Because yeah, we’ve gotten to the point where it’s easier to get a big gun and buckets of ammo and a high-up corner suite with a view than it is to find any other, more constructive solution to one’s problems.
