The lone gunman

And so, it happens again, this time at Virginia Tech. One man -- evil, insane, or both -- has ended the lives of at least 31 people (including his own), and wounded an unknown number of others. For both the living and the dead at that university, a world has ended.

Regular readers have seen me say time and time again that for me, the lasting effect of 9/11 was having to face the reality that nothing is certain. Nothing. You and I don't know what is going to happen to us today, or even in the next hour. If we stopped to think about all the things that could go wrong, we'd be paralyzed. You can't live like that. In order to get through the day, we unconsciously construct from experience a probability narrative to help us face the day calmly.

It usually works. Except like today, when it doesn't.

I can look out my office window and see Dealey Plaza, where President Kennedy was shot. It’s an ugly place, devoid of grandeur, which makes it even more astonishing to think about the historical magnitude of the crime that took place there. I think we have conspiracy theories as a psychological response to irrational evil. That is, we think there *must* be a rational explanation for it, because if there is, then there is a rational way to deal with it to keep it from happening again.

Similarly with this situation – as with Columbine, as with the Amish school shootings – it is deeply human to think that this must be the fault of the liberal gun laws in the US. While I personally do think the gun laws are probably too liberal, the truth is I grew up in the country, around hunters who had many guns. Guns were widely accessible to everyone, even teenagers. And yet nothing like this happened. Ever. It was unthinkable. I find it hard to relate to the abject horror many urbanites have at the very idea of guns. Guns were normal where I grew up. People took guns very, very seriously.

But then again, back then, social conventions and social bonds were stronger. Conservatives might say that the center isn't holding here, that this kind of thing is the natural fruit of a society that's coming apart, of a society where the internal and social restraints people place on themselves and others are unraveling. There is surely truth in that.

And yet, a stronger culture didn't stop Lee Harvey Oswald. That didn't stop Charles Whitman. School shootings happened back then too.

We always look for Reasons when things like this happen, and that's appropriate, if only to figure out how we might prevent it in the future. But the deepest truth of the matter is probably the most terrifying: there are no Reasons. Maybe the Virginia Tech shooter just didn't like Mondays. There is something deeper at work here in these horrible crimes, something disorder of the human spirit, of human culture, that is beyond the ability of statutory law to deal with. We can and should build up borders against anarchy like this, but in the end, there are no safe places. If an Amish schoolhouse isn't safe from irruptions of savage evil, is any place? If the history of the world can be utterly changed in a single morning by a small group of evil and determined men with rudimentary flight training...you know?

Liberty is a blessing from God, but it is also a curse. Sartre, the atheist, said that "man is condemned to be free." Today's shooting is part of that sentence. Learning to live with this evil, and to repair its tear in the fabric of our human community, is our fate. What we are not permitted to do is despair, finally; what we have to do is redeem the time.

Somehow.