Unending Horror and Despair

 
Three weapons at the scene; one left in Adam Lanza's mother's vehicle, the .223-calibere rife; the Glock and Sig Sauer in his possession as he sought out his prey.  Why would a solitary, a young man who preferred his own company to that of his peers removing himself from social contact voluntarily, a young man whom those who knew him at high school appeared to them to be happy enough, and with intelligence to spare, commit to such an appallingly horrible act of butchery?

Why would he, how could he?  Sociologists speak of desensitization, of the penchant for young people, particularly males, to hive themselves away fascinated with violent video games.  One can only suppose that constant exposure much as that which Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik exposed himself to to deliberately tutor and harden himself to human suffering and empathy does work to insulate and to lead to indifference.

The familiarity and ease with firearms came naturally enough, since it was Adam Lanza's mother who owned those firearms, and more at home.  It was her fascination with weapons, her securing of them, and her enthusiasm to expose her two sons to the firing of them, taking them to practise ranges, and teaching them proper use that made them the weapons of opportunity and choice.  For improper use.

It defies human understanding to blindly plumb the depths of a mind to try to understand why it might serve anyone's interest to kill another human being.  In a passionate rage, in so many instances; anger, mood disorders, mental derangement, criminal psychopathy - revenge and even the defence born of fear of personal harm.  A classroom of children, young children beginning to experience a wider social life?

Their teacher, desperately attempting to shield those very tender young lives from harm, her also.  And the others, those whose own desperation to keep harm from touching the lives of children in their care, they as well.  Matricide, although difficult to fathom, is not quite as rare as we would hope to believe it is, and it is far more explicable than the horrible thought of killing twenty young children.

The human mind is a strange instrument of nature's design, gifting humanity with the ability to think, to imagine, to invent, to care and to function.  All of these critical elements were clearly missing from the mind of a twenty-year-old man who had become a dysfunctional member of society.  The signals may be there, but not as readily identifiable to present as infallible warning of a soul gone amok.

The mind cannot absorb the horror, it recoils from the very thought that in a matter of a few desperate moments so many lives can be lost to mindless violence.  And now Newtown, Connecticut has assumed a pitiable infamy that no place on Earth would wish for itself.  A joyous holiday season so much anticipated by the young and those who love them has turned into a tragic memory.

As the world looks on from afar and messages of condolence arrive in an attempt to give solace, there is none to be had.  For nothing can replace what has been lost.  The nation that so much values its freedoms and liberties now mourns its dreadful loss of innocent young lives.  The introspection that will follow may transform some elements of that society's values, and yet perhaps not.

The children at the school, those who survived, have had their lives irretrievably altered through a trauma they may never quite fully recover from.  The parents whose children did not survive will never recover from a trauma they might never have envisioned in their wildest, most horrifying nightmares.