A Rubix cube was the first example of this I can recall. It was Christmas morning back in the early 1980s, we were up in these beautiful cabin-style homes my extended family had built for themselves up in the woods of Pollock Pines. Someone handed me a Rubix cube. I was probably five years old.
I didn't know what to do with it. The person went on to explain:
"You want to get each side to have only one color."
"OK..." [I tentatively tap on one of the sides] "So all green?"
"You got it."
"OK..." [I timidly give one section of the cube a half-spin.]
"And you want to be quick about it! You want to go as fast as you can."
So, three or four minutes later, I produced a completed Rubix cube to the regiment of adults in the kitchen. At first there were some amazed faces staring down at me. One of them reached out a hand to take the cube from me in awe (don't recall which one). Finally one of them asked something to the effect of:
"Do you remember how you did it?"
Of course I remembered - and I told them.
"I just peeled all the stickers off and rearranged them."
Whichever one had taken the cube from me now began to inspect it closer. He or she began to see evidence corroborating my story and began to show the others. Finally one of these half-drunken party poopers called me out on it:
"That's cheating! You cheater!!"
Hm. I love my family very much. Each and every one of them. And the older I get, the more I love them. But - and in no way does thirty years having elapsed between that moment and today diminish any of what I am about to say, as I mean this every bit as much today as I meant it back then - FUCK YOU, aunt or uncle (whoever you were). Fuck you for giving me a task and a set of conditions and then getting pissy with me when I completed the task according to your conditions. Call me a cheater. I'll cut your fuckin head off. Next time explain shit a little clearer.
Anyways. See what I mean? You take all the available data and instruction (if applicable), you arrive at a conclusion....and it's like you're the last person on earth. Suddenly everyone around you is a complete stranger.
The massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School has me experiencing much of the same feelings of alientation and isolation. Seems I can't even turn on a radio without reinforcing the fact that many, many people are coming up with conclusions regarding the shooting which are dramatically different from my own.
So, with that, I am going to offer you all something I rarely do: a glimpse inside how my brain works. We are going to examine the different components to the Sandy Hook shooting just as my brain examines them and we'll see what conclusion(s) we/I arrive at.
Ninja's Note: if you are at all emotional about the shooting, please consider holding off on continuing any further until you're feeling better. Sensitivity is not my prime directive at this point; an objective analysis of fact is. I may say something that may seem insensitive and upset some folks, this is entirely not my intention. You've been warned.
1. Sandy Hook Elementary School
Alright, what do we have here: I see basketball courts, an adjacent lot with four-square lines painted. I see a baseball diamond. An access road (Dickenson Drive) with a baseball diamond on one side and a large grassy area. A parking lot which may be designed for one-way traffic. A series of classrooms bunched together in the center.
Now, according to information taken from virtually all witness accounts, on the day of the shooting, did anything go fundamentally wrong on the level we are currently examining that day? No. The school - everything we're looking at here - did exactly what it was supposed to do: it allowed parents to come & drop off their kids. It contained the children in the various areas (classrooms, recess areas, etc). It provided what it was supposed to provide.
Now some sick asshole shows up and starts shooting the place up. What happened to the school at that point? Walls received bulletholes. Glass broke. Frightening to imagine, sure, but - I ask again - did anything go fundamentally wrong with the school up to and including this point? No. Not at all. You shoot a classroom wall, and it reacts like any other wall out there: it receives a bullethole. This is exactly what it's supposed to do.
The school did exactly what it was supposed to do.
2. The Children of Sandy Hook Elementary
A sick asshole shows up and opens fire. Not part of the lesson plan and kinda scary. What happens then?
The kids screamed and had to be calmed down. This is exactly what's supposed to happen in this situation. Now, here comes the part where you may find yourself upset, and I encourage you to go no farther if you feel this might be the case.
In the interests of continuing this discussion to completion, we're going to have to talk about something unpleasant and upsetting now. We're going to talk about shooting kids, but only from a standpoint of establishing a link in the chain of reasoning. I have to cover this.
If you - for whatever reason - take it upon yourself to point a gun at a child and squeeze the trigger, the following are a list of potential outcomes:
A. the gun misfires.
B. you miss.
C. you hit and wound the child superficially.
D. you hit and mortally wound the child (arterial damage, gutshot, etc.).
E. you hit and instant-kill the child (head shot, etc.).
Now, from this perspective: did the children of Sandy Hook Elementary do anything wrong that day? No, absolutely not. They went to school like good kids, they participated like good kids. And when they were shot at? Some ran, some screamed. Some cried. Some escaped. Exactly what kids are supposed to do in that kind of situation. The ones that were shot? Unfortunately...most (if not all) died. But again - and I'm sorry to keep saying this, because it sounds pretty cold even for me: but that's what happens when you shoot a kid. They become wounded. They die.
The children of Sandy Hook did exactly what they were supposed to do that day.
3. The Teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary
These women did exactly what they were supposed to do that day. They went to work. They worked with our children. When someone showed up and brought Hell to their doorstep, they tried to save our children as best they could. And, sadly, when someone decided to kill them - they died.
Horrifying. But the teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary School did exactly what they were supposed to do that day.
4. The Guns
So...did the guns do what they were supposed to do that day?
(I expect that some of you may begin to have trouble following me here, so I'll try and establish my perspective before continuing: I am examining a) what are we currently discussing [guns], b) how is the item established in "A" supposed to perform on it's most fundamental level [shoot bullets], and c) did the item established in "A" perform as it was supposed to ["B"] on the day in question.)
They absolutely did. When you pull the trigger of a loaded gun, a bullet is supposed to come out. Triggers were pulled, bullets flew. In those instances where the gun was pointed at a kill zone? The target died.
The guns did exactly what they were supposed to do that day.
5. This Fuckin Lunatic Asshole Right Here
Let me back up a bit.
We've eliminated the school grounds as being even remotely responsible for what went wrong. We've eliminated the heroic children and teachers. We've examined the guns and their role in the horrific day and quickly and easily concluded that the guns carried out their assigned (albeit horrifying) task exactly as they were supposed to do.
So - let's look at the decisions made and carried out that day by one Adam Lanza, complete piece of shit and Hell's newest celebrity occupant.
I'm trying to come up with a set of circumstances wherein it would be "OK" on some level to shoot up a school. Hmm, let's see...wife is taken hostage. I'm told that if I don't shoot up a school they're going to kill her. Hmm.
Yeah, you know what?? Even in this situation I'm still a complete piece of human fuckin shit if I walk into a school full of kids and start shooting. My reasons (to save my wife) might be moral and just to me, but I would have to expect that - when all is said and done - I, Droid Hayabusa, would be eternally memorialized as a complete piece of shit who shot kids.
So - OK, although we'll never know with complete certainty WHY this idiot did what he did - I think we've pretty well neutralized that point. Does it matter? FUCK NO it doesn't matter, because as we've just established, there's NEVER any reason whatsoever to shoot up a school.
So now I'll ask: did Adam Lanza do what he was supposed to do on the day in question?
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Without getting on a political soapbox (or trying to avoid it as much as possible at least) I'd like to conclude this post by admitting how utterly flabbergasted I am that we're even eyeing gun control as a proposed nationwide corrective action for what went down.
We've existed as a nation of gun-toting folks for over two hundred years now. Suddenly over the last fifteen years we've had a rash of school shootings: kids, parents, whatever getting pissed enough to spray schools down with lead.
Why do you think politicians are so quick to sieze on to gun control as the only solution (even though as we've just established...guns did what they were supposed to that day!!)?? The answer I see is a simple one: because it's EASY. It's EASY to draft a little piece of legislation and shave off just a little more of our liberty and then get in front of the cameras and act like you've won the battle.
...until the next time a school is shot up with a black market gun. Then you're gonna look like an ass, huh? Or how about this: someone goes apeshit with a sword in a preschool. Or someone fills up a van with oil drums full of gasoline & drives it thru the Homecoming Dance at your kid's high school.
I would think a much more effective solution to the actual fundamental problem (which is this, in case it's in any way unclear: THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM IS PEOPLE GETTING PISSED AND/OR FUCKIN CRAZY ENOUGH TO WANT TO HURT STRANGERS. THAT is your problem here) would be to find out why, in spite of the fact that guns have been around since the country was founded over two hundred years ago, we're suddenly just NOW getting pissed enough to turn them on one another.
That's your problem.
Don't let them cloud your vision.
We love you Connecticut. You're in our hearts.
- D.H.
