Last Thursday night, I sat in Prytania Theater in New Orleans watching a movie I had waited with increasing anticipation for four years to see. Only when I arrived home did I learn that, hundreds of miles away in Aurora, Colo., 12 men, women and children were killed and 58 others were injured for sharing that same anticipation.
We all know what happened by now.
A killer – who will go unnamed by this columnist – entered into the Century Aurora 16 movie theater from an emergency exit and opened fire on the unsuspecting crowd, who was gathered that night to attend the midnight premiere of Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises.” I cannot pretend to understand what the victims and their families have gone through, and my condolences go out to all those involved.
But I do understand what it was like to watch from afar.
It was an uneasily surreal moment, coming home and seeing the news. It was another reminder of mortality, another reminder of how the fickle variables that weave life together through chance and circumstance sometimes culminate in a tragic event.
I’m sure the same thoughts were ringing in many peoples’ minds that night: “A change in geography, and that could have been me” or “That could have been my daughter” and so forth.
And I’m sure that this mentality is what is causing the nation to now collectively ask “What can we do about this?”
Such a tragedy can and did cast a shadow over the hearts of millions. Such a tragedy requires deep and real introspection. But is that what we’re getting?
In the wake of the shooting, gun control has been the main issue hogging the spotlight in the media as the killer was dressed in body armor from head-to-toe and armed with three legally obtained weapons: a Smith & Wesson M&P .223 semi-automatic rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun and a Glock .40 caliber handgun.
Gun control advocates have bombarded the media, claiming that reducing the access to guns would prevent more atrocities from being committed, while many gun rights activists, thinking themselves heroes, claim they would have been able to stop the killer had they been there.
I’ve also come across arguments to install metal detectors at movie theaters, despite the fact that the killer entered from an emergency exit.
Both issues seem similar to me in that they are emotional reactions to this terrible travesty.
We want something to be done. We want to feel safe, and harsher control on guns makes many feel as if we are really combatting the problem, just as harsher control on drugs makes people feel there is something being done in that regard as well.
Yet, for the life of me, I can’t honestly conclude that with harsher gun control, this killer would not have still been able to carry out his act. Even with a ban on assault rifles, do we really believe that similar damage wouldn’t have been caused with three handguns? What about with a bomb similar to the ones placed in his apartment?
Many might take that as an argument for banning them outright, but, like the argument for metal detectors, the logical conclusion of this, to me, is a police state where only the government has guns and must always watch the citizenry – for their own protection of course.
I understand many gun control advocates’ aversion to guns. I don’t like guns, myself. I respect their engineering, but I find them to be cowardly weapons that depersonalize killing to too large an extent. Yet, I still do not believe in most control initiatives greater than a background check and required training.
The United States does have a bad record when it comes to gun violence, I admit. But how much of that is related to socioeconomics? How much is even related to mental illness? And how many of those crimes are similar to what happened in Aurora, the actions of a mad man with a plan and determination?
A major theme in Nolan’s Batman universe is dealing with fear.
Let’s not roll back more liberties out of fear. Let’s attack gun violence at the socioeconomic level or at the mental health level.
But let’s also accept that, in order to live in a free society, we must live with some risks.
David Scheuermann is a 21-year-old political science senior from Houston. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_dscheu.
 
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