I just don't get it

Yesterday, I spent most of my afternoon watching the live coverage of the tragedy in Oak Creek. I have to admit I'm lost right now.

I can't figure it out.

I posted after the shootings in Colorado, about how being a movie lover that hit close to home for me. This literally hit close to home for me. Being from the Milwaukee area, I know there is violence in this city, but I don't think anyone anywhere in America expects to being sitting at home on a Sunday and be interrupted with the news that a madman had gone and shot up a temple while people were preparing to worship.

I started watching the coverage almost as soon as I got home from 11 o'clock mass at my local church.

It's weird that while many Americans practice a wide variety of faiths, many of them hold services on Sunday. It goes back to the shootings in Aurora too, where that could have been any movie at any theater in America. This situation isn't that different. This could have very easily been any place of worship in America.

But it's hard when it's people who are part of a local community you identify with, participating in services you identify with.

Why do people keep ruining the safe places? Are there any left? How do we make these places safe again? Is that even possible?

These are the kinds of questions that run through my head when things like this happen. These are ways I try and make sense of it. Often there aren't any answers. At least not ones that are readily available.

The other thing I don't understand. The media's over emphasis of the fact that Sikhs are not Muslims. I was watching the news last night and one of the members of the temple (who admittedly had been put through a day I could never imagine going through) becoming very upset and shouting at the reporter (who was not making any claims to this idea) that the Sikhs were not Muslim.

My question: Who cares? Would we all be going "Oh, well the guy shot a bunch of Muslims, so that's ok"?

Hell no.

This is America, damnit. People are free to practice their religion, and they should be free to do so without having to fear some nut is going to come in and start shooting the place up.

From that though, I know this issue will raise more questions about gun control. I believe people have the right to buy and own guns. I really believe that owning and operating a gun can be done responsibly. I think people who say we should simply outlaw guns are looking for an easy answer to a complex problem that goes beyond whether or not Americans should own guns.

(Sorry, don't like to get too political, but sometimes things need to be said.)

One thing I will agree on though is that this was a senseless act, and as we seem to be finding this summer, those are often the worst.

On the tragedy in Colorado

If you know me, you know I like to see a lot of movies.
It doesn't matter what movie it is, if you ask me to go see it, I'll most likely say yes.
Last night I saw The Dark Knight Rises, and this morning I awoke to the horrifying news of what happened to a group of people in Colorado who went and did the same.
When I heard about the tragedy this morning, it disturbed me in a way that surprised me. I couldn't really figure out why this story was affecting me so much more than any other story that appears on the news that speaks about tragic deaths and crazed gunmen.
Then I read the statement from director Christopher Nolan regarding the tragedy. In it, he calls the movie theater his "home."
That's when it hit me, because the movie theater isn't Nolan's home, it's everyone's.
In college I took a communications class where we discussed what made fast food restaurant so popular. One of the reasons is familiarity. I can go to the Burger King down the road or one in California and find an identical menu and a familiar floor plan.
We like the familiar.
Movie theaters go a step beyond that because the differences between an AMC theater and a Marcus theater is small, and when you are in your seat, those differences all but vanish. You can go to any theater in the country and while outside they my be different, inside they all have seats, sticky floors, and a big silver screen.
It's familiar and it's safe. It's a second home. It's a place we go when we want to escape the troubles of our world to be engrossed in the troubles of another. But one we can walk away from when it's over.
That's what makes this tragedy hit so close. Our safety has been violated, and it's not easy to write off. We can't say it was just part of living in a big city, because it happened in Colorado suburb. A town like any other, in a theater like any other.
It was a man with no discernible agenda simply looking to take the lives of the unsuspecting.
He took advantage of people's goodwill, and in doing so violated one of the last safe places.
The movie theater isn't destroyed forever, but it is certainly changed. And it is a change that is impossible to ignore, and harder to reverse.