Rampage as Ritual

Candles in front of the school, yellow police barrier tape and a helpless president: The United States always reacts to each successive massacre with the same old gestures. And the same old extraneous issues are argued over and over.

As cruel as it may sound amid all the soberness, the facts of the incident are quickly told — maybe they’re even immaterial: A young man of 26 killed 10 people on the campus of Umpqua Community College in the small town of Roseburg, Oregon. According to police, he was in possession of two handguns and an assault rifle. Prior to shooting his victims, he asked them if they were Christians. If they responded in the affirmative, he reportedly told them, “Good, because you’re a Christian, you are going to see God in just about one second.” And then he shot and killed them.

Apparently, rampage shooters have the feeling that their victims have something more to give them before they commit their narcissistic act. Before the pale Dylan Roof massacred a group of black church parishioners in South Carolina, he reportedly told them, “You rape our women and are taking over our country.”

Shooting rampages have become somewhat ritualized in the United States with their own repetitive dramaturgy, type-cast actors, cliché scripts and stock photos: The tea candles in front of the school entrance, the flags at half mast, yellow police barricade tape around the TV stations’ mobile broadcast vans.

For the shooters — incidentally, all male — there is a drawer full of attributes drawn up by psychological counselors: confused, shy and Internet-addicted. There are the ubiquitous grief counselors who swarm through the small towns, yesterday in Roseburg, before that in Newtown or Blacksburg, there to care for the families who despite their speechlessness are nevertheless dragged before the cameras to be interviewed by powdered and mascaraed TV journalists.

Journalists begin their massacre reports cautiously at first. As soon as the first attention span seems to be lagging, however, they redouble their efforts, mining social media for likes and tweets, speculating about motives and constantly arguing over whether they should identify the alleged shooters by name or not.

That might glorify them, so one argument goes. Another posits the irrational argument that it would humanize them. So what else could they be? This Friday, Sheriff John Hanlin refused to identify the shooter by name, and encouraged others to follow his example. As if that would make any difference. And the shooter’s motive — does it really matter?

Obama Gets Grayer and Grayer

The image of this sheriff tells the entire story of this lunacy. In 2013, he is said to have written to the White House criticizing Obama for wanting to strengthen gun regulations. Hanlin sides with the majority of Americans who are convinced that security can only be achieved with more and more guns. The National Rifle Association website is teeming with studies maintaining that statistics showing a decline in violent crime over recent years are solely due to the fact that more and more Americans are carrying guns.

Obama — also a part of this ritual — goes in front of the microphones following every massacre, gives the same resigned speech, and gets a little grayer each time. He prays for those affected and points out that he wants to change the gun laws, but that Congress prevents him from doing so.

What he wants to say is nothing more than this: It would be child’s play for a civilized nation like America to prevent school massacres. But the majority of American politicians can’t be bothered to do that, and the public doesn’t care enough to do it — or there would be far more protests. So the television broadcaster’s caravan will move on until the next time they all get together in some other godforsaken small town in this country.