By Tom Kirvan
History may have been hogwash to auto pioneer Henry Ford, but we would do well to learn a few lessons that would help us recognize that history does indeed repeat itself, especially in matters that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Critics of the subject – and there are too many to count – believe that history amounts to little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind, which undoubtedly explains why there is an endless supply of material to whet our reading appetite.
When historians survey the first 23 years of the new Millennium, they likely won’t be very kind to the key political figures in world society, particularly those who failed to “connect the dots” and were oblivious to the “gathering storm” that threatens civilization on a host of fronts.
Take the hot-button issue of gun control, for example. Just the mere mention of it automatically sends proponents and opponents into their separate corners where any attempt at compromise proves futile.
Instead, we are content to sit back in a political straightjacket awaiting word of the next mass shooting, powerless to take any meaningful steps to prevent the horror perpetrated by lone gunman after lone gunman, including the likes of Ethan Crumbley, the Oxford teen whose 2021 rampage at Oxford High School claimed the lives of four students and injured eight others.
The senseless killings stirred unpleasant memories of when such sickness began in April 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. There, in the suburb of Denver, was the scene of a shooting spree carried out by two teens who originally planned to bomb the school facility.
When two would-be bombs failed to detonate, the teens began gunning down students outside the school before continuing their slaughter inside, eventually killing 12 students, a teacher, and then themselves.
At the time, it was the worst school shooting in the nation’s history, a dubious distinction that years later would be surpassed by mass killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn. and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
The tragedies, of course, reignited the national debate on gun control and school safety. It also has prompted many political leaders to trot out the shop-worn phrase of “my thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families” as we consider the ramifications of yet another deadly example of gun violence.
One thing remains certain, however: nothing will change in terms of limiting the easy availability of weaponry. Those who believe in the “right to bear arms” will be emboldened even more in the wake of the latest shooting, somehow believing that the only way to counter such killings is to be armed to an even greater degree.
Once more, we as a society have failed to “connect the dots,” to see that one tragedy invariably begets another ... and another.
When the next mass shooting invariably occurs, the unwillingness to address the underlying issues of gun control and mental illness will leave us to wonder how we missed all the warning signs of yet another avoidable tragedy.
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