There was a shooting

I was working on a band review. That may go up tomorrow. As it is, I have been thinking a lot about the Clackamas shooting, and having random thoughts on that. I wrote a lot on it last night, but I will see if I can come up with something coherent here.

I noticed an interesting thing in connection with the shooting. People in other locations wanted to know about Oregon friends and family. They were worried. Here in Oregon, it never occurred to me that anyone I know would be in danger.

Statistically it is much more likely that I would know someone who is affected. I am only twenty-five miles away, and I have been there before, though not often. Even stranger, a while back when I heard someone had been shot at the Thriftway where I have shopped many times, and that is just over a mile away, it still never occurred to me that it would be anyone I knew. I used to run into people I knew all of the time there. As it is, I knew someone who knew the family, and I only knew that because of Facebook.

I think there are a few things going on here. One possible thing is that to have people you care about be far away is scarier, because you can’t really intervene if something does come up. In reality, you can be nearby and not be able to help, but maybe having people near feels safer.

The other thing, and maybe it correlates, is that it is easier to think about the unlikely fears than the likely fears. I am more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash, but I never think about the car crashing when I get into one, and I do think about plane crashes pretty much every time I board. It’s not an overpowering fear, but I think about it.

Maybe that’s okay, because I don’t fly that often. I get in cars pretty frequently. At the same time, I always wear my seatbelt, and mentally I know that the reason I do that is because of car crashes, but I’m not thinking about that. It’s just a habit, that could potentially protect me someday. The funny thing looking at that is that I am very against doing things mindlessly, and I always want to study things and understand the reasoning behind them and yes, overanalyze them. But it can be so paralyzing to be too aware.

We do need to think about things. The sheriff was talking today about some of the things that helped reduce the death toll. One is that the mall had lockdown procedures in place that worked well. Another is that the police have realized that in a situation like this they cannot wait for SWAT, so they have procedures in place, and they responded very quickly, cutting off free movement for the shooter. Also, other cities helped, and people were good to each other in terms of making good decisions on their own about getting to safety, but also helping others who may have been impaired. I’m glad to hear that.

So this advance planning is important, where you think about things that could happen, and what would mitigate, and you get prepared. I am all about that. Then you need to let it migrate to the back of your mind and live without fear. I’m probably not saying that right, but I’m not even sure if that can be fully explained. Some parts of living you only get with practice.

There’s something that’s making me irritable too, though, so I think tomorrow I’m going to have to write about talking about guns.