So, when I see another one has happened, or even when I see stories on the news about individual murders or gun-related crimes or accidents, it does bother me. I don't know the people involved, so it's not normally gut-wrenching or anything, though sometimes when parents of murdered children are interviewed. that does get to me. But I know at least enough to realize that the feeling we often carry around that it could never happen to either us or others we care about is quite a false comfort. But what bugs me about it most is that it doesn't seem to bug us anymore. I understand why people are numb to it--there are probably lots of different reasons people become desensitized that are perfectly understandable, from the commonality of all of it to the predictable media dramatization to the even-more predictable back-and-forth of the gun debate to the need just to block it out so that one can do what one has to do anyway to get through the day. But still, our conditioned lack of concern for other people who have suffered terrible misfortune doesn't seem good to me. When we care about one another as fellow human beings or fellow citizens so little, then what's the point of talking about human rights or patriotism anyway?
This is spot on.
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