Grado de dificultad: 3 por el idioma

This will be one of these posts one feels compelled to write but doesn’t know how it will turn out.

I was finishing the edition of another post, so I decided I would take a break, watching a program on my Netflix list. This is how I saw a preview of a short film, “Lessons from a school shooting: Notes from Dunblane”.

I decided to watch the whole piece, which is only 20 minutes long. I cried almost all along.

I watched it again this morning, to take some notes, and cried again.

The very sadly known “Sandy Hook” is the name of an Elementary School in Newtown, a small peaceful town in Connecticut. Five years ago (almost six, now) they faced a horrible and senseless event, when twenty children were killed, plus six adults, school staff members.

I am giving these details because they are not detailed in this video, more focused on the emotions and feelings of the people.

They received a heartful support of another community, far away, in Dunblane, Scotland, where a very similar atrocious event took place 16 years before. The film is focusing on the priests of both communities.

It is very difficult to bare. I was impacted by the sadness of all the people that appear in this program, a sadness that seems to be there to stay.

“Time is a great healer”, says father Basil O’Sullivan, the Scottish priest about the already ancient event that stroked his community. Looking at him, it is clear that the hurting healed, but not the sadness.

On the American side, the hurting is still very present. They hardly can speak of it. That is why the lessons come essentially from the Scottish experience.

Father Basil also says:

“I noticed one big difference that there were no survivors in Newtown. Our fellow didn’t have assault guns, he had hand guns.

If he had an assault gun, it would have been much worse.

Guns in themselves, as far as I’m concerned, should be only for the police and soldiers. That’s not the common view in the United States.

But of course it’s not for me to make a comment about a great country like the United States”.

The critic is subtle, with more sadness than anger.

Then I remembered when I worked in a private corporation laboratory. I worked on communications systems and some of my realizations where for military use.

I also remember that this was bothering me, even though “communications” are universal and not really killing people.

This is to always recall where all scientists come from. Militaries and weapons are where the technology started. None of us should ever forget that.

I’m from European culture, a place where wars and weapon reigned for millennia. Maybe because of that, Europeans have a very different attitude toward them. We are very well aware of what a weapon is for, and it’s a bit easier for us (not that much, but still) to decide to keep them away, as far as possible.

We can see that the Americans have not yet reached that point. At the end of the movies, they calculate that 1600 mass shootings occurred in US since… I didn’t clearly understand which date: that of Dunblane or Newtown event?

Actually it doesn’t matter, it´s still 1600 too much. However, it seems that times are changing. The change could start in November or it could take longer, but they will fade away. Then we will all have work to do.

“Who will fade away”? They know.