It's happened again. Recently a man with mental illness took a loaded gun into a movie theater in Louisianna and killed and wounded innocent movie goers and then killed himself. Apparently he'd been planning this for sometime.
Last week we went to our local theater to see "The Minions" with two of our grandsons. Should I now give this kind of family outing a second look? Do I really have to?
The alternatives as I see them: stay home, wait until you can rent or stream the movie, ask all the movie theaters to install walk-through xray scanners like at the airport, take down the no guns allowed signs and put up "Please Bring Your Own Gun to the Theater Just In Case" signs.
Yipes.
One of the things that troubles me most about this latest incident is that the man, in spite of his battles with mental illness, was apparently able to legally purchase a gun. So how do I view that? Certainly if an individual has successfully overcome emotional or mental problems he/she should not be treated any differently than others in society. But is the nature of mental illness such that it can "come back" without notice, or that family members might miss signs of re-occurence? What a conundrum.
And the idea that the "regular" citizen, trained and licensed to use a hand gun, should arm themselves to go to the movie scares the you-know-what out of me. Yes…..they may be trained, but you can't convince me that in the heat of that scary-in-the-dark-crowded-movie-theater moment he/she wouldn't take out or injure innocent bystanders and make a horrible situation even worse.
I don't have an answer….and yes, I know a lot of my friends and acquaintences will fall back on the Second Amendment argument.
I guess I'll continue to go to the movies…..but I have a feeling I am going to always look around and be sure I find the nearest exit. Pass the popcorn and let's hope statistcis for home-grown violence in America start to drop…..or maybe we'll move to Canada.
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