The story of the year is not supposed to happen on the first day of the year. This year, maybe it has. While devastatingly cruel, if the early morning New Year’s Day murder and injury of several people is this year’s top story, it could bode well that nothing evilly comparable will happen during the rest of the year.
Before the celebratory hangovers could be cured, the confetti cleaned up and the sun would rise, the worst of humanity snatched from us the happy and all the optimism a new year is expected to bring. Learning of the double-digit fatalities and multiple severe injuries at the hand of an indisputable crazed individual was sobering.
It was shocking but should not be surprising. At least 15 people were killed and dozens more were injured after a fellow American decided to use a not yet normalized means of destruction to plow through a crowd in a motor vehicle. Mass murder in America tends to be conducted using a gun, not pickup trucks. One thing is certain. There won’t be a silly call for a ban of personal pickup trucks.
As we wait for the investigation to tell us what we don’t know, we have to accept what we know and can control and go about living normally without fear. We know this latest attack on our security happened in New Orleans on a major national holiday combined with pending sporting event of national interests.
It was the perfect place and time to do the most damage. And with heightened security in place to thwart any use of a weapon, with eyes and surveillance looking for rooftop bad guys with a banned weapon, a motor vehicle was a logical choice.
This could have happened in several places in this country. It is troubling to hear non-involved experts point the finger at the security measures that were in place. No amount of protection is available against the intent of a free citizen hell bent on destroying others. The sad truth is that nothing could have prevented this from happening.
The biggest threat to an American is an American. In particular, a citizen who has stayed within the lines of social and legal expectations who decides to deviate from the norm is undetectable. And with any measurable intellectual capacity, their intent unpreventable.
Fortunately, this deviant is dead. Hopefully there are no surviving accomplices or copycats. This one cannot do any further damage. We can find some solace knowing he won’t be provided free legal defense. He won’t be allowed to walk the same streets wearing an ankle monitor amongst good citizens while awaiting trial. Justice was swift. Which is the best we can hope for in cases like this.
We are a society rights and privileges. We get up and function without having to think. We work and we play. We have traditions. That cannot be taken from us by one or a few extremely disturbed individuals. We have more college and football games to be enjoyed. New Orleans will host the next Super Bowl. We have a whole new year of holidays and historical convention to partake. Many that require us to congregate in large numbers, outdoors in confined areas that may make us easy prey to crazed people.
We can live with the knowledge that some danger is inevitable. Even with the best minds and abilities and science, some things are not preventable. But we can’t live in fear.
Hopefully what happened New Year’s Day is the top worst story of the year. With 360 more days to go and nearly 360 million people, the odds are not in our favor.
The senseless loss of innocent lives is beyond sad. But, to allow the despicable actions of one or a few to cause us to walk around in fear for the rest of the year would be even sadder.
https://daily-journal.com/opinion/jackson-we-cant-live-in-fear/article_c6b13e64-c920-11ef-9ed5-9f40fe977363.html