Of All the Things We Normalize, This Is the Worst One

Saturday was the 12th anniversary of the unfortunate exercise of Second Amendment freedoms at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which was going to be enough for the country to do something serious about its insane attraction to its firearms. On Monday, at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, we had yet another example of how well we’re doing at avoiding these unfortunate exercises of Second Amendment rights. Another police chief, another press conference outside of another school. From the Wisconsin State Journal:

Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes is expected to address the media shortly. First responders meanwhile were trying to redirect parents and other family members from the school to the reunification point at the Dean clinic four blocks to the west, at East Buckeye and Stoughton roads. Some parents, unable to get through on Buckeye, have attempted to reach the school via side streets and have been referred to the clinic.

“Today is a sad, sad day, not only for Madison, but for our entire country,” Barnes said. “Another police chief is doing a press conference to speak about violence in our community, specifically in one of the places that’s most sacred to me as someone who loves education and to someone who has children that are in school. I’m feeling a little dismayed now, so close to Christmas, every child, every person in that building, is a victim and will be a victim forever. These types of trauma don’t just go away, and we need to figure out, try to piece together, what exactly happened right now, my heart is heavy for my community. My heart is heavy for Madison.”

Another town, another neighborhood, another group of people expressing their horrified surprise.

Kyla, a high school teacher at another school, who lives in the area and has close “very close family friends” who attend the school stood on the sidewalk outside the school wrapped in a blanket, her eyes red from crying. “Kids that I’ve known since they were born,” said Kyla, who asked to be identified only by her first name. “They were just at my house, right over the road, over the weekend, building gingerbread houses like we do every year. They mean the world to me. They’re my family. Their mom works at the school. I know it’s cliche now at this point to say, but you never think that this is going to happen right in your backyard, right in front of you,” she said.

For all our talk about “normalization” these days, this is the most awful normalization of all—ritualized slaughter, with predictable roles for all concerned. Chief Barnes explained that his officers trained for these situations now “almost quarterly.” He was asked when the most recent training took place.

Two weeks ago, he said.