The shooting galleria

Earlier this month--it is hard to believe it's only been a couple of weeks now; it feels like years already--I managed to escape my so-called life and travel to Kansas for a family visit. Given my Dad's death only six weeks prior to my visit, I really felt as though I had to get home soon--for my sake as well as my family's.

It was instantly clear upon arrival that I'd made a wise decision. Despite the freeway pile-up of work I had left behind and the train wreck of meetings I was blowing off, flying out to a warm and sunflowery (in spirit if not yet in landscape) Kansas was a well-chosen journey for my psyche, my soul, and my body.

Upon landing, my Mom and sister and I hit the Zona Rosa shopping center near Kansas City International Airport. We had an early dinner at Montana Grill, one of the Ted Turner-owned chain of steakhouses (that's bison steakhouses, by the way). Then we took a long walk around the very trendy, rather fabulously designed, Southwestern-flavored outdoor center, watching the crowds, window-shopping, and soaking up late afternoon sun.

There were kids, there were teens, there were families, there were bikers, there were singles on the make, and there was us, and it felt good, after a forever-delayed spring in Pennsylvania and a very sad, grievous winter watching my Dad slip away from us, to be able to enjoy ourselves, almost sans souçi, in the warm sunshine. Because of my Dad's ongoing health problems over the last few years, for quite some time it had not been possible to do something as a family this spontaneous, public, and physically demanding. I'm only sorry my Dad wasn't there to enjoy it, because when he was well, this is the sort of the thing he would have enjoyed.

The next day, we were all at home in Lawrence, having a lazy afternoon of TV, chatter, playing with my sister's good-natured but entitled princess of a dog, reading the weekend Kansas City Star and the Lawrence Journal-World, and reminiscing from time to time about my Dad. We have our sadness, but we also have lots of satisfying memories and funny stories to recall. And let it never be said that the Licious clan can't find time to chuckle and giggle in the face of adversity.

When we had been together in March at the time of my Dad's death, we still found moments of humor. As my sister wrote his obituary for the local paper, and attempted to make it more personal, relating his hobbies and interests, she wondered aloud, "Would it be too much to put in here how much he hated the Kennedys?" We abstained, but, really, in Kansas (and most of the country, for that matter), it would have only made my Dad even better liked.

As friends and neighbors of my parents and sister heard the news, they began bringing over plates and piles of food, glorious food--comforting ham and scalloped potato casseroles, fresh fruit, luncheon meat and bread with condiments, pies, salads, and more. After several nights of this, along with a sidetrip to Bigg's Ribs for further sustenance, we suddenly were faced with having to reheat what was left of the Chinese chicken salad casserole or make dinner on our own. I couldn't help but ask my sister, "So . . . is there anyone else you know who can cook . . . and would they take requests?"

Black-humored blasphemy you say? Well, you didn't know my Dad, and you don't know my family. That's just us. And my Dad would have no doubt been in the middle of it, enjoying the laughter, helping us heal the pain with our family's off-brand humor.

If only.

* * *

In the midst of this drowsy, dragonfly idle, suddenly, CNN interrupted their usual Sunday numbing novena of headlines to announce that there had been some sort of shooting at a Kansas City shopping center with a promise of further details as they learned them.

The afternoon wore on and the news was sketchy and convoluted. Was the gunman still alive? Had he been inside the mall or out? Had he left the scene? How many were wounded? How many were dead? And at which shopping center had he been?

We fielded a phone call from my brother in Virginia who was making sure that we had stayed in Lawrence that day and were all safe and sound. We were fine, but with details still filtering through, we started to wonder--had there been a Target at Zona Rosa? There had definitely been a Starbucks, but was it near the Target? Could we have been at the very site of this shooting just the day before?

Eventually, it turned out that the shooting had happened at the Ward Parkway center on the southside of KC. (Zona Rosa is on the far north.) But it wasn't until the following day that we had a clearer sense of what happened and where. At least three dead on the scene and another killed previously at the shooter's home. At least two more wounded. A police officer shot. The shooter killed.

This, of course, had occurred less than two weeks after the shootings at Virginia Tech, the worst mass killing in U.S. history. At least so far. There, 32 had died. At least another 14 were hospitalized with wounds from the murderer's weapons and ammo. Some 170 rounds of ammunition had been expended. The shooter was killed, apparently by his own hand. And an eternal horror show of tales were revealed about the killer and his disconcerting life and times, as well as a neverending litany of vignettes about the lives of those who had died and what they might have become had they not been shot to death in a public building.

It was a similar but smaller scale tale back in Kansas City. It wasn't long before the local stations started broadcasting backstory about the killer, one Mr. David Logsdon, a former Target employee with a history of violence, and, apparently incredibly easy access to firearms. The story took an even odder twist, though, when one channel featured a, to say the least, colorful account by a long-time neighbor that perhaps Logsdon had been involved in Satanic rituals in his backyard. The neighbor had spotted some strange ceremonies, including possibly a wedding, that Logsdon and others had participated in.

But, no, it wasn't Satanic worship. Apparently, area Pagans explained, Logsdon had been a member of one of their covens but had had a falling out with the group several crystal deodorants ago.

Satanic worship. Paganism. Sunday afternoon shoot-em-ups at Starbucks and Target. Yowsah. Whichever travel diarist or tourist guidebook writer first said the Midwest was dull clearly took the bypass when they visited Kansas City.

* * *

Still, it hardly seems the point, whether Mr. Logsdon was an acolyte of the Dark Lord or a devotee of drumming circles under a full moon. Hardly the point at all but--like car wrecks, hold-ups, building demolitions, and internet predators--guaranteed "click tease" fare to get us to watch the evening news. Satanic rituals. Puh-puh-puh-puh-leez.

Oh, I'm not saying I would welcome the First Church of Beelzebub operating a community center next to my home. The noise from the human sacrifices would be terrible, the inverted pentagram topiaries a bit OTT, the constant black clothing a drag on neighborhood morale, not to mention a traffic hazard once we fall back to standard time and the evenings grow longer and darker. And, goodness, the Halloween bakesale would pose an iffy social landmine, wouldn't it? How to peruse the cupcakes and delicately inquire just how much blood of the innocents was used in the recipe without offending one's brooding, prone-to-retribution neighbors?

But have you seen how the average televangelist dresses? Have you ever tried to maneuver a temple parking lot on a Saturday? Can you imagine the challenge you might face trying to sell your home if it was located next to the prayer center of a fatwah-friendly mullah with a perpetually aggrieved following? And don't even get me started on the Scientologists. No way would I welcome an accidental encounter with the likes of Tom Cruise, Kirsty Alley, or John Travolta in my borough after midnight. Jesus (so to speak).

Secular humanist (but, oddly, neither atheist nor agnostic) I am of the mind that no religious group presents itself publicly in the best light or with the least weird spectacle. So to me worrying over whether the killer was an aficionado of the Grand Poobah of Pestilence and Plague is moot. Seemingly even less important is the great Pagan v. Satan debate. Claiming a fresh-from-the-kill mass murderer as formerly one of your own might not be the smoothest PR move. Does anyone at this moment really need a lesson in the characteristics and distinctions of Earth-centered religion when one of your former participants has just gone Target-practicing at a local shopping mall? Just let everyone think he's a Satanist, for (heavy irony) God's sake. Then let the Satanists take the bum rap and keep on keepin' on with your Pagan thang.

The whole Satan/Pagan deal is nothing more than a fiery red herring, of course. It only serves to distract our attention from the fact that with widespread handgun and assault weapon ownership in this country, coupled with a certain tendency to resort to hysterical, often violent, means to solve emotional disturbances or perceived slights, the reality is that you can't go to a university, the post office, a hospital, a fast-food restaurant, a chain coffeehouse, a department store, NASA, a shopping center, CNN headquarters, an Amish schoolhouse, or, well, you name it, without fear of being the victim of a spree killer's "I Don't like Mondays" foul disposition and studied aim.

Now say what you will about guns not killing people, that people kill people, the fact remains that making guns--specifically, easily-purchased-by-the-distraught-or-insane, high-powered, multiple-round shooting kind of guns--readily available, you are more likely to hear of 30-some people having their lives violently cut short through said firepower rather than, say, because of an out-of-control archery set, nunchaku run amok, or extreme bitch-slapping.

Propaganda campaigns featuring Charlton Heston aside, guns do in fact kill people. Granted, they aren't liable to go off without a little encouragement in the form of clip-loading and trigger-pulling, but in and of themselves, guns do streamline the process of severing arteries, splintering skulls, lacerating vital organs, and taking lives.

Of course, due to our wildly famous, high-concept war on terrorism, not to mention our own adventures in homeland-focused big hate in Oklahoma City and New York, we've learned that all sorts of materiel can be turned successfully into weapons of mass destruction. Chlorine. Fertilizer. Panel vans. Airplanes. To name but four.

What's a government to do--outlaw Clorox in the gallon-sized jug? Arrest all swarthy pool boys? Padlock the gates of Agway? Require all electricians, drycleaners, and plumbers to haul their wares in see-through Miatas? Ban all fast-moving objects with internal combustion engines? Then only the MagLev, Conestoga wagons, and Detroit-designed cars will be approved forms of mass conveyence in our brave new world.

Well, of course not. How silly. Fertilizer, chlorine, panel vans, and 747s do have other uses, after all. Plan all we want, but no matter what we do, how we cope, how many precautions we take, as long as people want to kill, there will always be a new weapon of choice.

But what other purpose does a gun--specifically a handgun or assault weapon--have other than to kill or wound, especially human beings? Very few of us get our fresh deli meats and rotisserie chickens while positioned in a deer blind during hunting season, but instead at Safeway, Giant, Weis, or Wegman's. Some of us even don't eat meat at all. I for one refuse to believe that the holes in Swiss cheese can only be achieved through careful deployment of firearms in the dairy section. Therefore, that leaves only one metaphorical tin can on the fence railing remaining for target practice with a gun--us. And I can assure you that that tin can wasn't orginally labeled "asparagus" with the rest of the label now blown off from excellent marksmanship.

So, again, other than the yen for fresh venison from time to time or to shoo away a bear from a picnic, what else do we use guns for other than to kill people? In self-defense or on the offense, whether we're "law-abiding" or just mean or crazy, killing each other seems to be the main purpose of a certain type of firearms in our fully loaded, number-one-with-a-bullet culture.

With that idea more or less established, you have to start wondering about how many accidental and on-purpose shootings per year are we willing to tolerate before we agree that the situation needs to change? Whether we need more or less gun control (and I hope by now you're thinking more, although I'm not advocating a total ban on guns--it's unrealistic, and, besides, if people want to hunt, let 'em hunt), improved mental health services, a more economically even playing field, anger management classes, or just a couple of years in finishing school to teach us some manners, it seems imperative that something in our way of life needs desperately to change.

And if the Virginia Tech massacre didn't bring that home, what exactly would?