Give it a rest

The Fort Hood shooting occurred on Thursday afternoon at about 2:30pm my time. By the time I was reading through blogs between 12 noon and 1pm on Friday - less than 24 hours after the shooting - a lot of people were telling me that the massacre proves something - pretty much whatever they want it to prove. Even some of those who insisted the massacre itself didn’t prove anything were perfectly willing to insist that the other side’s reaction to the massacre proved something. I imagine that today there are people claiming the other side’s reaction to their side’s reaction proves something.

Give it a rest, people. The shooting at Fort Hood doesn’t prove anything, not yet anyhow. Are there questions to be answered? Of course. But even when we know everything we can know there’s a good chance the shooting still won’t prove anything - except that the shooter was crazy, evil, or a coward.

What we know right now is that thirteen people are dead; thirteen families devastated. At least thirty people are wounded. The news report I heard yesterday said that all those wounded were in stable condition but some were so seriously wounded that, as the spokesman put it, it is not possible to say how the situation will resolve.

This is not an occasion for choosing sides; this is an occasion for grieving together. Wikipedia has a list of the names released so far. Read it and weep.