Legend’s VIEW
We grew up around mass hysteria. As children and teens, we fell asleep and woke up to ’round the clock reports of terrorist attacks and two never ending wars. We almost embraced it in a dark sense by turning it into entertainment, staying up all night defeating our “enemies” through a controller and a screen. But what happens when someone else’s nightmare becomes our own? It is “normal” to watch or read reports of mass killings somewhere else, but the unthinkable can happen a little too close for comfort.
On March 18, a gunman who was later identified as Ryan Giroux, went on a random shooting spree across Mesa. In the end he killed one person and wounded five. Although MCC was closed for Spring Break, the campus went on lockdown during the shootings. Despite the close proximity to our school, there is not much discussion on campus (or the nation or world, for that matter) about mental health.
Take for instance the case of Germanwings co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, who reportedly crashed a commercial plane full of passengers and crew into the French Alps after locking the pilot out of the cockpit in March. There were no survivors. Upon further investigation, it has been discovered by authorities that Lubitz had prior bouts with depression and even researched suicide methods on the Internet. According to investigators, Lubitz purposely crashed the plane, killing everyone on board including himself. His mental health has been in question since the killings, but why only now after he has committed a mass murder?
For Giroux, his long rap sheet, time in jail, right-wing racist gang affiliation, and years of substance abuse may have been an easy list of grievances to blame his rampage on. No tragedy is 100 percent preventable.. Maybe then we would not have to wait to have the discussion about mental health until after hundreds of people are killed at the hands of someone who needed help.
