Dawson Shooting - Take Your World Back

On Wednesday, September 13, one man decided to give us all another reason to fear this world.

He entered Dawson Cegep brandishing a machine gun, shooting some 20 people and killing Anastasia DeSousa. Police came and wounded him in the arm. He then shot himself in the head.

She was 18.

Just think back to when you were 18. Try and remember what you were like. What you were worried about. How you looked at the world. Think about how you dressed, what movies you liked, what jokes made you laugh.

Now, look at yourself today. Big change, non?

Anastasia was 18. She’ll never change again.

I can't help but think about all the things she'll never get to do. Books she'll never read. Places she'll never visit. She might not yet have fallen in love.

A lot of people are focusing on the shooter. There is much examination and conjecture as to his motives, his goals, his childhood, even his drinking habits, and I understand why. If a tragedy can be rationalized, then it’s no longer a tragedy; it’s an anomaly. If extreme violence can be explained, then it can be controlled.

I don’t want to spend too much time discussing the shooter. Frankly, I don’t even want to provide him an acknowledgement by typing his name. To me, he is not a real person.

Every person has the potential to do violence. It’s a biologically, evolutionary and psychologically valid response to appropriate stimuli (fear, survival, etc.). But a civilized person can temper these urges. Through social doctrine or innate morality or sensitized intelligence or religion or whatever you want to call it, there’s a mechanism in each of us that says, “No. That’s too far.” We all make a conscious, deliberate choice to adhere to this, to control ourselves and process the world without succumbing to a base, primordial compulsion.

The shooter did not. Oh, he may have had a rough childhood. He may have had no friends. Girls could’ve rejected him, his football team might have lost and maybe somebody made fun of him because he spoke with a lisp. I don’t care. He has forfeited his claim to humanity. He gave up. He made a choice. He said, “No. That’s not far enough.”

To give up on this world, to consider yourself an outsider or a rebel is both extremely arrogant and extremely cowardly. This world is a good place. There are good people and good things in this world, and the civilized amongst us make every effort to better it by bettering ourselves. Every community, every city, every country is simply a reflection of the people living in it.

And now our community is suffering because of one man.

We are all victims. Our sanctity, our peace has been violated in the most disgusting way. Our world has been taken from us, and in it’s place we have fear and grief. But only if we let him.

Just as every civilized person makes a conscious choice to do evil, every victim can eventually make a choice whether or not to continue to be victimized.

It’s too soon now. There is still much hurt and anger in us and we must properly grieve before we can move on. But we will move on. We will take our sanctity back, we will reclaim our peace and we will never let anyone violate us again. We suffer, but can be comforted. We grieve, but we can take strength.

Anastasia was 18, and she’ll never change again. But this world is a good place, and that will never change either.