World End

I've got a little more to say about the purported 'end of the world.' The Mayan empire was slowly decimated by Spanish conquistadors, and the new habits, preferences and diseases they brought with them. The Mayan people began to lose their faith in their deities and their communities and as a result were subsumed into the culture of the Spanish colonists. It was a case of the imperial efforts of one civilization out-gunning the empire of another. Over the last 13 years, since 1999 and Columbine, we've grown used to the periodic news of madmen (usually men) committing mass shootings at schools, shopping malls, movie theaters and universities. It's horrific every time, but it grows less shocking with each occurrence. It's awful but no longer surprising that mentally ill people have access to guns and violent images to inspire them. After Newtown, only 16 days ago, I thought 'well maybe there is something to this end of the world stuff,' because who shoots at small children and teachers (apart from the shooters in primary schools in Dunblane, Scotland and also in Lancaster county, PA, both in the last 15 years, of course). Then we had news of someone setting a fire and then shooting at firefighters who came to put it out. Followed swiftly by a second incident of this kind. And now I am convinced that we are officially a empire and society in rapid decline. We are arming our own killers, and in the end we will all be gone. I fear it is too late to make meaningful change - this is a country built on the freedom to own guns and carry then around and shoot them at will. It's only a matter of conscience that keeps gun-carriers from shooting at people, and that's a very thin line, one easily crossed as mental health declines. For military veterans, that conscience has had to to be worn away and in some cases erased, especially over the last 70 years, in which it stopped being clear who our enemies were in war zones. So now we have people who have seen incredibly traumatic things, which can directly result in mental illness, even in people who have not suffered previously, who have had the stigma against shooting people rubbed away at until it's nearly gone, who are trained gunmen and usually weapon owners. Somehow, so far, the people these men (mostly men) seem to kill the most are themselves. In 2012, more service members died from suicide than in combat. The silver lining here is that combat deaths are clearly down, but there are far too many suicides amongst the combat survivors. How do we stop such senseless violence and death? We will all die anyway - why would we want that end hastened? All of the people killed, by others or by their own hands, had the power and in many cases the desire to help others get through their time here with less pain. But we continue to fight for the 'freedoms' offered centuries ago, in a different time and society, and we will apparently fight for them to the death.