Without hope, the violence has claimed us all

Words will not prevent another Orlando or Blacksburg or Newtown or San Bernardino.

We are awash in a tide of words that flows from a desire to explain the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. We must put it in context. We must categorize it, compare and contrast it. We must blame someone, or everyone.

A cynic would say words are just preparation for moving to the next horrible moment, tools to leverage this one safely into the past.

We wish we had more than words. Yet, it is all we have to add today, to share frustrations and feelings universal among us. Maybe there is some small comfort in knowing others feel the same.

SympathycomeseasilyforthosewholostlovedonesatPulse, the Orlando, Florida, nightclub where 60 people died Sunday and another 53 were wounded. The man who police said came into the bar and started firing, OmarMateen, was the 50th fatality — shot by police after a hostage standoff.

But how deep is our well of sympathy? The numbers add and add, and make us numb: 32 at Virginia Tech, 27 in Newtown, 14 in San Bernardino, nine in Charleston, five in Chattanooga, 12 at the Washington Navy Yard. Shots are fired and who hasn’t asked “how many?” We are so practiced that even our sympathy is cynical.

Anger is appropriate. Should we be angry with the hate spewed by terrorist groups and outlaw states in the Middle East that appear to have influenced Mateen? Yes. Should webeangryathatespewed by domestic groups that don’t like an idea, a belief or how someone chooses to live or who they love? Yes.

Should we be angry at the easy accessibility of the AR-15, a weapon of choice for anyone with mass casualties on their mind? Yes. Should webeangry at the failure of our elected leaders to reach agreement on steps to prevent another Orlando? Yes.

Hopelessness, too, is a hard feeling to shake this week. It’s easy to believe wecannotstemthis rising tide of blood. DowebanMuslims immigrants, even though they are not the shooters? Do we punish gun makers until they produce a gun that will take no innocent life? Do we tear down the mouthpieces of intolerance that set the agenda for the weak-minded and violence prone? Do we destroy any enemy who makes us feel unsafe? No. Of all the words this week, hopelessness may be the most dangerous. We must believe there is a solution, a way to prevent another mass shooting. We must believe that we can find it if only we try little harder.

Without hope, Mateen and the others behind the guns have ultimately killed us all. Capital Opinion Page Editor Gerald Fischman, a victim in Thursday’s shootings, wrote frequently about gun violence. children maynotbesafer than the 20killed at an elementary school in Connecticut in 2012 or the 33 killed on the campus of Virginia Tech in 2007. Or that they may not be safe at a night club or even a concert on the Las Vegas strip — the national equivalent of a carnival midway.

As this is written, we don’t know the motives of the 64-year-old Nevadan who got an arsenal of at least 10 guns into a hotel room overlooking the site of a country music festival. But whatever is eventually disclosed isn’t likely to offer muchcomfort to the friends and families of the at least 59 people killed and the more than 500 injured.

President Donald Trump is certainly right that the attack was “pure evil” and that it will not fracture our national unity. But we have to go beyond this and look for solutions — for things wecando. Simply accepting that such atrocities will be a recurring part of our national lives from now on will do even worse psychological damage to our country than that done by the loss of life.

Hopelessness is not an American frame of mind. Andfalling prey to it is an insult to the victims.