To live in fear
is to die early

It’s October and the season to be scared, but when it’s real life terror, it isn’t fun. While students at SUU may not be particularly frightened by the sniper on the loose because Cedar City isn’t anywhere near the D.C. area, we think they have reason to be. We are all vulnerable to the actions of others. We can be shot down while pumping gas or buying groceries.
There isn’t reason to be afraid of this sniper shooting someone down at our local Wal-Mart Super Center, but the fact someone is capable of walking around picking off innocent people doing everyday things should terrify all society.
In our society, we depend on each other to be civilized and follow the same rules. We expect people to stop at red lights, to pay for what they take, and to value human life. When just one person steps outside the expectations of civilization, our world changes. People get hurt, and we seek answers.
Once one person steps outside the boundaries of our civilization, it seems others follow. This might be the next epidemic. Once this sniper is caught or stops shooting for some other reason, there could be copycat snipers all over the nation, just as there were school shootings. The question to ask in times like these has been Les Jones, professor of psychology’s favorite, “Why do we do the things we do?”
Why does a 15-year-old boy kill his parents and then proceed to fire random shots in the school cafeteria, killing his classmates? Why did it happen again two years later in a different town in a different state?
For answers, we turned to things like parental involvement and violent video games. We didn’t want to believe kids could do these horrible things on their own. We attributed their actions to the reckless disregard of others.
Where will we turn now? How can we justify the actions of this person? What can we say to make ourselves believe these actions weren’t out of human instincts but from outside influences?
We believe there are no words to ease the fear this time. We cannot look at video games and say this person, who is obviously a skilled marksman, obtained his urge to kill there.In addition, there are no safety measures we can take. We can’t

 

install metal detectors and additional security checks to catch a possible sniper outside of the grocery store. We can try to pass more gun legislation, but who’s to say the gun was obtained legally?
These attacks are frightening because there is nothing we can do. If a person is capable of doing this, we are sitting ducks every time we walk out our front doors.
We can’t prevent horrors like this from happening, but we can decide how we are going to deal with the reality. We believe people should overcome their fears, pump their gas and live lives to the fullest. Just as it changes our lives when people don’t follow the rules of civilization, it changes our lives when we let fear control us. We cannot allow this person, or any other who wishes to invoke terror in our lives, succeed. What is acted on us is unpredictable, but how we act on ourselves is a choice.

The opinion expressed above is the collective perspective of the University Journal and its editorial board. The editorial board meets every Wednesday at 11 a.m. in Room 172 of the Sharwan Smith Center. Visitors are welcome.