I think Combine was different. It was more “real” to people who were close to kids that age(family and friends), were kids in high school or middle school themselves, or were/going to be educators. Everyone I knew was upset by it, but the most devestated people I knew were those, like myself, who were completing their coursework in teaching degrees. On top of feeling sorrow, it’s scary when you think “this could happen to me or someone I know,” like it probably wouldn’t be if you didn’t know anyone in potential danger. Therein lies the difference. Terrorist acts aren’t neatly confined to a certain demographic of victim, and they could potentially happen in thousands of places across the US. The sense of “this could happen…” is much greater when there is no single most likely place it could happen.
Elfkin477,
I definitely hear what you are saying, but I think the difference in thinking between those who seem very disturbed and frightened by such tragic events and those who don’t seem as bothered (or at least the difference between me and people who typically get very upset over events like this) is that the “it could have happened to me/loved one/friend” argument doesn’t hold water.
There are many things that happen all over the world all the time. At any given time, most things are not happening to me. I still have friends in high school. They did not go to school in Columbine, though. A tragic event, but not one that directly affected me. To say, “it could have happened in your hometown” is true, but it didn’t. I (and most people, I would assume) always am worried for the people I love, but the fact that people died in a school in Columbine yesterday does not make today any more dangerous for people in a school somewhere else today. In fact, it doesn’t even mean that Columbine is more dangerous the day following than the day before.
Likewise, it is not any more dangerous to fly on an airplane today than it was a week ago. I do not fear for my safety any more now than before; there is always an element of “danger,” or something like that, in life. And the fact that other people fall victim to it will not make me live any differently.
Again, I do not mean in any way to trivialize or deminish people’s mourning, pain, suffering, or whatever else anyone is feeling. I have quite strong emotions that I also am dealing with. I just refuse to let fear be one of them.
(sorry for the somewhat rambling nature of that post. I realise that I didn’t quite end up saying what I started saying.)