The other night I “returned to those thrilling days of yesteryear” as I wasted a few hours watching some truly campy black and white westerns. I confess, I went straight for the B- grade programs: Bat Masterson, Tombstone Territory, and a couple of hours of The Trailblazers from the 1940s. They all followed the requisite format: Crime must never pay, bad guys always draw first in a shoot-out, good guys are clean-shaven and never touch whiskey at the saloon, all the women are pure and innocent, and the good guy might win the heart of the good girl, but he still has to ride off into the sunset. Hanging around the town or becoming a wheat farmer or cattle rancher is not an option for western heroes. All of them knew and obeyed the Code of the West!
Part of that code meant there was to be no gratuitous violence. If a bad hombre got shot, he didn’t suffer long. If it was not a fatal wound, then it had to be a shot to his gun hand or shoulder. No blood, no screams of pain. It was so innocuous that some of the outlaws in the Trailblazers shook their hand around as if they had been stung by an anemic bee. A shoulder wound was somewhat more serious, but usually a handkerchief pressed against the wound was all it took, and the fellow would get right back up on his feet.
Tempting as it might be, anyone who thinks that Hollywood produces historical accuracy is a complete nincompoop. Professional wrestling is more realistic.
A year or so ago an emergency room physician from Chicago told me that that the Hollywood version is not what really happens. A bullet to the hand in the Old West probably meant amputation, with a high chance of sepsis and dying from the surgeon’s dirty fingernails. Today, at best, it means countless surgeries and therapies. A wound to the shoulder often meant amputation because this was an era long before reconstructive surgery. More likely was that the wounded fellow dying of infection or gangrene.
Today, even with the tremendous advances in surgery and medical care, any sort of gun wound requires a long recovery. Even then, it may not be a complete recovery. What makes it so horrible is that many times the bullets rip apart bone and organs. As I wrote, Hollywood can produce a show, but one that is far from reality.
Today, the other thing we rarely take into consideration is the tremendous medical bills that come with almost every shooting. Even the finest and priciest medical insurance covers only a portion of the costs of surgery, hospital recovery, and then the physical and psychological care that follows.
For those without insurance, fortunately, we live in a culture where we value life, so the uninsured are not booted out the door and left to recover or die on their own. We take care of them. In turn, that means we help cover their expenses for treatment and recovery.
All of this comes to mind every time there is an article in the Allegan County News about a shooting in our area: the pain and suffering, the interruption of life, and the tremendous anguish and sorrow surrounding everyone involved in the incident. The emotional and physical cost is staggering.
I had just put this subject out of my mind until last Friday evening. After tea, I looked at the computer and read the hideous news of a mass shooting here in Michigan. Six dead this time, including the shooter. By the end of the weekend there were at least three mass-shooting events across the nation. If we live some distance away, or if we have no personal connection with the victims and shooter, it is easy to look at this as merely a statistic.
I find that hideous. It is too reminiscent of Stalin’s comment during the Purges of the 1930s when millions of Ukrainians died of starvation, and several million other Russians were arrested. Many were executed; the majority endured a lingering death in the Gulags of Siberia. When questioned about the magnitude, Stalin waved it away. “One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
The real tragedy is that we are too accepting that gun deaths and shootings are the new normal. Instead of brushing this latest, and all the previous shootings away like Stalin, we try to find answers. In the late evening, when the news had been posted on-line, the comments flooded in. The majority of them fit into several categories:
-It was all MAGA’s doing.
-It was all the doing of the Democrats.
-People have quit following the Bible
-People spend too much time ‘online’.
-We must defend all gun rights.
-Abolish private ownership of guns.
-It happens, at least it isn’t as bad as in Chicago.
-This is the result of bad schools and teachers, and a failure of our society.
When our politicians and others even speak of the shooting, it will very likely be little more than trotting out the same old lines. And yes, that includes, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their family.” Hard on it heals comes the vague and empty promise of an investigation.
Sorry, but that has been said so often it is nothing but a cliché. What it really means is a slight pause and interruption in our routine, do and say something that looks good, and quickly move on.
Years ago, when gun violence and murder was too commonplace in a larger city, they initiated a new program for young offenders before they got too embedded in gangs and the gun culture. As part of their sentence, they had to attend a class held at the city morgue.
There, they watched as the Medical Examiner, and assistants pulled a gun victim’s body on the cold table from the refrigerator and began the autopsy. The ME told his class, “Pay attention because this is what will happen if you end up in the morgue.” With that, the doctor went to work with scalpel and other tools, removing organs and setting them aside, using rib spreaders that often snapped the bones, and eventually produced a cause of death.
The class saw it heard it, and smelled it all, that is, in between reaching for a “barf bag.” The autopsy completed, the organs placed in a plastic bag and put into the abdomen cavity, the ME asked, “Any questions?” There probably were not too many, considering how shocking the day was to the young offenders. The ME added one final comment, “this is where shooting victims end up.” The students got the message loud and clear.
The show-and-tell class had a profound effect on the young juvenile delinquents. Perhaps it was too profound, because the program came to an end due to the lawsuits. It seems that the budding criminals were too traumatized by the experience. The ME’s lawyers argued that was the whole point of the program, but the judge agreed with the plaintive that it was too graphic.
You and I keep seeing mass shootings politicized or swept away with that ‘thoughts and prayers’ gibberish. Maybe a field trip to the morgue might have more of an impact than pious platitude and political pandering.
