This Week's Bizarre Tragedy: Austin, Texas

 These pictures tell the end of the story.

Here's the account from today's Fox News account. 

Here's the long diatribe left by Joseph Stack, before he burned his home to the ground, left his wife a widow, and his young step-daughter undoubtedly traumatized.

OldSouth slogged through the long farewell, just to see if there was any nugget of wisdom to glean:

Well, he hated the government in general, and the IRS in particular.  And unions. And the Catholic Church. And big business. Accounting firms. CPA's. Politicians in general, members of Congress in particular.

He spent a lot of his energy over the years crusading against all of the above. Especially the IRS.

Along the way, he lost two businesses and a marriage in California.

He relocated to Austin, and it appears the cycle was underway again.

LongStoryShort, much like our intrepid professor in Alabama, he decided that all his heartbreaks were someone else's fault.  Therefore, he was justified in murdering his tormentors; and himself as well in this instance.

Not one word contemplated the horrific consequences for the people who loved him, who are left to sort life out in the wake of this crime.

OS ain't preaching, folks. He remembers a time when he felt much like this, and but for grace, did not act out in this destructive a manner. There but for grace...

We live in troubled times. And we're in for a rough sled over the next few years. So, let's hug the ones who love us extra-good, and think of them first as we make any decision, however seemingly insignificant. Let's choose our battles with a bit of humility and wisdom. Let's do something, however small, to make someone else's life better, to tidy up our tiny corner of the culture a little bit today. Let's remember who we are, who we aren't, and how we got here.

And how blessed we are.

Avoidable Tragedy

This tragic and bizarre story emerges from the past of Amy Bishop, the apparent killer of three at University of Alabama Hunstville.

It appears Dr. Bishop held a shotgun that discharged and killed her younger brother in 1986.  She was nineteen at the time. An unspeakable tragedy, attributed as an accident at the time.

We'll probably never know 'why' the Huntsville tragedy took place. None of us are exempt from tragedy, or from the possibility that something this bizarre may indeed visit our lives; that we or someone we love may fall victim to an evil act.  Perhaps more tragically, someone we love and think we know may perpetrate some tragedy. Perhaps, even ourselves.  It can be scary to contemplate, and hopefully breeds humility in us all. Absent grace, we all are capable of anything.

We can't know the individual stories and family histories of every person in every room we enter.  As one old Presbyterian preacher once quipped: 'If you knew everything about me, you wouldn't want to be in those pews. If I knew everything about you, I wouldn't want to be in this pulpit!' And, since we all fail, we should not be obligated to live our lives defined only by our failures and tragedies. OS has seen this happen, and it almost happened to him along the way. Without grace, all lives grind to a halt.

That said, however...

Guns are designed to not discharge by accident. It requires several deliberate acts to load a shotgun of any design, chamber the shell, disengage the safety, and pull the trigger. They are designed for safety, to be operated by responsible people who are trained to them. OS is so grateful he grew up shooting, always supervised. He knew they weren't toys.

Yet, accidents can and do happen. They are chains of events, in reality. Leave a loaded firearm within reach of an untrained young person  who doesn't understand the dangers, and...you've taken at least two of the deliberate safety steps out of the process. OS's childhood next-door neighbor was a police detective, a grizzled veteran. When he came home from work, he stepped into the house. His first act was always to unload his service revolver in the sight of all. The revolver went to one side of the room, out of reach of any child, and the cartridges went to the other side of the room, out of reach of any child.

It was his ritual. He never failed to observe it.

A terrible tragedy later visited his home, but it was not the tragedy of one of his sons killing the other.

How did the tragedy of 1986 set the stage for the tragedy of 2010? We'll never know, really.
Was 1986 an accident, or an act of evil? We'll never know, twenty-four years removed. And to exhaustively re-examine the question only increases the agony for the innocent members of that family.

In the meantime, OS has an aging neighbor with macular degeneration, prone to depression. Who owns a pistol with a rather complicated safety. Which now sits, unloaded, clip out, in OS's closet. He checked it himself, twice. The shells are in the pickup truck.

OS is a proud NRA member, and plans to get his carry permit this year.

He doesn't want this particular, avoidable, tragedy to visit his house. Or subsequent tragedies to visit someone else's house in 2034.

Please, if you have weapons, think things through. Get proper training. If the 'bird on your shoulder' tells you that someone in your world has both weapons and a personal crisis underway, quietly intervene. If you are that person in crisis, park your weapon with a friend for a while, OK? The crisis will pass. OS did it about twenty years ago. Don't ask why.

N.B.--The biathlon coverage of Winter Olympics just began. A combination skiing/shooting event.
The competitors undergo a rifle safety check just before they are sent onto the course.

'Nuff said.

The Huntsville Tragedy

This summary from Associated Press provides the facts as they are known now.

A biology professor at the University of Alabama's Huntsville campus was charged with murder late Friday in the shooting deaths of three fellow biology professors at the campus.
 

Authorities say Amy Bishop, an instructor and researcher at the university, opened fire during an afternoon faculty meeting, killing the three colleagues and injuring three other school employees. Bishop has been charged with one count of capital murder, which means she could face the death penalty if convicted.

The immediate provoking factor seems to have been the notification that Dr. Bishop had not achieved tenure at University of Alabama at Huntsville. 

There will be a flood of images and words in the next few days, until the nation's attention is drawn somewhere else. So, at 1:25 a.m. local time, OldSouth is attempting to get a head start.

OS has friends who have been denied tenure.  It is disheartening, painful, maddening to labor for seven years and come up empty-handed. The process, at its core, is quixotic, arbitrary, and undoubtedly corrupt in some cases. But, anyone on a tenure track should have the smarts to understand that grim reality. It goes with the territory.

They all licked their wounds and moved on, and in time were grateful to not be laboring in the salt mines of that particular institution. Not one of them contemplated carrying a pistol to a faculty meeting. 

This is beyond the pale. Nothing explains, or excuses, this crime.

It will be called a tragedy, an incident, an occurrence. Amateur and professional shrinks will offer explanations. Liberals will call for gun bans, conservatives will counter that the gun ban on campus prevented nothing.  Yadda, yadda, yadda.

OS hopes a simple fact will remain foremost in all our minds.

What occurred was a crime. To carry a pistol to a faculty meeting, into a room of unarmed academics, for what promised to be the occasion of unpleasant news, can only indicate a decision had already been made to turn that weapon on those people. Dozens of people, if not hundreds, have had their lives irrevocably altered by this brutality.

Sympathies and prayers go out to the families and friends of the murdered and injured.