I Feel Numb

I wondered when this was going to happen.  When my outrage burner was just going to flame out from overuse.  I think it might have happened yesterday when someone came up to me after church and told me about the three police officers killed in Baton Rouge. I wasn't entirely devoid of emotion, but I felt entirely un-surprised, un-shocked, un-anything really.  What happened? It doesn't really matter, three guys are dead.  Was it a conspiracy? It doesn't really matter, three more guys are dead.  Was the killer associated with #blacklivesmatter, or did he think BLM was just a bunch of protesting pansies? It doesn't really matter, three men who were just doing their job aren't coming home from work.  Was this a case of politically motivated violence, racially fueled violence? It doesn't really matter, it was violence of a deadly sort.
We have a race problem, no denying that.  We have a justice problem, for sure. We have a gun problem, it's just begging for a solution.  But underneath all of that we have a violence problem.  We have bought the proposition that strength equals security, that courageous individuals are all it takes to ensure a free society.  It is a lie.  The gunslingers of the old west did not make the towns more safe, neither did the stoic Marshals and Sheriffs.  There's always going to be a faster gun, a bigger gang, a better army.  The demon of violence will always up the ante.  It ran us all the way up to the atomic bomb before we, collectively, as a human species said, "hey hold on a minute, this is crazy."  Even then we only decided to tuck our WMDs out of sight, not stop making them, not wind back to the way it was.
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), I grew up with it, and to tell you the truth, 14 year old me found it vaguely comforting to know that if I got blown to cinders the world was going to go with me.  I don't know why I found that comforting.  41 year old me, father-of-two me, doesn't find it very comforting at all.  But I think too many people still buy it; the revenge fallacy.  If you're going down take somebody with you. It's insanity of a dangerous sort.
Events like what happened in Baton Rouge yesterday are going nowhere good.  The reason I have heard from police about why there are so many Alton Sterling, Philando Castille sorts of incidents is that police never know who has a gun and how they're likely to use it.  A traffic stop should not be a situation where a police officer has to worry about getting shot, but it is because we are armed to the teeth and our violence is out of control.  A traffic stop is not a situation where the driver should have to worry about getting shot by police, but it is because we have this vicious circle of violence feeding on itself and growing stronger.
The Dallas PD has said that open carry made the situation there last week worse, because they could not reasonably tell the "good guys with guns" from the bad guy with a gun.  How were the Baton Rouge police supposed to know if the shooter yesterday was a good guy or a bad guy until he opened fire?  Louisiana is an open carry state, with no permits required.  Under those circumstances a person can carry his AR-15 down the street and the police have no grounds to stop him and even ask to see his permit.
In the climate of fear and loathing that we see now, a man who decides to carry a gun in public probably has bought in, to at least some degree, that the reason he is carrying that gun is for safety purposes.  It makes him more safe the same way kerosene puts out fires.
I am sorry for those officers.
I am afraid for our nation.
The demon of violence has his hooks in us but good.