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Are Americans Too Passive to Save Democracy?
Why don’t we try to solve our problems?
In 1987, a disturbed 27-year-old man traveled toward his hometown of Hungerford with a pistol and two powerful semiautomatic rifles in his car.
He first stopped and accosted a woman who was eating a picnic lunch with her children. He shot her 13 times. He shot a gas-station cashier on his way into town, where he set his own home on fire, then shot his neighbors. He next walked toward the Hungerford Common, shooting another man who was walking his dog.
By this point, the police had been alerted, but the rampage continued. The gunman shot an approaching police officer in his car, along with a family that was driving past. He fired at an ambulance that was attempting to tend to the wounds of the injured. He shot two men driving by, along with an elderly man working in his garden. His own mother arrived on the scene and tried to calm him down; he shot her and another woman who tried to intervene.
The murderer moved on, shooting a young man on the street, a cab driver who happened to be nearby, a married couple, and a young woman. He broke into a house and shot the people who lived there. He left the house and shot a passing driver in the neck. Finally, he entered a school (which, mercifully, was closed for summer break). After…
