For some of us, there's a binding thread to violent news, from domestic injustice to global atrocity:
How quickly we normalize dehumanizing others.
Every time we fixate on justifying death, we teach one another that our humanity is debatable.
And that rot runs deep. In places with the death penalty, people are more likely to see killing as a good solution.
How we discuss violence teaches those around us about the limits of our care for *everyone*, not just the villain of the day.
There will always be circumstances in which taking life is saving life.
But there's a difference between sitting with the fact of killing as a sometimes-necessary aspect of life, and crowing over it, gamifying it, & otherwise teaching others to see the thrill of killing as more important than the function it can serve.
We are walking wounded when we talk of violence in this way, because it only carries our trauma forward.
But we can do better. We're trying to, at least, every day.
@MLClark you might appreciate the lyrics, Julian Lennon - Saltwater
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ql1EnjVYrZM&pp=ygUXc2FsdHdhdGVyIGp1bGlhbiBsZW5ub24%3D