“The March for Our Lives” and last week’s school shooting in Maryland hit close to home. A family member was a first responder at the shooting, a grand-niece is in school just up the street, a nephew runs a school a few miles north. The National Mall is a ten minute zip up I-295 from my high school.

It is easy to imagine this Oxon Hill Clipper joining his more politically active friends for such a “March,” had it been held back in the day. (Easier still knowing some close high school friends were there Saturday.) But what would have been running through my mind before the event? I think I would have been thinking something like this:

Yeah, I’m going. Cool. I don’t really care that much about the cause, but it’s great to be doing something with everyone else. Something that feels important. And it’ll get me out of the house. I’m not afraid of a mass shooting here at school. The March itself is waaaay more risky. 11 people just died in a stampede at a Who concert! And the March. What a rich and obvious target for a gun nut! Fortunately, there is going to be armed security everywhere. Hey, that’s funny! I’m going to protest guns while being protected by people with guns. 

Nah, someone shooting up the school doesn’t scare me. The darkness I’ve been in since Dad’s death paralyzes me enough. Getting shot beats being ravaged by cancer. Fatalism stinks. Besides, I’m more likely to be strangled by Mrs. Rollins for not paying attention. There are sooooo many other ways someone could kill us here.

At this point, I’d have forgotten whatever Mrs. Rollins was trying to teach me about calculus. I’d be imagining all the different ways someone could wipe out students. And methods of escape. And clever things I could suggest for signs. 

But this thought experiment raises an even more disturbing question. Could I have been on the other side? Why wasn’t I a school shooter? 

There But for the Grace of God? 

The Daily Signal just published “Three Common Traits of School Shooters.” Generally speaking, they are mental illness, broken home and economic uncertainty. My father’s death created all sorts of uncertainty, my mom “checking out” in grief left the house as broken up as it can be. As for mental illness, there’s a bit of a family history. 

Sure, the closest I ever got to loading a gun was filling a Pez dispenser. But I could have gotten closer. 

My insides were screaming “Unfair! Unfair! Unfair!,” decrying the cruelty of my father’s death. Why wouldn’t I act out? Couldn’t do anything about the doctors who blew his diagnosis. Why wouldn’t I lash out at whoever was available? Schoolmates were closest to me. Why don’t you hear the pain I’m in?! Can you hear me?! I’ll make you hear me!

I suspect several factors kept me from potentially acting out destructively.

1. As I’ve written before, the small light of the Bethlehem stable was starting to draw me out of the darkness. Also a Born-Again friend eventually convinced me to hang out with her Christian youth group. Even more light.
2. Going into my middle teens, my tank was full: I had loving parents, awesome siblings, fun nephews. Friends who were simply unbelievable, positive influences. For all I know they partied like Aerosmith and sacrificed baby kittens when I wasn’t around, but nearly 40 years later I am still in awe of and grateful for that group. They engaged me. Challenged me. Inspired me. I couldn’t sink too far into my own world if I was busy joining gifted friends in a galaxy far far away. They didn’t hold pity parties at Pizza Italia. 
3. I wasn’t pumped full of ADHD drugs. I was a very fidgety, easily distracted kid. I also had an irritating habit of tapping my foot and drumming my fingers on my desk. No doubt, these days someone would attempt to medicate me. (Beats tying me up as a VP briefly did in junior high.) They wouldn’t have known I was a “musical learner,” that keeping a rhythm actually helped me absorb material. (Had I known I’d be a writer, I would have tapped more in English class.) Yep. The school would probably make me pop pills like they were Pez.
4. I avoided drugs and drinking, which in the late ’70s is saying something. You had an easier time avoiding smog in Los Angeles. Thank God for my folks’ example and my friends. Without them, numbing myself would have been the obvious way to deal with my feelings. And being numb can be dangerous.
5. I wasn’t submersed in violent entertainment. I didn’t watch violent shoot-em ups. Sure, Charlie’s Angels carried guns, but who watched Charlie’s Angels for the weapons? I didn’t watch slasher films. I wasn’t spending hour upon hour playing realistic video games getting comfortable with the notion of blowing away realistic-looking people.
6. I wasn’t lost in headphones, listening to heavy or death metal, soaking in lyrics encouraging me to act out my rage. I walked around singing “I believe in the Promised Land” or “Listening to you, I get the music.” I’d be thanking God I was a country boy, not singing about “giving the devil his due.” 
7. I was involved in sports. Hours that weren’t spent soaking up violent garbage were spent sweating at tennis practice. Whatever downer my day might be, I always had a tennis match to look forward to. Or a Redskins game to cheer. Or a Clippers game to attend. Or, scary as it may sound, a math team event to compete in. I couldn’t see a long-term future, but I had purpose in my short-term future. 

Strip these and other factors away, who knows what might have happened to me? Yes, Little Albert would have been horrified at the thought of hurting someone. One day, a ruffian picked a fight with me, I gave him a bloody nose … and I was the one who ran home crying. But Older Albert had lost enough of his empathy to become something else.

That same ruffian, now a tough teen troublemaker, cornered me with fellow hooligans near the gates of Rosecroft Raceway. He wanted revenge for that long ago beating. I didn’t want to fight him. A bit frightened by the three bullies, and yeah, still a bit ashamed of the bloody nose. Fortunately I got them laughing and got out of the situation. But I am pretty sure if he had struck me more than once I would have exploded. And I guarantee that if I hadn’t been formed in the ways I described, nothing would have stopped me. I wouldn’t have cared if I died, they died, or we and the horses at the track all died.

Something Certain

I do wonder. However, some things are certain:

There, but for a strong foundation.

There, but for the connection to others.

There, but for the presence of Love.  

There, but for the grace of God. 

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream, and co-author of the upcoming book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration. It’s out May 21 from Regnery publishing, but is available for pre-order today.