Well, that didn’t take long.
Then again, it rarely does.
It’s been less than 72 hours since the mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and already cyberspace is ripe with pointed fingers, harsh accusations and shameless sanctimony.
Sadly, though, that big, ugly finger of blame, which was initially aimed at the shooter, quickly turned to the parents of the victims, specifically the moms and dads who allowed their young children to attend the midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises.
Thanks to pure thoughtlessness, Twitter, Facebook and thousands of other sites– where commenters and posters are able to publicly leave their mark–have turned into a hotbed of blame.
You read right. In the midst of death, torture, and debilitating pain, people have actually had the audacity to express outrage about the decision some parents made to allow their youngsters to attend the midnight showing of a PG-13 movie. Less than 24 hours after the senseless shooting, Twitter exploded with people texting their condemnation for these moms and dads.
It wasn’t bad enough that a six-year-old child died at the hands of a deranged 24-year-old, who was equipped with an arsenal that should be reserved solely for law enforcement and military personnel, but to publicly shame her parents after the tragic loss of their flesh and blood?
Who’s the sicko now?
The revolting Tweets have caught the eye of many and some have tried to rationalize the egregious behavior, but I am not jumping on that bandwagon.
I don’t care if the nasty commenters are “displacing their emotions.” You don’t process the incomprehensible incident in Colorado by reassuring yourself that your children would never be in that situation because you would never allow them to be at a midnight movie.
Are you that ruthless that you feel the need to attack someone else’s parenting choice to placate your own mind, or to avoid conjuring up the gruesome image of your own children being gunned down in a theater at night?
You have to wonder, are these heartless Tweeters really lashing out in an attempt to gain reassurance that a heinous crime like this could never happen to them?
Do they stoop this low because they think if they cling tightly enough to the idea that they would never take their kids to a midnight movie they are automatically safe? Safe from having to see their children murdered in front of their eyes; safe from having to be subjected to domestic terrorism; safe from having to live without the light of their life.
Frankly, I don’t care what motivates one parent to judge another, it simply shouldn’t be done.
Those grieving parents of the Colorado movie theater massacre victims deserve our thoughts, prayers and unconditional sympathy, not wagging fingers and public damnation.
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