Words matter. But sometimes, in our haste to express our deepest emotions, we may not get them quite right. So we’d like to share the words we believe need to be said now, after the mass murder in Orlando, Fla. And we’d like to point to a few that all of us might want to think about first, before giving voice to them.
The words we want to say, because we know everyone feels these, are: Horror. Hateful. And, most important: Heartbreak.
Those are what we know about Orlando.
Horror. The hundreds of shots in what was a place where innocents gathered for what they had thought would be a happy Saturday night. The deaths of at least of 49. The dozens more in hospitals now with the dreadful injuries inflicted by bullets from the civilian version of an M-16 and from a 9 mm semiautomatic handgun, traveling at speeds of thousands of feet per second. The hundreds more scarred for life by what they saw and heard that night.
Hateful. What other word can describe the cold-blooded murder of so many, and the dark urge that tried to massacre so many others?
Heartbreak. Every one of the many who died had parents, brothers, sisters, friends — people who loved them and who were loved in turn. Those in hospital have scores of people racing to their bedsides. Every one of us yearns for healing and hope after yet another episode of horror sparked by hate.
Then there are words which we should all think twice about: Fear. Terror. War. Revenge.
Let us think twice about saying we are afraid, about saying we are terrorized.
We do not know for certain what led Omar Mateen to launch his murderous assault. We do not yet know what, if any, connection he had with a jihadist group; what, if any, perversion of religion he believed; what, if any bias he held against our fellow Americans who happen to be gay.
What we do know is this: Whatever variety of evil which filled his repulsive soul, it will not instill fear, it will not instill terror. We take our direction from what our national anthem tells us we are: the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave.
We also know this. No one person, not Omar Mateen, not Osama bin Laden, not Timothy McVeigh, makes war on us. No one, no matter how full of hate, no matter how twisted of mind, is big enough for that. We are the big ones here.
We are the ones who keep the peace.
We are the ones who do not crave vengeance. We want something better.
We want justice.
Omar Mateen is dead. So are bin Laden and McVeigh. So are many of the other evil men who have sanctioned others to commit mass murder in the false belief that we can be terrorized. Good riddance.
But we should want a broader justice, too. We should want a justice that says innocents should be able to go to work, to school, to church or to a nightclub in peace. We should want a justice that says we will not distrust others because of how they pray; a justice that says we will not tolerate harm to others because of who they love.
Justice requires us to be judicious.
It is time now for police to do their work, the same work they do with any murder. It is time to trace the steps that brought Omar Mateen to the Pulse nightclub. It is time to see if he had accomplices.
Once we know this, it will be time for the rest of us to ask if it ought to be as easy as it was for him to arm himself, as easy as it was to hate others. Then, it will be time to ask ourselves the hardest question of all: Can we prevent this evil?
Many of us are sure we know the answers. Some will say it is a matter of access to guns and ammunition. Some will say it is a question of mental health care, some that it is a matter of more effective surveillance of threats, some that it is a matter of who we allow into our country.
This editorial page has weighed in on these issues. Readers know we believe guns are too easy to get, mental health care in our state appallingly deficient. Readers know we object to state intrusion into citizens’ private lives and that while we believe in careful scrutiny at our borders, we are repulsed by bigots who say the answer is to keep Muslims out.
We’re going to wait and see the results of this investigation before we opine on what this mass murder says about any of these vital issues.
We’re going to wait because we are confident we know the answer to that hardest question of all. We know our country will find an antidote to the evil that drives men such as Mateen.
We know this because we know the truest word about Orlando is neither fear, nor terror. It is heartbreak.
