Not all heroes wear uniforms

This post originally appeared in the Wilson Times May 4, 2019.

             Remember this name: Riley Howell. A college student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Howell was in his classroom Tuesday afternoon when a former student barged in and began firing his handgun at students. Instead of sitting, paralyzed by the incongruous scene in the classroom, Howell ran at the gunman, tackling him.

            Howell died for his effort. The gunman shot him, point blank, and killed him. He was 21 years old. Another student was also killed, and other students were injured.

            Howell is being lauded as someone who always wanted to help, who would always put others first, who would rather be hurt himself than to see others hurt.

            The gunman, whom I will not give the dignity of a name here, faces two murder counts and other charges. His motivation seems vague. He told police that he just went into the classroom and started shooting guys.

          There is little doubt that Tuesday’s shocking news would have been far worse without Riley Howell’s heroism. He turned what might have been a massive death scene into a tragedy that could have been far, far worse. Courageously attacking the gunman, Howell knocked him off his feet and gave law enforcement additional moments to respond to the “active shooter” alert.

            The National Rifle Association likes to say that a “good guy with a gun” is the best defense against mass shootings. How much braver is it for an unarmed hero to attack an armed maniac? Maybe what you need is a good guy or two, even without guns. Remember the brave good guys on Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001. They rammed their way into the hijacked cockpit of the airliner and disrupted a plot to crash the aircraft into the Capitol or the White House.

            Let us applaud the heroes like Riley Howell and the passengers of Flight 93. America loves heroes so much that some people call anyone with a military service record a hero, although most veterans never faced hostile fire. Those who did, who attacked a machine gun nest or risked their own lives to save comrades under fire, have earned the title of hero. So has Riley Howell. He won’t win the Congressional Medal of Honor, but he is a genuine hero who deserves recognition and memorialization.

            Shootings like the one in Charlotte or any of the dozens of others over the past few years raise the question of why do young American males, mostly white and “privileged,” feel a need to shoot someone with a gun whenever things don’t go their way. “Something went wrong, so I gotta kill a bunch of people” seems to be the twisted logic of the mass killers.

            Where does this come from? From overly permissive parents? From video games featuring gunfire and other awesome violence without consequences? From an epidemic of mental illness? From society’s cuddling of children against disappointments or failure, all in the name of “self-esteem”? From the crumbling of moral standards?

            Whatever it is, we need to study the problem, study the offenders and figure out how to prevent these horrific acts. We don’t have enough heroes to stop all the killers.

Hal Tarleton is a former editor of The Wilson Daily Times. Contact him at haltarleton@myglnc.com.