It’s 3:20 pm. We don’t know yet whether the Virginia Tech shooter was the typical disgruntled white man, or whether it was more than one shooter. The news will focus mostly on the perps, giving them the attention they crave and inspiring others out there. We can’t seem to help ourselves.

It is a disgrace that this is not ‘the school shooting’ but ‘the biggest school shooting’. These things seem to follow a script.

Anyone who has a grudge, or a fascination with violence, or whose mental demons won’t let him rest can see the fantasy played out, prepackaged with music right there on TV. A gun makes a man important, violence solves every problem, violence is the only really vital, powerful, human endeavor.

The good man is pushed over and over again, until finally he grabs a gun and wins everybody’s respect. The bad man is put down by bigger guns, or more guns, this is justice. The countless acts of peace that make it possible to live every day are invisible. The countless people whose actions make everyday life normal–mothers and teachers and store clerks and students, fade into the background. They are extras, the shooter is the star.

We don’t have a narrative of peace that can compete with the narrative of war that plays over and over in what we call entertainment. We don’t show people solving problems, a gunfight is so much more of an attention grabber. We say it doesn’t affect us, the murders we watch, the tortures. But our beating hearts betray our excitement, even if it feels dirty.

So a person who is troubled, on the edge, can see a thousand versions of the antihero who goes out in glorious flaming destruction. They can have confidence that their name will be famous long after their victims are forgotten. Weapons are easily available, they have the script. It’s only peace that is missing.