Confronting the Darkness: A Personal Reflection on Violence and Inaction in America Today

 Dear Henry,

The last few weeks have been hard. In addition to moving 1,000 miles, it feels like American society unraveled while I was doing it.

My disillusionment began on August 22, when I saw the video of Iryna Zarutska being stabbed to death on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was murdered by a violent, repeat offender who should never have been released from prison. Many aspects of the video were disturbing, but what enraged me most was the crowd of bystanders, doing nothing. I don’t expect unarmed civilians to charge a knife-wielding psychopath (this is, after all, what the Second Amendment exists for), but I was stunned that no one rendered aid, even after the attack. For over a minute, she lay there alone.

To not run from danger and to help others, even strangers, is supposed to be a core American value. We see this impulse reflected everywhere from neighborhood heroism to our (often messy) foreign policy: we intervene, sometimes uninvited, because we believe standing by in the face of evil is morally indefensible.

Back in 2021, I visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial and left feeling proud of the Americans of 1995. In response to unspeakable evil, more than 10,000 people came together to help. In 2025, one woman is stabbed in public, and no one even moves. Is this really who we’ve become?

Things only got worse after the Annunciation shooting on August 27. It was reported as a “school shooting," a term awful enough on its own, but this wasn’t that. These were 20 children, in a chapel, attending Mass when they were gunned down. The shooter, whose name I will not dignify, claimed this was a gesture to express his pain. As if murdering children could ever be a valid form of protest. It was evil. Full stop.

What disgusts me even more are the people who, instead of condemning this act, call for compassion for him. Who point fingers at laws or politicians, instead of holding the murderer accountable? I’m tired of a society held hostage by the violently mentally ill. I will no longer extend compassion to anyone who harms children.

Then came September 10, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Never mind seeing an assassination 100 different times, and on every platform, what’s horrifying is the wave of celebration that followed, people cheering, laughing, saying he “deserved it.” Since when is assassination an acceptable response to speech? Since when do we celebrate the silencing of a man who was exercising his First Amendment right in public? Regardless of your politics, this should terrify you. It was an attack not just on a person, but on a foundational American freedom.

Not long before all of this, I visited the American Revolution Museum in Yorktown. The contrast between the country we fought to be and the one we’re becoming is staggering.

So what do we do?

We start by reintroducing Civics into our schools. Not performatively, but seriously. Every American should read the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, their state constitutions, and even their city charters. People need to understand not just their rights, but their responsibilities. We need to restore the rule of law and ensure that justice applies equally to everyone. And we must stop using mental illness as a catch-all excuse for leniency. If someone is too unwell to control themselves, then society has a duty to ensure they cannot harm others, even if that means incarceration.

This evil must stop. And it starts with us. We need to get involved, locally, statewide, and nationally, and start demanding better from our leaders, from our institutions, and most of all, from ourselves.

xoxo a.d. elliott

PS - You can check out my YouTube drive on VA State Rd 694 and reflect on the current violence here: https://youtu.be/xs033D_SMlAsU

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a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller living in Springdale, Arkansas 

In addition to her travel writings at www.takethebackroads.com, you can also read her book reviews at www.riteoffancy.com and US military biographies at www.everydaypatriot.com

Her online photography gallery can be found at shop.takethebackroads.com

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