Column: Why so much anger and hate?

I’m pretty darn lucky.

As a recent weekend wrapped up and visitors for Thanksgiving got back in their cars or on planes and went back to regions far away, I realized I have a whole lot to be thankful for. For starters, we can have a meal with 20 people including in-laws, siblings, cousins and parents and not have any animosity or squabbles.

In fact, I’m thankful that our families enjoy the company of one another without petty arguments over money, attention, or jealousy. We don’t debate politics or religion, except maybe to speculate whether Donald Trump is intentionally trying to throw his candidacy away, or if he’s being paid by the Clinton’s to do so.

I’m not really sure why that harmony seems to be the exception than the norm these days.

I quite enjoy that my sister and I can act like 6-year-olds as we approach middle age, cutting it up in the sea of other foolish people who braved the packed shopping centers on Black Friday. Even on a day like that with packed parking lots made even harder to find an open spot when some people inexplicably take up two spots on purpose, and with lines that snake out of stores, my blood pressure didn’t rise.

But anger is the emotion du jour. Get miffed, gun down some innocent people. Feel aggrieved over your religion, send others to meet their maker. Picked on at school, issue a final judgment in a spray of bullets. Do you realize that by Dec. 31, we will have more mass shootings in the U.S. than days of the year? Some are domestic issues, some are workplace or school incidents and some are now related to terrorism.

As I come off a week of giving thanks, I just can’t comprehend why all of this is happening. Why is there so much anger and hate? Why are people taking the lives of strangers, friends, coworkers or classmates? Even when I look at recent atrocities, I don’t look at them with anger, I look at them with a tilt of the head and a quizzical look of “Why?” and a lot of frustration.

You see, you can’t really stop these events unless you start profiling and psychoanalyzing people before they actually commit the violence. You can’t just raid the recluses of the world and put scrutiny on anyone who resembles an Arabic person or who grumbles about religion. The Constitution protects our freedoms, and in a cruelly ironic twist, it also indirectly protects our freedom to kill.

I don’t fear the madness, as it is highly unlikely that I will be caught in such events, but it still doesn’t answer my questions on why people have such anger and hate. And it probably never will.

This story was originally published December 7, 2015 at 2:50 PM with the headline "Column: Why so much anger and hate?."