Many people will remember the day that two bombs went off at the Boston Marathon, a terrible occurrence that will forever mar the annual event in people's thoughts and memories.
I'm sure for Weyburn couple Gerry and Diana Nagy, being able to both run together at one of the most prestigious marathons in the world will now have that stigma attached, because they were there and heard the explosions, and saw the confusion and panic and fear. This is not an experience that anyone would ever want to see or hear again, and indeed may leave them shaken for a very long time to come.
The attention for a while is going to be on why did this happen, and how could it happen - was there nothing that law enforcement and security could've done?
I'm not sure that asking questions like these are very productive or necessary, but we should look at how to prevent such a horrific event from recurring - or is that even possible?
The day after this event, Weyburn hosted police chiefs and deputy chiefs and commanders from all over Saskatchewan, and I have to wonder, in a room with the province's top leadership from law enforcement all in one place, what would their thoughts be on this event?
Some people are relating this incident back to 9/11, when airliners slammed into the World Trade Center's twin towers and the Pentagon, and then in the aftermath security has tightened up at every airport everywhere. We've had to grow used to having a heightened awareness of the dangers of people sneaking knives or explosives or whatever else onto airplanes, and unfortunately flying will never be the same again.
Now, public sporting events are going to come under scrutiny because of the mass of people gathering in one place, and the potential to do harm is ever-present.
The easy thing to do would be to restrict events and reduce the ease of access to them, but I think this would be letting the terrorists win if they were allowed to do that.
While we have to have heightened security, we don't have to let the bad guys win. Let the pundits go on and on about who and why this happened, but we should be able to head out to a game or a race or some other public venue and enjoy a sporting event or performance, like we've always been able to do.
It would be too easy to let fear in and cramp our style, and let the fear dictate whether we go out and enjoy ourselves or not. This would be allowing someone else to, in effect, run our lives, and this ought not happen. It's a conscious decision: take charge of your life, don't expose yourself unnecessarily, and go enjoy yourself.
