With the first two, yes biting your lip is appropriate. We all have different ways of dealing with death emotionally and we all grieve in our own ways. It's a very personal moment and what works for some doesn't work for others, and there's no real way of saying which way is "better". It seems like an empty platitude to you and I but it may have been heartfelt and comforting to the person who said it. Now, in your own grief I can see why one would be tempted to lash out, and that too should be excused due to again how we deal with our own emotions.

As for the situation you recounted about your experience on 9/11 I'll call back to what I said earlier, sometimes situations are just so emotional that you just can't help but react in kind; after all we're human not machines. If perhaps it was a less emotional moment you could have opened a serious dialogue, "I know you're just expressing relief that your friend is safe but did you stop and think about how your comment may effect other people who's friends and loved ones who were on that flight and didn't escape?" would have been far less confrontational and allowed a reasoned discussion to take place.

Again, because of the emotions around 9/11 no one could have possibly expected you to be able to react in that cool of a manner, in your place I would have likely done the same, but I think the difference between the scenario you described and my alternate one is clear.

On the subject of you vs. bananas:

Jesus. Another damned mass school shooting. At least this time around I'm pretty sure I've already cleansed my Facebook feed of "friends" whose first pearl-clutching response to any & all such atrocities is to worry that leftist meanies will seize on them as a pretext to violate the uber-holy 2nd Amendment & take away their god-given guns.

That actually happened in the immediate aftermath of the Charleston, S.C., church shootings 3 1/2 months ago. There are times when I just don't think it's possible to even attempt a dialogue with certain individuals. As the saying goes, you can't argue with crazy ... & I would amend that to assert that you can't discuss crazies' idees fixes with them in a respectful manner, either. Once they've started down that slope, it seems to me that that sort of thinking (using the word loosely) has every good chance of leading to suspicions that Sandy Hook was perpetrated by sinister gun-grabbers.

The NRA is big on having lots of "good people" carry guns so that they can take care of "bad people" with guns. Since Oregon allows open-carry and has very few restrictions on concealed-carry, you'd've thought that someone on campus would have come to the rescue.

Or maybe the NRA's thesis is a mite off.

Oh, and Dan -- it's so insensitive to politicize a moment like this. 

It now appears that a crime victim was shot by one of those responsible gun owners who are going to save so many lives. 

I own guns.  My sons all shoot.  But the NRA is so far round the bend that it's ridiculous.  

Except they aren't right.  It appears it was the guy whose car was carjacked who got shot in the head by a "responsible gun owner."  So he was victimized twice.  His vehicle was carjacked and then he was shot by the "good samaritan."  

And that's the problem.  Normal gun owners are not trained in combat situations.  Hell, I can point to any number of incidents where police, who presumably are trained, will spray dozens of rounds and hit a handful of times.  But damn near every "responsible gunower" is convinced they're Rambo when almost all of them are actually Barney Fife. 

O-o-o-oh, I read your previous post too hastily. You're so right. Just reading a book on the Big Red One at Omaha Beach, and everything you say about the differences between combat, which these kinds of mass shootings clearly resemble, and shooting at a silhouette of a "bad guy" are vastly different.

It will be interesting to watch LaPierre wriggle his way around this scenario.