It’s been the Summer of American Hysteria, and given that it’s a presidential election year, fall probably won’t offer much respite.

Some talking heads are comparing it to the 1930s, what with the economic highs and lows and the social-class divides. Others have beat us over the head with 1968 comparisons, because of the rage and anger on the streets and the strife involving police and protests. Still others are saying that something like this in American history is completely unprecedented, which is sorta cool, if not entirely comforting. We all want to live in interesting times, but only a twisted few want to live in the end times.

It’s been a difficult summer for the veterans’ community in particular. “Are Vets Violent?” screamed the headlines in the aftermath of the mass shootings in Dallas and Baton Rouge. Both tragedies were carried out by men who’d deployed over the last decade as service members, and both had left dead cops who’d also served overseas. We were killing our own. And there, in the midst of all the senseless violence and bloodshed, the idea and realization that just fucking pierced to the bone: Vets were killing vets.

Then there’s the lazy stereotypes being reinforced by madness like this. As we’ve explored before in this here Embrace the Suck column, post-9/11 military veterans are too often simplified into heroes, victims, or monsters, with the complications and nuances of being a human being on this planet lost to the demolitions of narrative. Mass shootings carried out by vets definitely reinforces the monster narrative lingering from the Vietnam days of The Deer Hunter and Taxi Driver. “Did they bring the war home with them?” goes the line of thought that lands there, and I can’t say that it’s a totally unfair question. Logic always tries to make reason of sickness. But a closer look suggests that it’s a deeply flawed question.

“Veterans who have PTSD are less likely to commit acts of premeditated violence than veterans who do not.”

First, while both shooters (I won’t use their names here, because fuck those scumbags) were vets, neither of them saw combat. One helped build temporary structures on large bases in Afghanistan. The other was a data-network specialist (so, uh, computers?) on large bases in Iraq. I don’t bring this up to make fun of fobbits or REMFs, because the military is a large institution that requires a lot of different jobs and we’re all on the same team working toward the same goals, but to point out the absurdity of the idea that this was somehow connected to their service overseas. Much of their firearms training took place after their service, as civilians. So, no, they didn’t bring their war home with them. Their wars were only wars in the loosest sense of the word.

Then there’s the macro-statistical data, every lazy narrative’s greatest foe. Recent studies show that veterans who have PTSD are less likely to commit acts of premeditated violence than veterans who do not. They’re more at risk to harm themselves than anyone else, frankly. Meanwhile, studies of mass shootings have been unable to identify a trend in the shooters beyond the “loner young man.” Sometimes they’re white, sometimes they’re black. Sometimes they’re associated with a political message or movement, sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they’re vets. And sometimes they aren’t.

When the Baton Rouge shooting occurred, I found myself wondering if some of my internal anguish and reactions were similar to what many Muslims must feel when they hear about a terror attack. Please don’t be one of us is a terrible thought, and it certainly doesn’t alleviate anyone’s hurt or loss. But it’s an honest thought, and indicative of a member of a vulnerable group or community, desperate to shed like snakeskin society’s biases and blanket categorizing. We don’t need this shit. And neither does anyone else.

Not the smoothest analogy, for a lot of reasons, I know. But the parallels are there.

So, as thinking people and citizens, what can we do to push back? Fuck, man, if I had the perfect answer to that, you’d have heard me proclaiming from the top of the Empire State Building by now. Pushing back is a grind. But the grind matters. The alternative is to give in, to the stupidity, to the madness, to the hysteria. And giving in ain’t no way to live.

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