The mass shooting flowchart that’s become the sad template for Australia’s domestic violence crisis

In the US there is a futile cycle whenever another mass shooting shocks the nation. Sadly, Australia is fast developing its own version of the pathetically impotent approach.

The scene outside Lalor Park where three children perished (main picture), and the mass shooting 'flowchart' which inevitably does the rounds of social media with every US mass shooting. Pictures: News Corp/Supplied

In the US, the futile flowchart goes something like this: Mass shooting > shocked community > mass media coverage > thoughts and prayers > social media gun debates > nobody actually DOES anything > back to normal > mass shooting.

Australia is fast developing its own version of the pathetically impotent and pointlessly ineffective ‘thoughts and prayers’ roundabout: Alleged domestic violence fatality > shocked community > outraged media coverage > demands for answers > political promises > vigils > social media debates > back to normal > another alleged domestic violence fatality.

It’s been 76 days — less than three months — since I asked what the hell it takes to stop men killing women they’re in — or were in — domestic relationships with – when the ugly slaying of Molly Ticehurst shocked the nation.

In that time, 15 more women have been killed in alleged domestic violence attacks.

That’s 40 women this year. One every 3.95 days.

Add in three kids for Lalor Park.

Members of the Lalor Park family in a photo posted by the mother on social media.

Another from the Northern Rivers: toddler Rowan, killed by his father James Harrison.

And then, if you have the stomach for it, and the likes of slain gay couple Jesse Baird and Luke Davis.

Daniel Billings (left) allegedly murdered ex-girlfriend Molly Ticehurst at her Forbes, NSW home in April.

Those figures come from a group called Counting Dead Women Australia. The fact that a site by that name even has to exist should sicken us.

What dwarfs those figures? The myriad action plans, the moves to change laws, find answers, blame, lament, research, review, lament.

And here we are again.

A father allegedly sets fire to a house, barricades seven kids and his defacto inside, and seven kids inside, and three kids die, despite police alleging he made his best efforts to make sure they would all perish by dragging those trying to escape back into the flames.

The charred house at Lalor Park in which three children perished. Picture: NewsWire/ Richard Dobson

Seven kids, the oldest of them just 11. A desperate mother. A smoke-filled house, a raging inferno. Screams. Panic. Escape routes blocked.

As I write those words I feel physically ill. It’s a mental picture too hard to form, and thought process too much to comprehend.

For those who saw it happen, those who ran headlong into hell to deliver salvation where another would not, it’s even more visceral. It’s gut-punchingly incomprehensible.

As he lies in under police guard in hospital an in induced coma, others battle for life and try to absorb the full horror or what’s lost, and investigators sift through the charred wreckage of a razed house that’s no longer a home, suburbs away, another man allegedly attacks his girlfriend, leaving her to bleed out from the stab wounds that will kill her, and bolts. Cops know who he is – and pick him up hours later.

And I’m almost as out of words as Australia seems out of solutions.

And we can rail against domestic violence laws. And we can say AVO’s need to change, and we can demand easier ways for women to leave.

Floral tributes nmount outside the Lalor Park home. Picture: Richard Dobson

Or we could just get to the heart of this: men – and yes, men’s rights activists, sit back down, it’s mainly men – killing women, and children, because they’re pissed off at how their relationship, or their custody battle is – or isn’t – going.

What makes men think this is the way to deal with a situation they don’t like? What makes them think this behaviour is an option?

And why do we try to make excuses for that behaviour, and ask what “drove” them to this.

Because what drove them to this is bullshit.

Cost of living pressures? Are women immune to that? Pressures of getting the kids to school and juggling work and life? Last time I looked that wasn’t the sole responsibility of men.

Pressures of custody battles, divorce, a separation, family breakdown, grief, relationships ending, unemployment, the mortgage? Again – not gender specific.

Yet again and again, men opt to killing those around them. Like unacceptable, reprehensible, irreversibly violent behaviour is their only choice.

The fact is, there’s always a point, there’s always a moment – every time – where there’s a choice.

I don’t know how we as community stop blokes — wherever they are — making deadly behaviour a choice.

But we can start but sheeting the blame home where it lies. And it’s not the cops. It’s not the lack of escape routes, and it’s not the pressures of life. It’s an active decision. They’re not driven to it. They don’t have to do this. Nobody is making them behave like this but themselves.

It’s not understandable. It’s not forgivable. There’s no excuse. And we have to stop pretending there are.

We have to make a choice: stop cheapening lives, and excusing horrific behaviour by allowing ways to justify it. We have to choose to get off the “thoughts and prayers’ roundabout.

Because in this year alone, at least 40 blokes allegedly made a choice that shouldn’t be an option.

Forget the flow chart

There’s always a choice.