When you see the footage of the failed assassination attempt in Elbasan, you are immediately horrified by the idea that somewhere in the cafe where we sit for a few minutes of relaxation and a cup of coffee, among the customers there could be an armed man, calmly waiting for the right moment to kill another.

But, beyond the criminal act itself, there is something else in those images that shocks you even more, what is happening around.
Especially the woman sitting at the table with the perpetrator. From the security camera footage, it seems that she does not show any alarm reaction at the moment when the man pulls the trigger of the gun to the other's head. Then she continues to behave with a calmness that leaves you speechless and even pays the bill.

From the video we can't tell what she knew, what she heard, or if she was aware of the plan. But her calmness and the way she continues to behave in relation to her husband's actions are shocking.
Women play an important role in society, not because they are necessarily more fragile or less prone to violence, but because they often have a strong influence on how relationships are built, how conflicts are managed, and how moral boundaries are set within the family and community. This role becomes even more important when faced with violence.

A woman or a man in those conditions should not be automatically seen as an accomplice, because the footage from a camera does not tell us what they knew or what they experienced. But society needs women, just like men, to be a force that mitigates conflict, rejects violence and does not accept weapons as something normal. Every person, regardless of gender, faced with a crime must have a moral boundary that says “This cannot happen in front of me and I must act as if it is not happening”.

And then there are the others… the people at the tables. Some who don't move. Some who stand up and watch with curiosity what's happening. A scene that, instead of panic and immediate reaction, seems to initially produce surprise and curiosity.

Of course, people's psychological reactions to a sudden and violent event vary. Some may freeze, some may not immediately understand what is happening, while others may only react after the danger has passed.

But that image raises a great concern. Have we become so accustomed to violence that it no longer shocks us as it should? We are so accustomed to weapons, to assassinations, to news of murders, to conflicts that end in bullets, that we risk losing sensitivity to them. Murder is gradually losing its serious effect and is becoming another event in the daily news. This is very frightening.

One of the indicators of a society's culture is the way it reacts to violence. It's not just the number of crimes that should worry us, but also the way people react when crime happens before their eyes. Because when violence starts to no longer shock us, the problem is that we are becoming a society that is getting used to killing.

I don't want to believe that we've become so cold. I don't want to believe that we've reached the point where a gun in a man's hand doesn't make us get up from our chairs. Where a gunshot doesn't make us realize that someone might have lost their life.

This is a matter of loss of human sensitivity and perhaps this is our greatest crisis. Not only that there are people who kill. But that we are in danger of becoming a society that gets used to killing. A society that gets used to evil may one day no longer be afraid.
That's where the real decline begins.