Another mass murder. Another gun assault. How many dead this time? Who did it? Was it terrorism? Was he from a group we hate? Or one which will embarrass us? Was he Muslim? White Supremacist? Anti-Abortion? A settler? Was he mentally ill? These are some of the questions that jump out at us when we first learn this horrid news.
We also ask about security. Did the FBI or local police do their jobs? Was there anything they let slip through the cracks? Was their a failure that was in their hands that might’ve prevented the tragedy?
Of course, there is always in the back of our minds the scourge of guns in our society. But we’ve learned to suppress that urge because we know that the gun lobby owns Congress. We know the NRA has an even stronger vise on public policy than the Israel Lobby does. So many of us have learned to withhold our outrage at the real cause of these massacres. Because we know nothing can be done.
I’m going to propose something that isn’t very radical, but which seems neglected by the general public: it hardly matters who pulls the trigger or what their motivation is. If the killer is Muslim, some of us will heap blame on Islam and demand to know when and how the religion will reform in order to rid it of this “cancer within.” If the killer opposes abortion we’ll talk about why and how the movement that holds preserving life as its foremost premise, can justify murder. If the killer is a white supremacist we’ll talk about racism and the history of violence that Blacks have suffered in this country for centuries.
Some of our introspection may be worthwhile (though not all). It can never hurt to examine the underlying principles of a religion or society and their unspoken, unconscious patterns of hate or oppression. However, in some circumstances, especially related to Islamist violence, the blame game lapses too easily into Islamophobia.
Similarly, it doesn’t much matter if the police did their job or not. Why didn’t they stop James Holmes or any number of mentally ill mass murderers from getting guns? Did they fail to catch someone who should’ve been rejected during a background check? The truth is that mass murder by assault rifle has become de rigueur in this country. We can nip around the edges of the gun scourge by trimming a law here or there (though the Senate recently and insanely even rejected a 72 hour delay imposed on suspected terrorists before they could buy a gun…an amendment offered by GOP Sen. John Cronyn, ferchrissakes!). But none of this gets at the root cause of the epidemic of mass murder.
The truth is that there are thousands of people who will have a motive to take up guns to make society pay for whatever grudge or imagined sins we’ve committed. And as these assaults become more commonplace, more and more disturbed individuals will contemplate them as reasonable and acceptable responses to whatever savage grievance or emotion they hold.
The way to address this is not to single out Muslims, anti-abortionists, white supremacists or the mentally ill. All of this takes us off on tangents that diverge from the real issue. We must attack the problem at its root. We must restrict access to guns. There are a limited number of Americans who need guns. Most of us know who they are: police, security, military, hunters, sportsmen, etc. The rest of us do not need guns. Having them almost guarantees that many of the rest of us will become targets. If not now, then eventually.
We must extirpate this scourge root and branch. Guns, or at least the way too many of us use them, are a cancer. We must fight against them as LBJ waged war on poverty or as scientists wage war on disease. We must battle the gun lobby and beat it back when it rears its ugly head, as it surely will do. We must vote out of office politicians who hold the country hostage to this epidemic.
But will this happen? Can it happen? The gun lobby serves the same role in this country as the Israel Lobby in terms of maintaining a pathological set of public policies that guarantee either maintenance of the status quo; or even rolling it back to make matters worse. Because of Aipac’s toxic role in U.S. foreign policy it’s virtually impossible for a U.S. president to play a constructive, robust role in resolving the conflict. Similarly, because of the gun lobby, thousands more innocent Americans will die at the hands of savage messiahs seeking vengeance for a thousand and one sins.
In the face of these two toxic lobbies, our country is like Samson bound and humiliated by the Philistines. We are a proud, powerful country transformed into blubbering infants in the face of them.
The inability to address these two critical issues and resolve them for the benefit of all threatens to render fatal judgment on our entire society. Can a nation which can do nothing to save itself from these horrors long survive? Do we deserve to? If we were a species instead of a nation, Darwin would invoke the law of the survival of the fittest to determine our fate. We would have to say that we are not fit. We cannot do the least to ensure the survival of our citizens. We are shaming ourselves as individuals and as a country.
We are taking baby steps. This latest California assault has spurred even more Americans to turn in revulsion. The NY Times published an anti-gun editorial on its front page for the first time in 95 years. I realize the NY Times is not necessarily an arbiter of the mood of the rest of the country. It won’t necessarily change any votes in Congress. But it does tell us that the icebergs are cracking under the weight of these continuing horrors.
“Guns, or at least the way too many of us use them, are a cancer. We must fight against them ..”
How do you propose to stop people from building homemade bombs, like the ones used at the Boston Marathon? Anyone remember Timothy McVeigh?
@Babar: Far more ppl are killed by guns than bombs.
“We must restrict access to guns.”
Real stupid Richard! Every horrible examples of blood-letting has occurred in legally mandated,
“gun-free zones”, where these lunatics are assured that their victims will be unarmed and helpless!
If you consider owning a gun as wrong, I’d suggest that your put a sign on your front door or in your front yard and we’ll see what happens. (THAT iS; if you REALLY don’t own one)
Can you spell hypocrasy?
“We are a proud, powerful country transformed into blubbering infants in the face of them.”
Sorry, Speak for yourself. The only blubbering I hear is from left-wing pundits and their operatives
As a veteran and proud member of Oath Keepers, all I can say is: “molon labe!”
BTW, how do you feel about baseball clubs and tire irons?
“Because of Aipac’s toxic role in U.S. foreign policy it’s virtually impossible for a U.S. president to play a constructive, robust role in resolving the conflict.”
Several American presidents, from Carter to Obama, have made great efforts to make Arab and Jew sit down and build a lasting peace in the Middle East. Did AIPAC try to stop the U.S. presidents from making peace?
Yes!
Of course – AIPAC aids and abets Israel and Israel does not want peace, it wants land.
I agree with what you write, and wish you all the best–it’s an uphill battle. Here in Canada our recent Conservative government–now thankfully defeated–also supported the gun lobby (albeit not nearly as strong up here). They abolished the long-gun registry introduced by the previous Liberal government, and voted against a UN arms control treaty because it might affect gun owners in Canada.
Regarding the comment by “Barbar”: Yes, the Boston Marathon and Oklahoma City massacres were horrific, but your question about homemade bombs doesn’t negate in the slightest the arguments against guns, since far more killings are perpetrated (at least in North America) with guns than with homemade bombs.
Richard, the real killer among guns are the cheapo nine-shot automatic had guns, the “Saturday night specials”, because most of the “shooting incidents” out of the 366 or so we have had this year in America have been small scale ones featuring those sorts of guns. The “long-livedness” of guns is another thing; the cheap ones circulate from one owner to the other for decades. As long as bullets are manufactured for the caliber the gun is, that gun is not obsolete (and hard-core gun users will make bullets for the ancient types.) This country is floating on a sea of guns; revolvers, automatics, hunting rifles, automatic rifles, machine pistols, ex-military rifles, historical machine guns, submachine guns, chainguns, the occasional working cannon…..
Most of this is pretty accurate and should change as Richard suggests.
The one point Richard makes huge mistake is comparing mentally ill murderers and other ideological murderers. There is no shred of resemblance. One is simply no responsible to his/her actions while the other kills by the name of some greater cause. Comparing the two is an apologetic move that dismisses the hardness of the heinous act.
@ Arik: You make the mistake which I warned against in my post. The ultimate prevention of gun massacres will not be in addressing the ideological or mental health motivations of the killers (that’s a band-aid solution), but in removing access to the weapons. That removes access for all would-be killers.
” That removes access for all would-be killers.”
Sorry, but that is hardly logical. There are always ways for those who want to commit a crime to get a gun. They just will need a connection and pay more.
@chen: death by guns is almost non existent in virtually all other western countries.
What are you smoking, Richard? Please tell us, HOW do you determine who is a “WOULD BE KILLER”,
in advance?? The overwhelming majority of gun owners would ONLY kill someone in self-defense. WHY would you deny us that freedom!!!!!
@ Dave Terry: You’re full of horse shit. A gun toting vigilante man shot & killed a guy shoplifting beer from an Arizona Circle K today. Idiot Oath Keepers like you will bring us a Trump State where Vigilante Man rules.
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@ Dave Terry: With gun control as enforced in all western nations, there is no need to determine who is a would-be killer. That’s the beauty of gun control. It permits guns for those who have good reasons for needing them, but takes that option away from many of the rest of us. That way, anyone who has a global grudge would have no gun option should they seek revenge for whatever reason or purpose.
What is the ratio of men:women for murders committed with guns of all kinds? That ratio might give us the best direction for remedial action.
The truth about guns in America, unfortunately, is that it is too late to do anything about it. All solutions that are floated are just hot air and political bluster. There are just too many guns already out there, with a prosperous (legal or otherwise) secondary market. And guns last forever. If guns sales were made illegal tomorrow, it would do nothing. Short of the US instituting martial law, going house to house and collecting weapons by force, which obviously would be politically untenable, nothing else would make any difference in the crime rate.
I suggest listening to this
http://freakonomics.com/2013/02/14/how-to-think-about-guns-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/
The repercussions of this are truly severe. If in Europe, where gun control is strict, the terrorists are able of pull off the recent kind of attacks, imagine in the US–where anybody can walk into a Walmart and buy an assault rifle or a hunting knife–what will happen.
@ Yehuda: This is a false, cynical & shameful display. Unlike Israel, where you’re raised to be cynical & view the I-P conflict as hopeless, we here in AMerica & the rest of the west don’t think that way. Countries like Australia had a gun culture which they brought under control after responsible public & politicians placed restrictions on them. It can be done.
We’re not Israelis. We’re not educated for hopelessness & cynicism. Either we will whip the gun lobby, & eventually the Israel Lobby or we will go down the toilet as your country is.
@Richard
This is why you are an ideologue and I am not.
I am reconciled to the fact that interests and power are the main motivator of human societies.
You think that it is morality ( your perception of it).
What was done in Australia could never be done in the US
@Yehuda: You’re full of crap. You certainly ARE an ideologue…of cynicism & hypocrisy. Hobbesian through & through.
“Interest” includes the value of human survival which guns obliterate.
Principal Causes of death in U.S.
& Percent of Total
1. Diseases of the heart
28.5
2. Malignant tumors 22.8
3. Cerebrovascular diseases 6.7
4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases 5.1
5. Accidents (unintentional injuries) 4.4
6. Diabetes mellitus 3.0
7. Influenza and pneumonia 2.7
8. Alzheimer’s disease 2.4
9. Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis 1.7
10. Septicemia (blood poisoning) 1.4
11. Suicide 1.3
12. Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis 1.1
13. Primary hypertension and hypertensive renal disease 0.8
14. Parkinson’s disease (tied) 0.7
15. Homicide (tied) 0.7
Source: CDC/NHS, National Vital Statistics System
There were almost twice as many people who killed themselves than murdered others!
Both of these categories, added together equal only 2% of all deaths in the U.S.
The “gun-nuts” are, contrary to your assumptions, on the left of the political spectrum.
It is pure paranoia!!!
@Dave Terry: What a stupid claim. I have no interest in death by natural causes (disease, old age). People will always die of natural causes.
The only deaths that matter for our purposes are deaths by unnatural causes. Those you can control. In that category, guns are a major cause of death.
There is no policy that can stop what these hucksters called politicians have wrought. They don’t know how to lead so they use obfuscation, outright lies, manipulation, back room decisions and divisiveness. This time they got sloppy and people pulled back due to too quick a scenery/wardrobe change or backfire. They couldn’t change the names and faces quick enough or so it seems. That’s what needs to be changed. Trying to fix the symptoms never work. We’ve got to get to the source of the matter. But just like the catholic choir boy scandal too many interconnected relationship prevent people from letting those who need to fall finally fall. The people who would have the most impact are in fact in cahoots with these perps. Good luck with them giving up the riches and their children’s future stint at Harvard or Stanford. Those lavish vacations and the insider trading secrets to prevent their loosing capital. Just saying it pays to know what you’re dealing with and this is a virulent on an epidemic level. Insidious.