Showing posts with label guns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guns. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

The Emperor's New Clothes

American kids are less familiar with Andersen's classic The Emperor's New Clothes than their European counterparts. They spend more time watching educational video cartoons that teach colors, numbers, letters and other things deemed useful, such as the ultimate potty humor  (The Unflushables, available in ebook, hardcover and audio). But kids are kids everywhere and American kids are no different than the kids in Anderson's story - they can be brutally frank.


Today, I got an assignment of the kind I hate the most: to cover the latest U.S. shooting of interest, and I say "of interest" because there are too many to cover all, so we choose only those that attract attention with their weirdness or degree of awfulness. 

In this case, the shooter was mentally ill (aren't they all?) and he ran out of his vehicle naked from waist down to fire at presumably sane people. A background search shows that he has claimed to have been stalked by celebrity Taylor Swift and that last year he tried to approach the White House with four firearms on him. 

The only redeeming aspect of the story, the one that was worth writing about, was the bravery of a young man who in a crucial moment decided that if he was going to die, he would die fighting. The man was hailed as a hero because he had disarmed the killer and prevented more bloodshed. He declined the accolades, saying he had reacted instinctively to save his own life and not the lives of others. The honesty of the young black man, named James Shaw jr., is refreshing to say the least.

I have not checked the statistics lately, but in my estimate, based on the news reports that I was not allowed to miss, most of the mass shooters in this country are young white men. The Las Vegas shooter was not young, but he made up for it by killing a bigger number of people than his younger counterparts.

Reactions to the shootings have been entirely predictable (pro-gun vs. anti-gun, the sanctity of the 2nd amendment, etc.) until the Valentine Day shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. For the first time we have heard Americans, mostly young Americans, question if the right to own a firearm is more important than the right to live. That question was always stifled in the past.


In Anderson's fairy tale, the courtiers fawn over a foolish king, "admiring" his invisible clothes, because to admit they can't see them would make them appear uninformed and unworthy of the king's company. Our courtiers fawn over the 2nd amendment even when privately they question its effects on today's society. 





Kids in Anderson's tale ridicule the naked king, making the adults finally acknowledge the obvious. Our kids today are shouting out what is clear for all to see: we are being massacred so that people who like powerful gadgets can obtain them, be they too young or insane. American students may have to shout a lot louder before the most powerful of our courtiers acknowledge the truth.

Meanwhile, Friday's report from Florida: One student was wounded at Forest High School in Ocala, Florida, the Marion County Sheriff’s Office said. The incident occurred shortly before students were to walk out as part of a national protest against gun violence. A resource officer, Deputy Jimmy Long, heard a loud bang at 8:39 a.m. and rushed to the scene........ One student was wounded ..... 19-year-old suspect was apprehended.

The news is neither weird nor horrible enough to earn anything more than local media attention.

*******

P.S. Worth noting: 

The National Rifle Association has announced that weapons will not be allowed when Vice President Mike Pence delivers keynote address at the NRA-Institute for Legislative Action's leadership forum in Dallas on Friday. The NRA says the ban was ordered by the U.S. Secret Service.

Matt Deitsch, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who helped organize the "March for Our Lives" protest, wrote on Twitter.

"Wait wait wait wait wait wait you're telling me to make the VP safe there aren't any weapons around but when it comes to children they want guns everywhere? Can someone explain this to me? Because it sounds like the NRA wants to protect people who help them sell guns, not kids."

Monday, October 12, 2015

Gun Culture As American As Apple Pie

In 1968, two prominent Americans fell victim to gun violence: Martin Luther King Jr. in April and two months later Robert F. Kennedy. The young senator from New York, whose brother President John F. Kennedy was gunned down less than five years before him, said the following words on the day after King's assassination:

"Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily – whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence, the whole nation is 
degraded.  Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike."



Robert Kennedy' Assassination, June 6, 1968, Los Angeles

Almost half a century later, President Barack Obama had a similar message for the nation following the killing of 10 people at a community college in Oregon.

"Earlier this year, I answered a question in an interview by saying, “The United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws -- even in the face of repeated mass killings.”  And later that day, there was a mass shooting at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana."  

After every one of the mass killings in American schools and other public places, President Obama has called for a tougher gun law.

"We know that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths. So the notion that gun laws don't work, or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens and criminals will still get their guns is not borne out by the evidence.  We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings.  Friends of ours, allies of ours -- Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours.  So we know there are ways to prevent it." 

I am not convinced. I am all for tougher gun laws, in fact I am for confiscating every privately owned gun in the United States and banning all gun sales. In a civilized society, people should not need guns "for protection" or for any other reason.  But we are not Australia or Great Britain. The United States is so profoundly steeped in the gun culture that it will take a lot more than tougher gun laws to slow the soaring spiral of killings.

As Kennedy said in that 1968 speech:

"We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire weapons and ammunition they desire."

And President Obama said a few days ago:  

"And what’s become routine, of course, is the response of those who oppose any kind of common-sense gun legislation.  Right now, I can imagine the press releases being cranked out:  We need more guns, they’ll argue.  Fewer gun safety laws."

I am more inclined to agree with Kennedy in saying, "I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set." 

But we have to make an effort to eradicate this evil, and getting the facts would be a good place to start.  Who are the perpetrators of mass shootings?  (not many women from what I can see)  What are their motives ( hatred? celebrity status? depression? weakness? isolation?) and what inspires them  (movies? computer games? love of gadgets?)  This is just some of the information we need to have. 

President Obama said:

"We spend over a trillion dollars, and pass countless laws, and devote entire agencies to preventing terrorist attacks on our soil, and rightfully so.  And yet, we have a Congress that explicitly blocks us from even collecting data on how we could potentially reduce gun deaths."


President Obama Speaks After Oregon Shooting

But lawmakers cannot block research by the independent think tanks, or reporting by the independent news media.  For example, American Enterprise Institute recently posted an article from the National Review which says that Protestants are more likely to commit suicide than Catholics and atheists are even more likely to commit suicide.  Researchers also have found a link between suicide and relation to a community.  

http://www.aei.org/publication/an-epidemic-of-loneliness/?utm_source=paramount&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AEITHISWEEK&utm_campaign=Weekly101015

Who knows what links would be discovered in a serious study of the inclination to shoot and kill large groups of people.  I would bet that relation to the community is a crucial factor.

We live in a culture that values material possessions, power and fame above all else.  One person having a place above others.  Ostensibly, our society still values honor, duty and loyalty, at least rhetorically, but most will agree that these qualities are obstacles on the road to what is considered "top" today.  To become rich, powerful and famous one has to be relentless, shameless and insensitive - "walk over dead bodies," so to speak.

But if we, citing Kennedy, "...admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of all, "  and if we  "admit in ourselves that our own children’s future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others,"  then maybe fewer people will feel the urge to kill their fellow human beings.

Promoting this kind of culture instead of over-emphasizing the "rights of an individual" at the expense of the society, including the right to carry a weapon that can kill a whole lot of people in seconds,  may go a long way to make any "tougher" gun laws more effective.  If as individuals we believe we are important members of a greater community that is our nation, then perhaps we will be less inclined to commit acts that degrade this nation.