The thing I find most disturbing about the recent news of two mass shootings in a matter of hours, is that I feel nothing inside. These tragedies have been repeated so many times in different combinations and for so many different motives, they barely register anymore...and that is really, really sad. In an of itself, that is a sad commentary on where we're at as a society, because I know I'm not alone in my reaction. The other thing I've become completely desensitized to is the ginned-up outrage that occurs after almost every one of these incidents. The same talking points come up every single time - about the etiology of these tragedies, about how we should ban this gun, or that accessory, or that gun, and on and on. The needle moves slowly over time (maybe?), but the tragedies keep happening, year after year after year.
And yet, I'll go there, I'll bite one more time: I don't think guns are the issue. Many states around the country have very strict gun control laws. California, in particular, has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation, and yet they haven't been immune to this sort of thing. No, I think the true root of this stuff, is something far more insidious, and something very difficult to reverse. No one wants to hear that though - because things that are hard to do take serious effort over long periods of time. Some issues are so deep, they cannot be fixed...and I fear that mass shootings in America may be one of those things that doesn't have a solution.
Some of the first widely covered incidents of mass gun violence in our country were the school shootings in the '90s. Columbine, in particular. My argument is that incidents like that (which was, in an of itself an attempt to emulate Waco and the OK City bombing) created a template which has now been used over and over, so many times now that it is the standard for the unhinged in our society when it comes to making some point, be it racial, political, or sociological. It gets a predictable reaction and really, that reaction is what ensures that these episode of mass gun violence will continue. In other words, it's not the guns, or access to guns, that ensures that these things will keep happening, it's the coverage that these incidents get.
I've seen a few folks in the media talk about this - they talk about not publishing the shooter's name and suppressing any coverage about their background...but obviously that hasn't been seriously attempted. Even if it were, in many cases, these shooters have killed themselves (or been killed) and therefore wouldn't live to know whether their name was published or not. It's all a delusion of theirs anyway.
With that being said, what cannot be underestimated in these incidents, is the desire of the shooter (very commonly) to have some degree of notoriety. Dave Cullen, of the FBIs lead investigators for the Columbine School Shooting, talked in his authoritative book on the those vents about how Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were fascinated with having this macabre legacy - that they were going to "out-do Timothy McVeigh". Look at the news that comes out about these people afterward (again, speaking broadly): so-and-so had ranted on Facebook, or they left some sort of manifesto behind or they were out-spoken on ____.
Recently, folks have been quick to try and place political blame, attempting to tie these shooters to people or ideologies on the Left or the Right. Any beneath-the-surface analysis of this and that whole line of thought quickly falls apart. Take the shootings in El Paso and Dayton last weekend for example - the shooter in El Paso identified as Republican (by all accounts) and the shooter in Dayton identified as Democrat (again, by all accounts). The pipe bomber from Florida was a self-proclaimed "Bernie Bro" and the guy who shot up the Congressional softball game was a Democrat. Politically, there is no determining factor in who these people end up being. They are mentally unhinged folks who have watched the news over the past 20 years, who have seen the kind of press and reaction that these incidents get and they have come to the conclusion that this is the way to make their voice heard. This is the root of the problem - that someone would become fixated on making their voice heard in this way.
Look, these are my thoughts on this issue, obviously this is a very complex topic. It's not just ONE thing. There are certainly common sense gun laws that could be enacted to try and help, but in the end, new laws alone aren't going to stop this stuff from happening. What we need is a multi-faceted approach that is willing to take an honest look at all of the contributing factors - mental-health, the role of the media, our cultural attitudes about guns, our cultural attitudes about life itself, etc. If we, as a people, truly want to stop this stuff from happening, we have to be willing to work together and actually put in hard work, not just regurgitate some tired talking point. Even if we do th
If you're interested in the perspective of others who have thoroughly considered this scourge on America and who have thoughtfully put 'pen to paper', might I humbly suggest reading the following two pieces, plus a third bonus article because, David Foster Wallace:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/youngfogey/2019/08/the-boys-are-not-all-right/
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/gun-control-republicans-consider-gvro/
Doesn't necessarily directly tie to the epidemic of gun violence, but is a great thought-provoking article on the cost of "freedom, by David Foster Wallace: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/just-asking/306288/
As if on command, an article on NPR this morning, about the "contagiousness of mass shootings", highlighting how intensive media coverage contributes to the perpetuation of these incidents: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/08/06/748767807/mass-shootings-can-be-contagious-research-shows
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