Mass killings won’t end in the United States anytime soon, if ever. I’m afraid we’ll just have to accept them as a fact of life and get used to them as we have deaths from car accidents, viruses, overdoses, and alcohol-fueled violence.
Americans will not ban cars. Americans will not ban alcohol. Americans will not ban guns. We will not make those sacrifices. We will not sacrifice our right to mobility, to intoxication, or to bear arms. Instead we will occasionally sacrifice some of our own people. It’s just another trade-off.
Ancient mythic stories tell of fathers who sacrificed a child to gain favor with a certain god or to gain favorable winds on the sea or to win a battle. Appeasing the sacred by making a sacrifice is nothing new. For the sake of some (allegedly) higher value, people have always rationalized the killing of innocents.
In America, the Second Amendment is sacred. Unfortunately, religious fanatics don’t negotiate, not even when children die for their right to bear arms. I guess they believe that’s just the price of freedom.
I recently read the biography of Genghis Kahn, a history of Poland, and a history of several Eurasian empires. The Poles were systematically slaughtered by Mongols, Russians, and Swedes. (Yes, Swedes.) The Poles, in turn, retaliated with massacres of their own. The Chinese massacred their neighbors, who in turn retaliated. In the Americas, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, and British colonizers slaughtered indigenous peoples, who, before the Europeans arrived, had massacred their own neighbors.
Mass killings may be news these days, but they are not new. Only the weapons are new. Genghis Kahn wielded a sword, not an AR-15. Weaponry has evolved. Human nature, not so much.
Most people are sane and good. But there have always been a few in every time and place who aren’t.
The United States has no more crazed people per capita than any other nation. But the United States has more privately owned guns per capita than any other nation. By far! Yes, mental health is an issue. But it is not the issue.
I once was optimistic. No longer. I don’t see any evidence from lawmakers, judiciaries, or Second Amendment zealots that this scourge will be checked anytime soon.
It’s an inconvenient truth.
I hope I’m wrong.
Please, if you can, give me reasons to be optimistic again.
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See Paula’s new photo on the home page. Posted May 22
Those of us who believe in gun regulation should make this a single issue voting issue. Whatever else a candidate says they will or will not do should be disregarded and only those that pledge to impose stricter gun control should be elected. This is how the pro-life crowd moved one issue, abortion, to the position it stands now. Despite the majority of people supporting pro choice rights, we now have a majority of representatives that don’t. The right has made abortion a single issue litmus test. My brother-in-law agrees with me on all political issues except one: abortion rights. He always votes for the person who vows to end abortions, no matter their stand on any other issue. We never vote for the same person. We all need to be single issue voters until this terrible problem is dealt with. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Thank you, Rosemary. A thoughtful and powerful response. I concur.
Optimism for the USA to act reasonably to increase gun safety and decrease gun violence, at this point in its story- no.
But majorities favor gun safety measures, as well as safe legal abortions, fair elections, and climate change action. That majority, in my estimation of human nature, won’t tolerate being dumped on forever. If problems can’t be solved at the national level, there are other options.
We here in the Maritime States of New England look back with great nostalgia on the good ole’ USA. Yet we’ve never regretted our decision. Since secession in 2033, gun violence has dropped in our region, carbon emissions have been halved, and applications for citizenship are pouring in.
Two points. One: The 2nd Amendment was not written originally as we now have it. It was changed to what we have today in order for slave states to maintain their armed slave patrols. In particular, Virginia would not sign on to the “United States” without such a change, and without Virginia’s vote there would be no United States. I would argue that many of our politicians have a perverted understanding of the 2nd Amendment. I suspect the founding fathers would be appalled at civilians having access to assault weapons and high capacity magazines.
Two: I find it highly ironic that many Republican politicians claim to be pro-life but refuse to ban assault weapons, which are killing so many of us. No other advanced country allows civilians to purchase assault weapons, and no other country has 40K+ gun deaths per year. But then, so many politicians are the paid toadies of the NRA and the gun manufacturers, and power, perks, and money trump the lives of mere constituents.
As I read this day’s post it occurred to me that the mass killings you mentioned from your reading are different from what is occurring today in some instances. The ability of humans to recast another group as lesser or not as worthy or different (read scary, threatening ?) has lead to all manner of atrocities. Someone always wants to b on top or have all the goodies. The shootings in Buffalo were like these. But I have trouble with Uvalde, Tennessee, Iowa. These seem less motivated by some desire to be top dog and more deadly instances where guns allowed an individual to “solve” a perceived problem. Problems with self image, a former boss or coworker, a doctor. We own guns. some have family history. sometimes we hunt. but we don’t own anything automatic. AR 15 s and their ilk exist to kill … mostly people.
Lots of hard, heavy truth in this piece.
We are called to be peace makers raising our voices like the prophets, bringing the Good News of deliverance. Some never see their work succeed,but all the work succeeds. There couldn’t be a Dr. King without E.D. Nixon of the railroad porters union, no Cesar Chavez absent Fred Ross and Dolores Huerta. Our work becomes part of the culture, doing good does feel good. Struggle is its own value.
Sorry to be preachy.
I hope you’re wrong too, but I’m very dubious! The whole modern concept of “the right to bear arms” is a foolish corruption of the 2nd Amendment, which includes the concept of “a well-regulated militia,” not solo crazies with weapons of war and gun magazines that the heroes of Concord would not have been able even to conceive of.
After Sandy Hook, and nothing happened, I had to admit, “Guns have won.” Resigned? Yes. Elected representatives and judges who call themselves, “Strict Constructionists,” speak with “forked tongues.” Where in the entire 27 words of the 2nd Amendment is there any reference to individual citizens owning military-style assault weapons? At the time of drafting and ratification of The Constitution the United States didn’t have a standing army. The inherent power represented by a standing, professional force was seen as a potentially growing power that represented too great a risk for a newly formed nation that was still experiencing, as we are today, growing pains. Besides, as noted by one commenter, southern states were determined to have armed patrols in order to protect themselves from an expanding slave population. The same was true for westward expansion and suppressing native populations that weren’t exactly warm to the idea of European descended interlopers taking their tribal territory and telling them that they had to change their life-styles. However, ” well ordered militias,” as mentioned in The 2nd Amendment, were soon found not so well ordered nor necessarily efficient at accomplishing their missions.
So when you hear someone claiming the mantle of “strict constructionism,” go ahead and laugh at them. There’s no need to be polite. Also keep in mind that hypocrisy doesn’t appear to give those who now pretend to be “conservatives” any pause. There are no echos in their echo chambers, and certainly no contradiction or embarrassed cringing of pretension. Any nation that stands idly by and permits the wholesale slaughter of its children has no future. As the old adage goes: “Keep your head down and your powder dry!”
During the then ongoing Vietnam war, Thich Nhat Hanh was asked by one of his students, “Will the war ever end?” His response was succinct: “Everything is impermanent, including the war.” It became impermanent because millions of voices were raised to stop it. The same is true with the mass killings. After all, 90 percent of the American public want common sense gun regulations, including the majority of gun owners. By voting out Republicans and others who are blocking progress, we can make a difference and the end of massacres become a reality. At least that will be one step in the right direction. Craig Etchison’s assessment of the 2nd amendment is spot on and, while it might be considered “sacred” by some, even more so is “the common welfare” and “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The only thing I know for certain is that change will happen – it always has, and always will. Sometimes it is for the worse; sometimes for the better. I continue to pray for lite to be shed into dark places; for truth to shine that provides clarity; for the lost to be found; for the blind to see; for love to be stronger than hate; and for healing – one heart, one mind, one moment at a time.
So much being stirred up all at once is no accident – it dilutes, disturbs and makes it easier for autocratic “leaders” to argue “I alone can fix it”.
Such powerful and thot provoking sharings here… keep me going – thank you.
It is we, the people, who have the real power… when we resist the lies, the obstruction, the absurdities – we say no…and say yes at the ballot box.
No easy task, no easy answer, no quick fix; but this experiment isn’t over yet… and as a very wise guy used to remind us: “Heaven only knows how it will all turn out”.
I always learn a lot from the excellent comments and responses to your weekly blogs
I am more hopeful. Unfortunately, I think the gop resisters in the past will now “compromise” and pass some new change as the majority of Americans want gun safety reform…another political move. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our reps actually cared about our children and educators rather than their own political power? That won’t change unfortunately.
As you and others have noted, it’s all been said before; yet there’s still no action. How much longer will we sacrifice young and older innocent lives for the sick joy of one given access to weapons of mass murder.
When Abraham offered Isaac his faith was being tested. My faith is being tested now in those which have the power to stop the sacrifices.
Here’s my glimmer of hope: I am old enough (and so are you) to remember a time when some half-baked lunatic fringe politician proposed banning smoking on airplanes. Never gonna happen. Yet here we are.
Rachel believes that the main hope for the future is the generation of active shooter drills growing up and going into politics with a fundamentally different view of this trade-off, having experienced the downsides of it in a way that those of us 40+ barely did. Maybe similar to how the Cold War experience of folks who had to practice duck-under-the-desk drills is lost on folks my age. That’s a thought that gives me hope.
Accepting mass shootings as part of daily life is what we’ve been doing because it’s been happening for decades now. What needs to happen is disbanding the NRA and evaporate their enormous lobbying power in Congress. An 18 year-old who can’t even go in a bar and buy a beer shouldn’t be able to buy a semi-automatic assault weapon. There are so many legal loopholes, etc. that can be tightened up to address this problem. Simply throwing our hands in the air like it’s inevitable that our elementary schools and grocery stores are forever targets feels apathetic. Keep up the good fight!
Overwhelmingly, Americans favor gun restrictions, and higher minimum wage and access to abortion and other sane positions. 70-year-old white men should be shamed out of office. Matthew McConaughey’s words were the right ones.
It was during Obama’s first term that same-sex marriage seemed impossible, so much so that Obama wouldn’t quickly endorse it. And then, really, overnight it happened! Please don’t say get used to children being gunned down. The last time I felt I needed to do something was attempting to talk friends into going to border towns in Texas to sit and protest immigrant children being put in holding cells, never to be emotionally healthy again their whole lives. And then, of course, after 5 minutes of knowing it was necessary to go, I didn’t go. It has become easy to read the same damn accounts of brutal deaths and do nothing, and then they come so often we are inured to the horror. But there are instances when we collectively have managed to do better. This is one to fight.
Sadly, you are right.
I foresee the day when all these 3 stories get the same 60-sec news coverage:
Ten children died when tornado struck elementary school.
Ten children died when truck slammed into school bus.
Ten children died at school when shot with AR-15 by deranged gunman.