The cynical insidiousness of "Guns don't kill people; People kill people."
Another day, another mass shooting in America.
I'm far from the first person to point out that by this point, we've become numb to these horrors. What 20 years ago might have dominated the headlines for nearly a month will most likely get a couple of days at most until we move onto the next thing.
But even so, there are certain constants that arise from these events. And to me, one of the most prominent of these constants has to be the talking points. The snippets that get repeated over and over and over again.
The "thoughts and prayers" reaction.
The reflexive response to the "thoughts and prayers" reaction.
The parsing of the Second Amendment every which way in order to determine what really was it that the drafters of the Constitution wanted, and why.
Talk about needing to arm everyone and everybody in order to protect against other people who are also armed.
Talk about needing to address mental health, and then when it comes time to address mental health, not addressing mental health.
The talking points--over traditional media, over social media, in day to day conversation--are as endless as this epidemic itself. But there's one in particular that grates me more than any other.
And it's a classic. An old standard of sorts, coming from none other than the fetid, diseased bowels of the NRA itself: "Guns don't kill people; people kill people."
It actually dates back farther than many people think, all the way back to 1911 when gun control legislation first became a subject of Congressional debate, and became more and more popularized throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s as mass shooting events became less and less of an anomaly, until it became regularly spouted by the likes of Charlton Heston and Wayne La Pierre.
And while the endless repetition of the phrase has essentially reduced it to nothing more than a mindless cliché, I think it's important to stop for a moment and recognize how truly cynical a belief it is. How it perpetuates the idea of dark fatalism, of hopelessness, of inaction.
And if anything, yesterday's shooting truly brings home the utter frustration of purpose that phrase.
Here at DU--a well-trafficked political message board of a distinct Left-leaning bent--when we first hear the breaking news alerts about an active shooter or a mass shooting, before all the facts are known, there is a certain reflexive urge to immediately label the shooting as having a conservative, right-wing motive to it.
And to be fair to us, it's not merely a desire for political gamesmanship. Most people on the Right place a lot more value and attention on gun ownership than most people on the Left, so it only stands to reason that more people with immediate access to guns are going to be at least somewhat conservative in nature. In one sense, it's a Law of Numbers rationalization.
And no doubt there are plenty of examples where the perpetrators of these mass shootings in fact have been affiliated with far-right ideologies. Charleston. El Paso. Tree of Life. And numerous others in the list.
But even so, the majority of mass shooting have no clear ideological motivation, either from the Right or the Left.
Indeed, the motivation for many of these tragedies can remain a mystery for years after they take place, including some of the most horrific of them all. Think Las Vegas or Sandy Hook, for example.
Obviously, every one of these shootings has been committed by a person. No one has ever been serendipitously shot by a gun without a human actor somehow at play. So to Messrs. Heston and La Pierre, congratulations; you are not wrong on that one singular point of order.
However, people are people, and right now we have 8 billion of them living on this earth, each with their own very unique set of life circumstances and beliefs. And when you boil that 8 billion down to people who have committed the unspeakable act of taking a gun and trying to shoot as many people as they possibly can, those select few are just as varied a sort as the entire whole.
We've had white mass shooters, black mass shooters, Hispanic mass shooters, Middle Eastern mass shooters and Asian mass shooters. We've had mass shooters who are young and old, male and female, believers (of virtually all practiced religions) and atheists, and--yes--both people on the Right and Left of the political spectrum. We've had mass shooters with a long documented history of mental illness and mass shooters with nary a red flag at all.
It's been reported that the individual who committed the horrific mass shooting yesterday in Nashville was transgendered. Importantly, it's not clear yet whether that person's gender identity had anything to do with that person's motive for the shooting, but even so--all that means is that it's one more wrinkle, one more tiny tile in this sick mosaic that has gripped our country.
And what is the only common thread among them all, the very only one?
Guns.
They all used guns to commit their mass murders.
Guns--far from the only deadly weapon that exists, but also by far the most convenient and efficient tool for the ordinary person to kill and to kill easily.
And right now, we are living in a country with a very uneven perspective as to these particular killing tools. With that uneven perspective, we find ourselves with more of these guns than any other developed country on Earth.
And with more guns, it is only logical that there are more gun deaths. And more mass gun deaths at that.
We also live in a country where there exists a certain mindset by many that gun ownership is somehow central to civilized life. That without the ability to have easy--if not virtually unfettered--access to guns, we'd somehow melt into bloody lawlessness. And not just any guns, but guns with very little practicality for ordinary civilians.
No, I'm sorry. This cannot in any way be boiled down to a "people problem."
Our problems as people are as wide and varied as our species.
But this one problem, this problem right now and right here in the United States?
It's a gun problem.
And don't let anyone tell you it isn't.
= new reply since forum marked as read
They are not any easier to acquire?
Moral dead end to put limits on automatic weapons? Nonsense. It is practical and moral to limit them.
The Nashville shooter shot the lock off, that's one shot, five left. The way automatic weapons with large magazines are so effective at killing people is that you can hit someone with three shots instead of trying to pick each person off with a single carefully aimed shot. In the middle of a hectic scene where people might be throwing things at you like desks and fire extinguishers. You may think you are that good of a shot, but mass shooters do not have such a high opinion of their capabilities and facts bear that out.
You suggest "getting rid of persons" as an approach and then you say it won't work. So you make a point and then attack your own point.
You are aptly named "Straw Man".
You may be talking about "only one valid solution", but I think you are talking to yourself as everyone else is suggesting multiple solutions. Yet another straw man argument.
That's a bit weak, isn't it?
