A sacrifice to the blood-soaked pedestal erected around the 2nd Amendment.
The Pulitizer prize-winning British newspaper, The Guardian, observed that, "Mass shootings have become a banal fact of death in America." Further, it reported the appalling fact that in the US, "Last year there were 283 incidents in which four or more people were shot." And yet, here we are again.
Republican presidential candidates say, ludicrously, that it was an attack on religion. Some in the NRA blamed the preacher, Reverend Pinckney, because he opposed a bill that would allow "open carry" everywhere, including churches and schools. Like Sandy Hook. Oh, right, if only we armed ministers and first grade teachers. Some will say, as they did about Adam Lanza, that this insanity of mass shootings is caused by crazy people. Just as some will attribute the killings at the Mother Emanuel AME Church to racism. Well, yes, there is racism and craziness as motivating factors. But as the Guardian observed, in the US, "what makes racism [and insanity] so lethal is the ease with which people can acquire guns." To paraphrase James Carville on the economy in the 1992 Clinton campaign, now, "It's the guns, stupid."
Columbine. Nothing happened. Virginia Tech - 32 killed and many more wounded. Nothing happened. Aurora, Colorado movie theater -- 12 people killed and 58 wounded. Nothing. Nada. At Fort Hood, 13 people were killed and 32 wounded. It would be funny if it were not so tragic -- so much for the assertion that environments where people can carry guns are safer. But again, nothing. The litany goes on: Sandy Hook Elementary School, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, and the Washington Navy Yard. How much slaughter will be enough?
The FBI released a report that covered "Active Shooter Incidents" between 2000 and 2013. It examined 160 incidents during this period. It found what should be horrifying and galvanizing results. First, active shooter incidents are becoming more common, with nearly one incident a month by 2013. Second, the carnage is stunning. In just these cases, there were a total of 1,043 casualties: 486 killed and another 557 wounded—excluding the shooters.
But it continues. I looked at 2014 mass shooting incidents, gathered from newspaper accounts. Here are some: 16 killed, 4 wounded in Kileen, TX; 6 killed in Cobb County, GA; 4 killed, 4 wounded in Jonesboro, AR; 8 killed, 4 injured in Santa Barbara, CA; 8 killed in New Orleans, LA; 7 in Antioch, CA; 9 in Minneapolis, MN; 7 in Miami, 7 in Broad Ripple, IN; 5 in Chester Township. PA; 15 in Miami, FL. And the killing went on.
And what has happened? After 20 children and 6 adults were slaughtered in a grade school, some states strengthened their laws aimed at promoting gun safety. But other states responded with chilling policies that make it easier to get and carry guns -- anywhere, anytime. And that bastion of American democracy -- the Congress? Well, it defeated proposals to ban assault weapons (semi-automatic weapons modeled after military assault weapons) and refused to expand background checks for firearm purchases.
I taught at a major university in a School of Public Health. Want to know why some of my students thought bans on assault weapons and extended magazines should be defeated? Because using those is "fun." And certainly "fun" at the shooting range is more important than the lives of 20 little children. Or, just as "Joe the Plumber" asserted to parents after the Santa Barbara shootings in 2014, "...As harsh as this sounds, your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights." So, add those inanities to the political clout of the fear-mongering NRA, and there you have it. America does virtually nothing. "It's the guns, stupid."
Well, The Guardian appears to have it right when it comes to the Charleston Emanuel AME shooting and all the others. "So these nine victims will join those who perished before them – a sacrifice to the blood-soaked pedestal erected around the constitution’s second amendment that gun lobbyists say guarantees the right of individuals to bear arms. Where guns are concerned, this is what passes for American exceptionalism – an 18th century compromise with fatal 21st century ramifications."
The Guardian story: http://www.theguardian.com/....
The FBI report: https://www.fbi.gov/....
Mass shootings in 2014: http://shootingtracker.com/...