By J.B.Browne
"Guns don't kill people; blood loss and organ damage do" is a well-known shadow slogan used by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other pro-gun activists. This view suggests that the weapon type does matter as an assailant who is determined to kill will acquire the necessary firepower to accomplish these goals. Whether the victim or victims live or die reflects the shooter's intent and, more specifically, their determination to kill.
Pardon this momentary lapse of buffoonery (*exasperated*). The actual NRA slogan is "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." But I think the guns help.
There are some severe problems within American society—things that would shock anyone from the outside looking in. And since we're now all of an information age glued to world drama 24/7, some civilizational symptoms appear to bleed deeper than others. And it's evident out here on the precipice that US mass shootings are a symptom of a very sick society.
The tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Texas shocked and didn't shock the world. Mass shootings in America have become commonplace. When one happens, we collectively recoil in horror as we shrug it off as a regular occurrence that will likely happen again. Soon.
Thirty-eight people were shot in Uvalde County last Tuesday, making the massacre Texas' deadliest school shooting ever. Nineteen children and two teachers have reportedly died at the elementary school. Further reports suggest seventeen people have been seriously wounded.
The police response is being criticized already but what is not being asked is why it keeps happening only in America?
Here's an unpopular opinion: Americans are ordinary people like everyone else on this rare blue dot. But they live in a society that treats morality and religion like poison sprinkled with extremities of personal happiness and hedonistic values. The more individualistic a society, the more its inhabitants worship themselves for and within these pursuits. Perhaps this causes a rampant avoidance of dealing with the responsibility of the consequences of those actions. This is a sort of self-owned humiliation within a culture that knows no self-reflection to deal with the curdling embarrassments of tragedies like these, either at home or abroad, seemingly on a loop of endless denial.
America is the only country globally with a higher civilian gun ownership ratio to owners, with 120.6 guns per 100 civilians. That means ease of access to firearms is too easy. In Ulvede, Salvador Ramos, the shooter, legally purchased two AR platform rifles shortly after his eighteenth birthday.
Just. Like That.
But of course, when US mass shootings occur, our collective humanist hearts bleed for the often young innocents involved. There's something wrong with picking off the petals of a flower coming into bloom. So much is taken before it ever realizes its full potential. There isn't any rational thinking that can comprehend Uvalde in any satisfying way. No doubt, the media will yet again blame a "loner" who was "mentally ill" with "issues." Still, the leaden core of why America bleeds goes right back to its very founding. America has the stench of mass death coursing through its veins because it was founded on blood.
The largest mass shooting in US history occurred on December 29, 1890, at Wounded Knee Creek on the South Dakotan Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. 297 Sioux Indians were brutally executed by the 7th Cavalry and federal agents who came to *confiscate* their firearms for their own safety and protection. The deadliest mass shooting in US history occurred on October 1, 2017, at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, when 60 people were murdered and 411 injured. Each incident involved the senseless slaughter of fleshy human beings, people with the same aspirations as you or I, the same yearning for connection, the same quest for meaning, and the same dreams we dream on this brittle plane we call existence.
Yet now, the conversation predictably loops back round to sputterings of #GunControlNow. At the same time, the US government preaches sweet nothings about #HumanRights in distant lands when their own students are victims of free will slaughter. Did Ramos have mental issues? Obviously. But he had access to US firearms—that blood drips from the starched white shirts of federal and state power.
But what is immensely shocking to me and others on the precipice looking in is the complete tone-deaf nature of a society that will not open the conversation towards a complete reformation of gun laws. It's discussed, but the lobbying sector for the protection of the Second Amendment is basically all of having guns is our national identity levels of pride.
"Our guns are like you British having your tea," I remember a cowboy once said in a BBC documentary.
Other countries have had mass shootings throughout history. But then their respective governments did something about it. In 1987 a gunman in Britain killed 16 people, and the government immediately banned semiautomatic rifles. Similarly, the 1996 Dunblane school massacre led to stricter gun laws with pistols in the UK. I've lived in the UK and China, and I've never felt the shadow threat of someone crazy enough to acquire firearms to kill me or others en masse. It's just not something that enters your computational awareness when you live in those places. Bad people exist, but they don't have access to weapons of mass destruction. They might have to stab you in close proximity, testing their mettle and offering you a better chance to fend them off for survival. Guns are for cowards. There are always more cowards.
Now, close your eyes. Imagine if this had been a foreign terrorist attack. The US would likely engage that person's entire country in retaliation. Instead, the US rages on social media, finding blame in all the dark corners of a room with a pink elephant-sized balloon floating up the middle. Meanwhile, out on the edge of the precipice, we bend as far forward as possible, bracing ourselves for the next one.
Here's the new NRA slogan: "Guns don't kill people; people kill people with guns."
Because they can.
As he would refer himself, J.B. Browne is a half "foreign devil" living with anxiety relieved by purchase. HK-born Writer/Musician/Tinkerer.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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