guns

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Las Vegas

So we go through it all again.

We go through the constant call for prayers. The incessant search for reasons; the outpouring of emotion; the interviews; the graphics; the enumeration of mayhem; the grief of families; the interviews with experts; and the silence of the voices lost.

There are never, however, efforts to deal with the problem.

America is obsessed with guns. It adores them It worships them. It is sick with guns.

Blame it on the foolishness of the second amendment. Or, more pointedly, blame it on the truly stupid interpretation of that foolish amendment.

And blame it on a nation that clings stubbornly to the illusion that a few men a couple of hundred years ago would endorse the twisted version of their vision that the second amendment has become. They surely would not. They would move on, just as America today refuses to move on. The need for a well-armed militia is hardly relevant in today’s world. It is an artifact of history. Our contemporary problem is not the need for a militia, it is our need to rein in the gun lobbyists and the gun makers who peddle death.

Economics has a concept called “revealed preference”. Like it or not we can apply it to yesterday’s sickening violence. Because preferences are inscrutable to analysts — they are hidden within the minds of consumers — economists are forced to rely on what people actually purchase in order to define them. The assumption being that consumers reveal their preferences in their purchasing behavior. That there may be a million other causes for why people act as they do, but economists zero in own what they can measure. The immeasurable is ignored.

So: whenever there is a mass shooting in America, and 2017 has seen over two hundred so far [yes over two hundred]! voters reveal their preferences in their action or inaction with respect to guns. More specifically, legislators do. And the reviews are in: America is indifferent to gun violence.

This looks as if it contradicts the outpourings on the day of a massacre. But leave it a day or two. Listen for the reaction. Watch for the determination to clamp down on guns. Look for any evidence at all that the country wants to prevent future mayhem. Wait. You will be waiting for a very long time. America adores its guns more than it detests the violence. Revealed preference suggests that all the angst is just smoke. The real preference is for continued violence. No one actually does anything to restrict the flow of weaponry onto the streets.

So:

  • America has 29.7 murders using guns per million people. Switzerland is a distant second at 7.7.
  • There have been over 1,500 mass murders since the infamous sandy Hook massacre[about one per day]
  • Americans own over 42% of the non-military guns in the world, despite having only 4.5% of the world population.
  • States with stricter gun laws have fewer gun related deaths.
  • And even after a massacre the public doesn’t cry for gun control. Indeed the percentage of voters opposing gun control has edged up in recent years [perhaps due to white supremacists and their fear of a black man in the White House]?

So, don’t allow all this teary-eyed melodrama fool you: America will still love its guns tomorrow. America will remain the most violence-riddled  and violence-addicted of the advanced nations.

And there will be more massacres.

One more thing, if you think I am being callous or worse, remember this: after the Las Vegas slaughter survivors asked whether the shooter had been Muslim or a “regular guy”. Had he been Muslim we would have plunged down the terrorist rabbit hole and there would have been immediate calls for retribution and/or reaction, but he was a “regular guy”. So there is no need to react. After all, we all know that nothing can be done about a regular guy who owns an arsenal of offensive weaponry. No, nothing can be done about that. We all simply have to live with it.

Or die.

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Paris and Refugees

One more quick word:

How wrong is it to reduce or stop entirely our willingness to accommodate refugees fleeing from the middle east? The knee jerk reaction on the right has been to call for a total halt to that willingness. What a horrible and un-American reaction.

Since 9/11 America has steadily exhibited a cowardice and retreat from its values that defies its swagger on the international stage. It’s reaction to being attacked was to turn world bully and to corrupt those values by diluting the freedom of its own citizens and by engaging in arbitrary violence around the world.

Now this defeatist petulance has been given new life by the Paris attacks. We are being urged, once more, to close the borders. This time even to those who deserve and need out help.

Why?

Fear. We cower in fear. We shake with national cowardice.

Instead of standing up and proclaiming the worth of our values, and instead of defying terror with our relentless attachment to freedom, we surrender it quickly and hide behind the false wall of security. While I understand the need to be alert and to protect ourselves – obviously – this ought be balanced with a pride in what we are supposed to stand for.

And what is this?

Our belief in modernity which brings with it a bundle of values not found in the homelands of the terrorists. Tolerance. Openness. Freedom. Equality of citizenship. And all the other attributes that add to to what we call democracy.

This is crucial.

You will notice we are not defending or standing up for our economic system. We are standing up for something far more important: democracy.

But we aren’t are we? We are quivering behind the chair or in the basement. We are stocking up with guns so we can shoot at ghosts. We are afraid instead of defiant. We are supine instead of erect. We are terrorized instead of strong.

And this defeatism is reflected in the Republican calls to close the borders. This is in stark contrast the usual braggadocio and bombast we get from the right who are usually so trigger happy and willing to bomb our ‘enemies’ that they scarcely ever stop to think about the unintended consequences.

Like encouraging terrorists.

 

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One Word: Guns!

This is off topic, but really?

One of the defining characteristics of the modern Republican party is its gun worship.  Any time we have a major crime involving shooting – which is far too frequent for an erstwhile civilized country – somewhere one of the Republican candidates for the presidency will pop up and argue how it would all have been so different had the kids in the classroom or their teachers, or the bystanders elsewhere, been armed to the teeth.

Because that makes so much sense.

I have no idea where this obsession with violence came from. I imagine it must be American history.

It makes no sense at all. None.

It takes about two seconds, maybe less, to realize just how stupid the idea is. Imagine the scene in the cinema where a recent shooting took place. The crazy gunman enters intent on mayhem. Do we seriously think that someone that deranged and irrational will suddenly stop at the door and turn away because of the possibility that someone inside has a gun on them?

Of course not.

The more probable outcome would be even more chaos and greater loss of life.

Why?

Because the kind of person who walks around with a gun is also someone who is inclined to use it. They are predisposed to violence. Why else own a gun? Even if they proclaim it is in self-defense, their predilection is clear: violence has to be met with counter-violence. What other calculus is there for owning a gun? After all, guns have one purpose: to do harm. So even by owning one you have declared your willingness to do harm. Any other reason you may come up with quickly resolves to this same answer: gun owners have declared their willingness to do harm.

So, what these crazy people who advocate greater gun ownership are really arguing is that they would encourage shoot-out justice. Like the wild west of yore.

This has always been true, but why are we afflicted with gun disease in particular presently?

Paranoia. Fear. Racism. And more fear.

Owning a gun to defend your home – think about the fear embedded in that statement – has been shown to be ineffective. It doesn’t stop crime and instead increases mightily your chance of doing self-harm via an accident.

Owning a gun in public is even more absurd. Think about it. Are you going to engage in a gunfight at the local mall? The local bar? In the classroom full of kids? No, you’re not. And if you are, then you are a potential criminal. What happens if you shoot the ‘wrong’ person? How do you know who to shoot? Would you be able to react properly? No. Of course you wouldn’t. As we know from the spate of police shootings here even the people we train to know what to do often screw it up. So why would an average gun-nut be better? They wouldn’t.

Then there’s the American urge to export its gun mania. This is even more parochial and stupid. Most countries have grown up beyond gun obsession.

Take Donald Trump. Please. His answer to the horrible terrorism in Paris is simply to say that if the people at the concert had guns it wouldn’t have happened.

As if terrorists would be put off by the thought of concert-goers armed to the teeth. These terrorists we looking for death and to cause the greatest harm along the way. What better way for them to go down but by taking a whole lot of gun toting concert-goers in a massive bloodbath of a shoot-out?

The whole idea is so ridiculous that it scarcely requires comment.

Except in America it has strong political traction on the right. Which is testimony to the depth to which American culture can descend sometimes. America has an exceptional attachment to violence. Which when stoked by demagogues and fear mongering can erupt into a very ugly and dangerous social cancer.

Exceptional indeed. An embarrassment certainly. And so few politicians want to stand up against it. So, instead, we have one word to say in times of crisis: guns!