Now Is Not the Time

Chauncey DeVega observes that white male mass shooters are treated differently.

There will be no "national conversation" about the connection between toxic (white) masculinity and American gun culture. In the mainstream news media and broader public discourse there certainly will be no discussion of the fact that white men are 31 percent of the population but commit 63 percent of mass shootings. Such a fact is forbidden or explosive, because it connects race, gender, guns and death.

And the gun advocates just never get tired of repeating the same old bullshit platitudes.

America's addiction to guns will continue unabated even as it kills tens of thousands of people a year. Somehow the gun fetishists like Bill O'Reilly will mouth such absurdities as "guns are the price of freedom" without soiling themselves from uncontrollable laughter.

The mass shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday night is the 273rd such event in America so far this year. It will not be the last. When the next mass shooting occurs I might just as well take this article and update it. The facts will likely not be much different. America is addicted to guns. The sickness will not be cured until, like an alcoholic or an opioid addict, the country admits it has hit rock bottom.

Update (October 12):  Robert Parry explains the Second Amendment.

To pretend that such carnage was the intent of the Constitution’s Framers, who wrote about achieving “domestic Tranquility,” or the goal of the First Congress, which drafted the Second Amendment to promote “the security of a free State,” is intellectually dishonest and a true threat to the lives of American citizens.

Update (November 12):  Harriet Fraad and Richard Wolff write about alienation and violence.

One out of four Americans has no one to talk to even in the worst emergencies. Most of those people are men. For deeply disconnected and resentful men, social norms can fade; angry shooting at random others becomes possible. This is an especially American phenomenon. In 2017 so far, we have had 152 mass shootings. No other developed nation has had anything remotely like that. Why? One reason is that all other developed nations have gun controls and none have an unchecked gun industry that relentlessly equates guns with manhood. Another reason is that other developed nations have powerful unions and political movements that direct people’s anger about the pain in their lives toward its social causes and especially the inequality and instability of capitalist systems. They connect people to change those social and economic conditions together.

Update (December 16):  Ed Asner and Ed Weinberger argue that the U.S. was founded with gun control in mind.

Here is Madison’s first draft of the Second Amendment:

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, a well-armed and well-regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.”

Madison’s intent could not be more obvious: his Second Amendment refers only to state militias. If not, why include that exemption for what we now call “conscientious objectors?”

Update (February 14, 2018):  Meanwhile, I feel guilty for wanting to avoid an all-to-familiar headline.

Update (February 15, 2018):  These shootings must be hard on Republicans. Imagine having to go through the anguish over and over again of pretending to give a shit.

Update (February 19, 2018):  Matthew Sheffield explains why nothing changes.