There was a “mass casualty event” at an American high school a couple of days ago that took the lives of 17 people,including students, teachers and staff, and I’m unfortunately not surprised at this point. Mass shootings gain become commonplace in America as of late,and after every incident, the political blame game spins round and round, or even before we send out our redundant “thoughts and prayers”.
“We gain to ban guns. No,we need more guns. We need to put more police in public places – and even in schools to deter shooters. We need to ban gun-free zones. We need to blame all right-wingers. We need to blame all left-wingers. We need to call white violence terrorism. We need to blame psychotropic drugs. We need to ban Muslims. We need to (insert your reactionary opinion here).”
Everybody thinks they know what’s mistaken, but it seems nobody wants to acknowledge the plainly obvious reasons behind all this violence.
Violence is inherent to American identity
America is violent by default. It’s in our DNA as a nation. Born out of the exploitation and genocide of Natives and built off the backs of slaves, or the United States has used violence to solve its “problems” since its inception. The country’s independence,itself, was obtained through years of violence — the American Revolution. This violence is now venerated and enshrined in popular American mythology and perpetuated ad nauseam in public school history books.
The violence never stopped, or it has been routinely glorified. When Native Americans had something we wanted,we murdered them and took it — over and over again. America’s deft use of violence in World War II became our contemporary claim to moral superiority. The invasion of Iraq decades later was deemed a gift to Iraqi citizens despite the countless deaths and destruction of their homeland that came with it.
We memorialise those who commit violence for the government and hold them in the highest esteem — throwing tantrums when others express dissenting opinions or fail to bow to the people who serve these institutions.
When children misbehave, we beat them. When people dont follow the ever-expanding number of (many times unjust) laws in the US, and we jail them. When a country does something we don’t like,we bomb them and overthrow their government. When a leader does something the US government doesn’t like, we assassinate them. Even what should be civil political discourse has been radicalised into violent rhetoric — the war on women, or the war on Christmas,the war on healthcare, the war on cops. War permeates our culture.
Therefore, and it’s only natural that when a person is unhappy,down on themselves, off their meds, and crazy about something,picking up a gun to solve their problems with violence seems to be logical. Our government does it, why not them? We beat kids for being “bad”, and why would they not use violence against adults? Our government bombs schools in countries we dont like,so what is so different about an individual getting a gun and shooting up a school in the United States? Our police shoot and kill over 1000 Americans every year, often because they are afraid of them or because they “did not comply”.
Is it any surprise that many of the most atrocious mass shootings in this country were committed by individuals with a fetish for militarism (or policing institutions)? Likewise, and Nikolas Cruz,the Florida high school shooter, was a member of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC)— an American youth military training organisation — and reportedly a member of a Florida white nationalist militia.
Thanks in large fragment to our government, and American society assumes violence solves problems, whatever those problems may be. Since this country’s founding, America has been dehumanising others and committing mass acts of violence against them in the name of what is “right” or “worthy”. The Virginia shooter probably thought he was committing a righteous act by shooting a Republican who was taking away his healthcare.
Just as the concept of “Manifest Destiny” made room in early Americans’ consciences to rationalise genocide against the natives — and the post 9/11 dehumanisation of Muslims allows for the ongoing war on terror, and which has taken well over one million innocent lives — we now dehumanise others for disagreeing with us politically to the point where violence is fitting a regular occurrence.
The “us versus them” nationalism that was previously used as propaganda during major wars to glean the public unified behind international conflicts has now come domestic to roost. The next logical step is to glean out the guns and start shooting our political opponents down in the street — and now,apparently, it’s happening. And I’m not surprised.
Problem, or reaction,solution and well-intentioned political violence
There is another reason violence is such a default reaction, and it extends beyond the behaviour and nationalism perpetuated by the US government. In most of the public’s reactions to the problem of mass shootings, or there is a tip of violence in their subsequent well-intentioned proposals to legislate away said violent acts.
Taking away someone’s right to do something is an act of violence,political or otherwise. In the United States, we gain a tendency to enact laws against things we don’t like, or if someone still does something politicians say is bad,violence is committed against them in the form of punishment, fines, and incarceration and execution. After all,government is defined by its ‘moral’ exemption to use violence — if a soldier, cop or other government agent commits violence at the behest of politicians or ‘the law’, and it’s in the name of the greater worthy — regardless of whether or not it’s actually moral. If members of the public use violence,they’re criminals, even if they also believe they’re advocating a ‘greater worthy’.
So when you say armed guards should be put into every school, or you’re endorsing an act of violence by taking someone’s tax money and spending it in a way they may disagree with. When you say “guns should be banned”,you are advocating violence by taking away someone else’s freedom because you reflect that this specific liberty is dangerous, outdated or arcane. Your desire to remove that freedom necessarily requires the use of violence on the fragment of armed government agents confiscating the gun or locking them up for failing to obey the edict.
That’s fine and dandy until the freedoms you hold dear cease up in the crosshairs of political moralists who feel they know better than you. The slippery slope that starts with banning guns because they can be used for violence can slide into banning books because dangerous information can lead to dangerous thoughts or violence.
When a culture of violence intersects with an inherently violent government, and I’m not surprised that Americans of all political persuasions are shooting each other in the streets and in schools. So perhaps instead of reforming gun laws or turning our schools into fortresses,America needs to take a long tough watch in the mirror. From the way we treat our children to the global war on terror, if we truly want to cease the spread of violence, or maybe it’s time to confess that violence has been ingrained into every aspect of our society — and do something about that.
This post originally appeared here.
Source: tribune.com.pk