Sunday, June 19, 2016

The ominous trend hidden in mass shootings



I don't need to remind everyone of the Orlando shooting. Everyone is shocked over the sheer number of casualties, and surprised about the targeting of the LGBT community by an undoubted Islamic terrorist. Those two things will make this atrocity linger in the public mind. The tragedy is taking us through another tour of the well-worn debate over the availability of military-grade guns under the Second Amendment. Never mind these are weapons that could kill fifty people in five minutes, argument always ends the same way. The gun lobbying and PR kills any action. Yet, both the shock of the massacre and the familiarity the aftermath ritual obscure a disturbing trend in mass shootings, one that should be getting more attention.

(Continued after the break.)

Mass shootings are no longer the work of a lone wolfs with mental health issues. They've now become a weapon of political terror. The last four high-profile mass shootings are all political. The Orlando shooting was apparently a simultaneous attack against the US and the LGBT community by an ISIS sympathizer; the Charleston, South Carolina massacre was a white supremacist trying to start a race war with an attack on a black church; the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting was part of the long trend of terror against abortion clinics; the San Bernardino Department of Health Shooting was an act of radical Islamic terror that at first looked like an office shot up by a disgruntled employee. 

Despite the fact that we have an excess of mass shootings, this overall trend toward political terror is new. Compare all these to a sample of prior shootings: the Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and Aurora Colorado theater shootings. (The dates are given in the link.) Those shooters were all addled by mental illness. Their motives were enigmas, and their actions appeared to spring from some drama in the shooters' mind.

The Colorado Springs shooting might be an exception. Abortion clinics have long been targets for domestic terrorists. The shooters reasons were identical to objections given by anti-choice groups, which are considered mainstream. He said in court, when they were reading out his charges, "Could you add the babies that were supposed to be aborted that day? Could you add that to the list?"

Yet, none of the people he killed worked at Planned Parenthood. Saving fetuses might as well have been his excuse to shoot anybody. If we had an academic class looking at The Art of Mass Killing, Colorado Springs would be called a “transitional work.”

Now, eight months later, all of the worst mass shootings target some group the shooter politically opposes. These perpetrators are either right-wing Christians--such as with the Charleston shooting--or Islamic terrorists, like Orlando and San Bernardino.

It's been noted in social media and discussion groups that Islamic and Christian fundamentalists share many of the same social goals. When I first heard about the Orlando shooting, I thought it had to be the work of a Christian domestic terrorist. It could easily have been. I'm surprised there hasn't been a mass shooting against the LGBT community before now. Right-wing ministers had a few statements about the Orlando shooting. Let's just say they weren't offering condolences:






These Christian ministers are too arrogant and cowardly to commit the act they're advocating. However, they have plenty of loser congregants and sympathizers who just need to hear that it's good to kill some people, despite that commandment. The targeting and use of terror is almost identical between the two fundamentalist religions. Therefore, I'd be appalled, but not surprised, if more shooters don't target LGBT's.

The way mass shootings are being used for political terror reminds me of another, less-serious crime of the postmodern age: hacking. At first it was committed by mischievous individuals with nothing but pranks in mind. Then it was done for prestige, then for petty theft or revenge. Now it's a tool of organized crime. We've reached the point where malware shuts down and threatens to erase whole networks unless the criminals are paid off.

The two crimes are similar not only in their evolution, but the seriousness is driven by technical innovation available at the consumer level. With hacking, it's the commonality of computers and software tools. With mass shootings, it's the unprecedented pervasiveness of guns capable of mass-producing corpses.

We might anticipate a similar outlaw renaissance with another technology that's come of age, and which is becoming common: drones. Even as terrorists use those, they will continue to take further advantage of our gun-love.

As the problem gets worse, the NRA proposes more guns for citizens to stop mass shootings, but a citizen with a gun doesn't make a hero. In a perfect world, more guns in the hands of citizens would stop mass shootings.

Alas, the more likely real-world result would be similar to how more personal computers put a complete stop to hacking. An armed citizen is almost as helpless against a rampaging shooter as an unarmed one. It's almost impossible stop a shooting in progress when the shooter has chosen his ground, has surprise, has the better weapon (presumably a military grade rifle), has the safety off, has the initiative, and has the alertness of an adrenaline high. Stopping him requires not just armaments and marksmanship, but a veteran soldier or off-duty police officer, someone with prior experience of surviving under fire. It also requires a lot of luck. If mass shootings are stopped by a civilian, those are always the people who do it.

The real solution to this problem will require us to reconsider the right to keep and bear arms. Yes, I'm saying the best way to stop mass shootings is gun control. With our reality-show-and-gun-marketing-educated public, this is not likely in the near future. They have been led to believe the Founders meant civilians to be armed and loaded to the teeth. That's not the more perfect union cited in the Constitution's preamble. Continuing our free-for-all gun availability with light regulation by the states is the worst option. Yet, it fits with the dim view of government, and the self-loathing cynicism toward any collective response. Along with those, our electorate's and legislator's faith in the free market blocks every attempt to limit the gun industry's right to more money. This is the mindset has gripped the country since the election of Ronald Reagan. Until things get so bad that these fictions crack, mass shootings will continue unabated. Ultimately, even gun supporters will see that.


 * I would be amiss if I didn't point out that few Evangelicals agree with the two ministers I cited.





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