As almost always happens after a mass shooting like the one that happened last week in Arizona, people who know the murderer come forward and say, “yeah, he sure seemed scary and dangerous.” All you need to do is check out Jered Loughner’s mug shot to come to the same conclusion! Ultimately Loughner was suspended from the college he attended because he displayed aberrant behavior, but one wonders how such a disturbed person fell through the cracks undetected. Once again, there are indignant cries for gun control, and while I don’t like guns, I feel the same way about gun control legislation as I do about carbon taxation; I don’t think it is very effective. It wouldn’t hurt to make it harder for people to acquire guns, especially unhinged psychopaths, but we must address the underlying culture of violence, because people in America will always be able to get guns. The same gun debate took place when Seung-Hui Cho went nuts in 2007 and murdered 32 people at Virginia Tech. One of the most interesting interviews I watched was with David Kaczynski, brother of Ted Kaczynski, The Unibomber, and the guy eventually responsible for turning his notorious brother in to authorities. He said that denial played a large part in his hesitancy to act. He’d suspected that his brother was mentally ill for a long time, but never dreamed that the illness would manifest itself as violence against others. And by the way, Ted Kaczynski killed 3 people and injured 23 others, without using a gun.
One of the discussions that filled the airwaves right after this latest tragedy happened was whether or not right wing hyperbole factored into the killer’s motivation. Does Sarah Palin’s verbal polemic and use of the controversial crosshairs symbol on her website incite unbalanced citizens to fly off the handle? My goodness, I hope that isn’t all it takes. If people start to follow that moronic Mama Grizzly, then I think guns are the least of our worries. Of course, that was CNN’s take, I imagine Fox had a different angle. The way I see it, there are simply a lot of loose canons out there, and every so often one of them goes off. My question is, WHY is America one of the most violent places in the world, and why do we have so many political assassinations or assassination attempts? I think it has something to do with societal disconnect. I think that many of us Americans have lost or are losing our sense of community. There are good Samaritans yes, but on the whole, I think we are many of us closing ourselves off from each other. I know it’s happening to me. We delude ourselves into thinking we are reaching out when we text a friend “R-U-OK?” The fact is our social skills are eroding, and we are many of us getting more and more closed off. This Loughner guy was very likely mentally ill, and I doubt anybody knows exactly why he snapped. I am suggesting that more of the sick and hopeless are getting swept under the rug, and that in a society where we become increasingly disconnected, those time bombs are going off more and more. If people are alienated, if they feel hopeless, wouldn’t it be infinitely more effective to figure out why and to take measures to remedy that societal ill than it would be to try and control the hopelessly abundant supply of guns? As with any disease, you want to get at the root, not merely address the symptoms. I heard one anti-gun politician saying that if we simply made it harder to get the bigger magazines that hold more bullets, this would mean that these crazy killers couldn’t kill as fast. Does anyone else see the absurdity, the myopic insanity of that argument? Diffuse the emotional bomb and the weapons will not be as great a threat. If it's a mental health problem, teach people how they should react if they think someone is dangerous and needs help.In an interview last week, Bill Maher, the great offender, suggested that perhaps in our attempts to cut costs, we’ve made mental health care a lower priority. Maybe we should spend more to address mental illness and less on ineffective gun reform. Meanwhile, I am glad to hear that Congresswoman Giffords has survived and is holding her own in the hospital.
Africa was in the news twice last week. First, Sudan voted in a referendum to divide the country in two with a Christian half and a Muslim half. Good luck with that. Second, Tunisians just ousted President Ben Ali, their president for the past 23 years, after a long period of growing political unrest. Now we have to worry about Tunisia too? Did anybody see the “60 Minutes” segment last night on Yemen? I think their national anthem must begin with “Swim in blood, Western Satan dogs…” What a hornet's nest that country is; it’s like an entire country populated with Jered Loughners. Maybe we could put them all in one place. I suggest the Northwest Territories.
Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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