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We should not rationalize the tragedy of San Bernardino but we will. Again We should not rationalize the tragedy of San Bernardino but we will. Again
(about 14 hours later)
There is a certain pattern to mass shootings in the United States at this point, and Wednesday’s shooting in San Bernardino is the 355th one of 2015. That pattern starts with death, and continues through another round of rationalizations – he was mentally ill, he had a grudge, it had to do with anything but the ease of access to death’s easy instruments – that will render the tragedy less than notable within minutes for some people, for a political party within hours, and for most of the rest of us as soon as we are forced to contend with the next one. There is a certain pattern to mass shootings in the United States at this point, and Wednesday’s shooting in San Bernardino is the 355th of 2015. That pattern starts with death, and continues through another round of rationalizations – he was mentally ill, he had a grudge, it had to do with anything but the ease of access to death’s easy instruments – that will render the tragedy less than notable within minutes for some people, for a political party within hours, and for most of the rest of us as soon as we are forced to contend with the next one.
We could explain why such violent acts don’t affect our individual actions or our national policy by using math or social sciences – or even Douglas Adams’s theory of Somebody Else’s Problem from Life, the Universe and Everything – but it might be more honest to chalk it up to the particular narcissism by which we define who is or can be a victim.We could explain why such violent acts don’t affect our individual actions or our national policy by using math or social sciences – or even Douglas Adams’s theory of Somebody Else’s Problem from Life, the Universe and Everything – but it might be more honest to chalk it up to the particular narcissism by which we define who is or can be a victim.
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We choose to believe that, more likely than not, the next victim will not be us because, as much as we might publicly protest our personal anxiety on social media, we still have to get up in the morning. We need income to survive every day before a tragedy might find us wherever we may be.We choose to believe that, more likely than not, the next victim will not be us because, as much as we might publicly protest our personal anxiety on social media, we still have to get up in the morning. We need income to survive every day before a tragedy might find us wherever we may be.
Included in our rationalizations is the sure, overwhelming math of geography. If there is an active shooter in one square mile of the United States, that still leaves 3,805,926 others. Enduring those odds is the bargain we make every morning.Included in our rationalizations is the sure, overwhelming math of geography. If there is an active shooter in one square mile of the United States, that still leaves 3,805,926 others. Enduring those odds is the bargain we make every morning.
But there’s another set of rationalizations: we would never undertake such risky behavior; we would never live in such a neighborhood, work for such a company, visit such a fallen or disreputable establishment; we would never befoul ourselves with incautiousness as to almost welcome the violence. We would never be a victim, because we are not the victim sort, the person who courts such tragedies.But there’s another set of rationalizations: we would never undertake such risky behavior; we would never live in such a neighborhood, work for such a company, visit such a fallen or disreputable establishment; we would never befoul ourselves with incautiousness as to almost welcome the violence. We would never be a victim, because we are not the victim sort, the person who courts such tragedies.
We see those fleeing a mass shooting and decide, firmly, that we would never be in their place. We do it because we have to. It is not merely an urge to believe ourselves blameless under any circumstance but an act of functional necessity. Otherwise, the truth is that we face not only a systemic problem with gun violence but also the fact that its polarizing solutions may be so needlessly, cynically delayed that, long before they arrive, we will eventually become the figure on 24-hour news – footage looping endlessly, as a tight-lipped first responder wheels our blanketed shape out of the building.We see those fleeing a mass shooting and decide, firmly, that we would never be in their place. We do it because we have to. It is not merely an urge to believe ourselves blameless under any circumstance but an act of functional necessity. Otherwise, the truth is that we face not only a systemic problem with gun violence but also the fact that its polarizing solutions may be so needlessly, cynically delayed that, long before they arrive, we will eventually become the figure on 24-hour news – footage looping endlessly, as a tight-lipped first responder wheels our blanketed shape out of the building.
So, irrespective of its own politics, you’ll hear that San Bernardino sits in California, a state whose liberalism you will hear surely only invites such violence. Perhaps San Bernardino should have left in protest.So, irrespective of its own politics, you’ll hear that San Bernardino sits in California, a state whose liberalism you will hear surely only invites such violence. Perhaps San Bernardino should have left in protest.
Or perhaps, actual records be damned, you’ll hear that the city elders inhibited or failed to encourage mass gun ownership. Perhaps their police lacked sufficient funds to patrol the streets in MRAPs. Perhaps “the Ferguson Effect” chilled their zeal for public protection. Perhaps Obama made them afraid or sad. Or perhaps, actual records be damned, you’ll hear that the city elders inhibited or failed to encourage mass gun ownership. Perhaps their police lacked sufficient funds to patrol the streets in MRAPs. Perhaps “the Ferguson effect” chilled their zeal for public protection. Perhaps Obama made them afraid or sad.
Or perhaps you will hear something more specific about how the answer was clearly for the victims to have had more guns – that the Inland Regional Center had guards but not armed guards, or that they had armed guards but not enough of them.Or perhaps you will hear something more specific about how the answer was clearly for the victims to have had more guns – that the Inland Regional Center had guards but not armed guards, or that they had armed guards but not enough of them.
It is a cold reasoning, but it is the sort of reasoning that wins elections.It is a cold reasoning, but it is the sort of reasoning that wins elections.
For one political party in America, for instance, the entire city of Chicago is now, at best, a municipality without victims; it is, instead, a city of a growing number of people dead and injured through gun violence, each of whom chose a brutal but just desserts for not having the money or volition to move out of a jurisdiction under strong gun control legislation. Insufficiently-armed Chicagoans are the equivalent of the girl who “drank too much at a party” or the person who accidentally left his door unlocked. The shooter holding the gun – which he could have purchased almost anywhere in the country before crossing the city limits – becomes, for the purposes of rhetorically assigning blame, almost inactive.For one political party in America, for instance, the entire city of Chicago is now, at best, a municipality without victims; it is, instead, a city of a growing number of people dead and injured through gun violence, each of whom chose a brutal but just desserts for not having the money or volition to move out of a jurisdiction under strong gun control legislation. Insufficiently-armed Chicagoans are the equivalent of the girl who “drank too much at a party” or the person who accidentally left his door unlocked. The shooter holding the gun – which he could have purchased almost anywhere in the country before crossing the city limits – becomes, for the purposes of rhetorically assigning blame, almost inactive.
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The politicians of one party rhetorically stand over body after body felled by gunshot, poking them in the ribs and taunting, “Why are you shooting yourself?” Guns don’t kill people; people who don’t have guns allow themselves to be killed.The politicians of one party rhetorically stand over body after body felled by gunshot, poking them in the ribs and taunting, “Why are you shooting yourself?” Guns don’t kill people; people who don’t have guns allow themselves to be killed.
The justifications of the gun lobby and its political adherents after every single mass shooting in the United States are stunning in their political convenience. It is expedient for school children or moviegoers or women’s healthcare providers to be victims of their own choices: they elected the wrong leader, they hired the wrong personnel, they didn’t up-armor to see a Batman movie, they chose jobs that some people don’t like. We exile the people next door, make them foreign and invisible to us because they have different opinions – and then wonder why it’s so easy for heavily-armed men to kill them, and blame mental health issues.The justifications of the gun lobby and its political adherents after every single mass shooting in the United States are stunning in their political convenience. It is expedient for school children or moviegoers or women’s healthcare providers to be victims of their own choices: they elected the wrong leader, they hired the wrong personnel, they didn’t up-armor to see a Batman movie, they chose jobs that some people don’t like. We exile the people next door, make them foreign and invisible to us because they have different opinions – and then wonder why it’s so easy for heavily-armed men to kill them, and blame mental health issues.
We have a boundless capacity to deem everyone at risk, if it suits us politically. There is no amount of lawlessness we will not, at our convenience, argue was bestirred by someone else’s choices or selfness or lack of vigilance. And we will purposely mistake the how and the why of mass shootings again and again, because it suits us until, perhaps, one day, it finally doesn’t.We have a boundless capacity to deem everyone at risk, if it suits us politically. There is no amount of lawlessness we will not, at our convenience, argue was bestirred by someone else’s choices or selfness or lack of vigilance. And we will purposely mistake the how and the why of mass shootings again and again, because it suits us until, perhaps, one day, it finally doesn’t.