Aurora, Santa Fe, San Bernardino, Pittsburgh.
And countless others that we have not even heard of and which the news has not bothered to report, as these are now commonplace. The above names and places are mass shootings that have happened in the last 50 years in the United States. To date, there have been just short of 2,000 mass shootings in the US (Resto-Montero, 2019). A mass shooting occurs in the United States every 64 days, as compared to the 200 day interval that we witnessed from 1980-2011 (Cohen, 2017). Shootings today are considered by many to be nothing new. Since the Stoneman Douglas high school shooting of February 2018, not much mobilization has been done to change gun laws or the attitudes of many American gun owners.
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https://www.vox.com/world/2019/3/16/18268491/new-zealand-mosque-shooting-gun-control-response
March 15, 2019. Christchurch, New Zealand. A FaceBook livestream goes up on air, depicting a man rampaging mosques with semiautomatic weapons.
49 shot dead, dozens injured. Hours later, there is a nationwide call for legislation which leads to the consideration of banning semiautomatic weapons entirely in New Zealand.
So why did the government of New Zealand work immediately to change their laws after only one mass shooting this decade? And why is it that the United States sees a mass shooting every 60 days, and yet not much has changed? Why have mass shootings increased by a factor of 3 in the United States in the last 8 years?
In attempting to answer these questions, I will first examine what many consider to be an integral American value - the right to bear arms, which we get from the second amendment of the United States constitution. Many Americans believe this to mean that it ensures that they can own their own firearms and use them when necessary, and many American gun laws enable them to do so. Florida's "Stand Your Ground" and Colorado's "Make My Day" state that there is no duty to retreat in a case of self defense and essentially allows for conceal and carry weapons to be commonplace. People believe that these laws are necessary and that they provide a sense of security, both in public and in private. As of 2017, there were a total of 17,251,354 active conceal and carry permits in the United States.
With so many people that carry guns, it's no wonder that the immediate claim made following a deadly mass shooting is that the gunman was mentally ill, tortured at home, or even that video games are to blame. This conclusion is easy for lawmakers and gun owners to make because of the stigmatization of people who are mentally ill. Popular claims are that mentally ill people are more likely to be dangerous or violent and that they are easily persuaded by popular media. For example, following the deadly Columbine High School shooting, many speculated that the two young men were mentally ill and that part of this mental distress was from the violent video games and media that they were exposed to as teenagers. The same cries about mental illness were used after the Aurora movie theater shooting as well as following the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
Stigmas against mental illnesses combined with the American obsession over gun rights is the perfect storm to avoid gun reform and to blame instead people who struggle with mental illnesses. Conservatives often advocate for counseling services and therapy opportunities only after these mass shootings as a scapegoat for what is really going on. Existing ideas about mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are misconstrued and used to blame the national crisis of gun violence, when the root of the problem is the guns themselves, and further than that, the ties that the government has to the NRA, or the National Rifle Association. According to expert Sam Musa, NRA members use connections to affect national gun policies: "The NRA’s members are engaged in the political arena and feel passionate about their gun rights. The NRA has also a strong access to policy makers; they have hired former legislators and government officials, since they can use their friendships and personal connections to gain access to policy makers." Rather than address the degrees of corruption between legislators and the NRA, people are much quicker to blame the mentally ill members of society for gun violence.
The facts are that the best indicator of gun violence is access to firearms. University of Texas Medical Branch researchers found this in a recent study of nearly 700 Texan young adults, and observed that rather than previous violent tendencies, those who had ready access to firearms were more likely to threaten others with a gun.
"Counter to public beliefs, the majority of mental health symptoms examined were not related to gun violence," said Dr. Yu Lu, a postdoctoral research fellow at UTMB and the lead author of the study.This means that it is imperative to shift public opinions and show policy makers and legislators alike that people who are mentally ill are not to blame for violence. The easy access to guns, lack of background checks, and lax enforcements of laws is the true enemy here, which is a hard pill to swallow for many government officials who deeply benefit from the NRA's benefits and donations. Instead, they place the blame on an already marginalized group of people and continue to turn a blind eye to the real problem, or the Dirty Little Secret, of the National Rifle Association.
cites used:
Resto-Montero, G. (2019, March 16). New Zealand shows willingness to curb guns after one, not 1,981 mass shootings. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/world/2019/3/16/18268491/new-zealand-mosque-shooting-gun-control-response
Cohen, A. P., Azrael, D., Miller, M., Follman, M., Follman, M., Vongkiatkajorn, K., . . . Schatz, B. (2017, June 28). Rate of mass shootings has tripled since 2011, new research from Harvard shows. Retrieved from https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/mass-shootings-increasing-harvard-research/#
Cave, D. (2019, March 17). New Zealand Attack: Quick Action, Near Miss and Courage in Christchurch. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/17/world/asia/new-zealand-shootings-police-response.html
Concealed Carry Statistics: Quick Facts by State (2017). (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.gunstocarry.com/concealed-carry-statistics/
Answers, A. &. (2019, January 11). What role might video game addiction have played in the Columbine shootings? Retrieved from https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/role-video-game-addiction-played-columbine-shootings-article-1.361104
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/the-impact-of-nra-on-the-american-policy-2332-0761-1000222.php?aid=83220&view=mobile
Mental illness not to blame for gun violence, study finds. (2019, February 07). Retrieved from https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190207102607.htm
I absolutely agree with your interpretations of the shifted gun/mental illness discourse in this country. The idea of guns as a right is wholly unique to the United States and is not seen anywhere else in the Western world. Organizations such as the NRA have been overly political for decades and have a clear influence on the policies and ideas pushed throughout the government. While mental health is pushed as the argument against implementing change, while in reality, this is used as protection against those lawmakers' corporate lobbyists. They act to protect their own interest to secure funding for themselves, acting outside the will of the people. It is truly tragic how we find it so difficult to make any change especially with so many lives lost.
ReplyDeleteYou raise a good point about how the right to bear arms is seen as an ‘integral American value’ and how this has led to a system with an ease of access to guns that wouldn’t be possible elsewhere. I was reminded also of the film Tough Guys which pointed out that while the number of guns in America is unusually high, they are owned by comparatively few people - gun owners are a minority. They are typically white men and often rural, and I think keeping this demographic in mind is important for anyone advocating for better gun control. Historically, gun control in this country has targeted marginalised people - I am thinking of the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, where hundreds of Lakota people were killed by the US army under the prelude of disarming the Lakota. You’re absolutely right that mental illness is not the enemy, and your blog shows the importance of developing policy that is informed by the US’s particular history.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment, I think this is an important light to shed on the issue because the dimension of marginalized people is hugely important and something that must be acknowledged.
DeleteI also do find it really important to note the demographic of these gun-owning populations especially because I grew up in a very small (rural), conservative county where many residents are licensed hunters and own guns for this purpose. The question, however, of automatic and semi-automatic weapons holds no ground in these contexts because there is NO reason that any hunter should use a high-powered gun such as that seeing as it would entirely detract from hunting as sport or livelihood by ruining the meat of the animal and the pelt.