The recent mass murder at a Newton, Connecticut, elementary
school has again sparked heated debate concerning the increased frequency of
mass shootings in recent years. That these incidents are happening more often
than ever before does not seem to be much in doubt. The real question is: What
can be done about them?
Mass murder is not a recent phenomenon. Genocide has been
committed for religious reasons, racial hatred, and in the pursuit of land or
money for hundreds of years. Around
800,000 were eliminated in a 100 day period in Rwanda in the 1990’s. Hitler’s
Nazi Germany attempted to erase Jews and other undesirables from Europe during
WW2. The Cambodian Pol Pot regime managed to eliminate about 25 percent of that
country's population. During two years in the 1780’s in Peru, 100,000
non-Indians were slaughtered. Do I need to mention that this country itself was
once populated by Indians until European settlers arrived? The current Sudanese
government has been accused of murdering 400,000 in Darfur. It’s clear that people have always had the
capacity and willingness to kill other people on a massive scale since….. well,
forever.
But mass slayings like in Newtown are not quite the same for
obvious reasons. A single individual
taking out his murderous rage and frustration on innocent people in one single
stunning burst of violence. That seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon that is
unique to America. But is it?
Mass school murders are not as “new” as many people seem to think.
Charles Whitman shot and killed 13 and injured 32 from a tower on the campus of
the University of Texas in 1966. As far back as 1927 Andrew Kehoe detonated two
bombs at an elementary school in Bath Township, Michigan. He killed 38 children
and six adults. Nor is mass murder in general uniquely a phenomenon of the
United States. Wikipedia (I know, I know. It’s not gospel but is useful as a
general guide) lists 87 mass murders with five or more casualties in Asia, 63
in Europe. By contrast, North and South
America combined have 81 listed. These numbers do not include school or
workplace incidents, but those categories are also littered with mass murders
from around the globe. It seems we actually do not have the market cornered on
senseless mass slayings. “What is going
on in this country?” is actually, “What is going on in this world?” Let’s
approach that question later.
With every new public mass murder, especially those that
occur in schools, there is always an avalanche of discussion about what can be
done. Some blame first-person shooter video games that desensitize our youth, substance
abuse, violence on television, abuse, mental illness, retaliation for bullying,
etc. All are valid possible contributing issues that should be discussed. But
the main thrust of discussion almost always eventually centers around one
thing. Stricter gun laws or the elimination of all or certain types of
firearms.
Let’s go over the concept of stricter gun laws. If there are
guns available, people who want them bad enough will get them regardless of the
law. Case in point, Chicago’s ban against handgun ownership. Does anybody
seriously think that is anything except a colossal joke? That leaves one
potentially effective option: elimination of firearms completely. For the sake
of argument let’s say this is feasible (I doubt it is) and we manage to rid the
public of firearms. Nobody can get one anywhere, anyhow. Period. What is the
result? Do the Charles Whitman’s of the world shrug their shoulders and go home
to contentedly watch “Full House” reruns and bake chocolate chip cookies for
the neighbors? Not likely. The underlying factors that cause these people to
become so twisted and angry that they carefully plan and carry out a massive
attack on innocent civilians just don’t go away because somebody takes away
access to the most convenient weapon. That would only be effective if mass
murderers really “suddenly snapped” and snatched up the nearest gun and started killing.
That is a convenient myth. The scary truth is there is a lot of careful
planning and buildup that goes into these horrific crimes. Most would simply
figure out another way to take their rage out on the world. Granted, using an ax or a claw hammer would
probably be less effective than a bag full of automatic weapons. So we aren’t
talking about the elimination of mass murder by getting rid of guns. We’re
talking about reducing body counts.
Shouldn’t we aim higher than that? Don’t people deserve better than
that?
Statistics don’t do anything to lead me to believe gun
elimination is the end all answer either. According to a Slate Magazine article
(data provided by Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of
Corrections), the most effective means of mass murder is the bomb, which
kills 20.82 people per incident. Fire is second at 6.82 and is followed closely
by guns at 4.92. Knives or blunt objects come in at 4.52 people per incident. According to the article, of the 25 most
deadly mass murders of the twentieth century, only 52 percent involved guns. So
even if every potential gun-wielding mass killer was actually successfully
stopped cold by being unable to obtain a firearm, it seems that it would only
likely cut the problem roughly in half, and that is on the optimistic side. I
am sorry, but it’s lazy and it’s just not good enough.
So back to the question, “What is going on in this world?”
Well, it is obvious we are breeding mass murderers (and serial murderers for
that matter) at a rate far greater than, say, two centuries ago or even fifty
years ago. The problem is not limited to any particular country or society,
though I am sure there has to be some corner of the world where this sort of
thing has never happened or is exceedingly rare. I am certainly not a
psychologist or sociologist or anything like that. I don’t have the answers. I
just believe that what happened in Newtown does not have to happen. It does not
have to be a fact of life. Nobody wants to resort to turning our world into a series of metal detectors or a real life version of George Orwell’s 1984 in order to
protect ourselves, but that seems to be the direction we are heading. There has to be
some way to get at the root causes of this sort of horrendous violence before
it happens.
Doesn’t there?
