It is natural for people to involuntarily react to repulsive stimulus, but it is also natural to revert to the current or existing state of affairs that existed previously because human beings are creatures of habit. Americans are notoriously reflexive to tragedies whether they are natural or man-made disasters, but they are just as likely to revert back to their state of affairs out of comfort, laziness, and inability to persevere in the face of resistance. As the country comes to grips with another mass shooting, there are already signs that the Sandy Hook school massacre and reaction will follow the same path as previous massacres, and it is a tragedy the nation appears set to fall back on the status quo of apathy, extra guns, theocracy, and despite misguided appeals for more weapons and more god, the nation is ill-prepared to address the real problem; more guns.
Within a day of the Sandy Hook killing spree, the religious right reverted to their typical response that 20 first-graders and teachers were murdered because god was evicted from public schools. Although America’s educational system was never parochial, evangelical nutjobs labor under the delusion that mandatory prayer and bible-based instruction would have protected the children and their teachers from Adam Lanza and his slain mother’s assault weapons. The question the religious right should be asking is why the school children who attended church were abandoned by their god and why he stood by while Nancy Lanza amassed a small arsenal and taught her mentally disturbed son how to fire weapons better suited for a battlefield, than a quiet Connecticut neighborhood. However, the simple fact remains that god or no god, if Adam Lanza did not have access to a small armory of human-killing guns, 20 first graders and 6 of their caretakers would be looking forward to a nice Christmas. God had nothing to do with the horrific massacre; readily available and legal assault weapons did, and gun activists want to see more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens like Nancy Lanza.
A ready response to mass shootings from the National Rifle Association dating back to Reagan was that banning guns means only criminals will be armed, and it is a scare tactic meant to incite the gun-loving crowd their existence is in jeopardy any time gun control is addressed. The NRA has promoted siege mentality among its members and gun owners that gun control legislation is a government plot to confiscate and ban all gun ownership in America, and although calls to seize all guns and criminalize their possession are non-existent, the NRA inflames freedom-loving “patriots” that one cannot be an American without a well-stocked armory.
To fuel gun sales, the industry aggressively markets military-style weapons to consumers that evoke patriotic themes or stoke fears of violent crime, economic collapse and civil unrest. Nancy Lanza fell into that trap, and her son’s access to her guns justified the public’s fear of violent crime from not a criminal, but a law abiding citizen. One of the challenges of the gun industry is to saturate their typical customer with sufficient fear that they can sell the typical NRA member their third, fourth, fifth, sixth or even seventh gun, and when fear of criminal assailants fails to do the trick, there is always fear of the government and their imagined war on gun ownership.
In fact, in 1995 NRA leader Wayne La Pierre viciously attacked gun control legislation as granting “jack-booted government thugs more power to take away our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property, and even injure or kill us.” In more recent mailings, La Pierre claimed the NRA is “fighting a multi-front battle with anti-gun radicals in the Obama administration” willing to use “ANY means necessary to DESTROY our freedoms.” It, like invoking more god, is a typical response to mass shootings and within a day of the deadly shooting spree, there were, and still are, calls for more guns in the hands of teachers and school personnel.
Most decent Americans understand that Adam Lanza killed his mother, 20 first graders, and their teachers because he had easy access to multiple weapons. Adam Lanza was disturbed, but if his mother had not stockpiled guns in anticipation of an economic collapse, and trained her son to use her collection of weapons, he would have not had a readily available arsenal. Gun rights activists are quick to point out that the guns were not the problem, but if Adam Lanza did not have access to guns, the majority of Americans would still be ignorant of Newtown Connecticut or Sandy Hook Elementary School.
The proper response to the horrific carnage in Connecticut is asking why there are no regulations on the number or types of firearms Nancy Lanza kept in her home, and one of the reasons is the NRA and its co-opting by Republicans dating back to the Reagan era. In 1983, Reagan praised the NRA for defeating California’s Proposition 15, which would have required handgun registration, limited the number of guns registered by each individual, and restricted mail-order and out-of-state purchases. Reagan said, “You shocked California last November when you mobilized to send help and to down Proposition 15 and defeat it. It’s a nasty truth, but those who seek to inflict harm are not fazed by gun-control laws.” Nancy Lanza had no intention of seeking to do harm, and her guns were legal, but if there was a limit on the number and type of guns she stashed, her mentally disturbed son, 20 first graders, and 6 of their teachers would be alive and well today.
Perhaps this latest mass shooting will produce different results than the past six or seven, but it seems highly unlikely based on the oh-so typical responses from Americans on both sides of the issue. Gun control advocates are calling for a ban on assault-type weapons, evangelicals are blaming the government for transforming parochial schools to dens of inequity, gun rights activists call for more armed Americans, and the NRA finally released a statement that the “National Rifle Association of America is made up of four million moms and dads, sons and daughters—and we were shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown. The NRA is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again,” but based on Wayne La Pierre’s typical rhetoric after mass shootings, there will be calls for calm and common-sense solutions involving more guns.
There is talk of introducing a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in the Senate, but after Christmas and New Year celebrations, and either falling or avoiding the dreaded fiscal cliff, America will revert to the status quo. Republicans in the House will embark on a new war on women, social safety nets, and all manner of job creation obstruction, and evangelicals will remain vigilant to impose the bible and god on innocent school children. All the while, the NRA will fall back to fear mongering about the Obama Administration’s plot to delete the 2nd Amendment from the Constitution and seize all firearms from freedom loving Americans. This country suffers mass shootings at a rate of about one every other month, and after all the hand-wringing, god appealing, and fear mongering, things will return to normal while we await the next news bulletin that another mentally disturbed American with access to a small arsenal shoots up a school, church, shopping mall, or movie theatre, and the cycle will repeat itself ad nauseum, and although there is plenty of outrage and raw emotion on all sides of the equation this week, America will do what it does best when it comes to the question of too many guns; nothing.
PoliticusUSA
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Shiva (Moderator)
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 10:47 am
Is it just me or does anyone else find it funny that the GOP says you can’t solve money problems by throwing money at them, but yet you can solve mass murders by throwing more guns at them.
If video games loosen up people’s inhibition about killing, would more people having guns open up more peoples and inhibition about killing? More guns in the hands of speed both who might be prone to using that gun as an answer to their problems?
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Benny Belloes
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 10:50 am
Food for thought when people listen to people like James Dobson, Bryan Fisher and Mike Huckabee they need to beware because nothing they say is based on God but on the fear that they want to project in to peoples lives. These three and there are others are despicable in most people’s eyes and one can only hope in God’s eyes.
The fault of Job and his friends lies in trying to explain the nature of God with only the limited information available to human knowledge, as God himself notes when he roars from the whirlwind, Job 38:2 Who is this that darkness counsel / by words without / knowledge?”
Job 38:18 God suggests that people should not discuss divine justice since God’s power is so great that humans cannot possibly justify his ways.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/oldtestament/section11.rhtml
Job 42:1-3, 6
Job answered Yahweh, saying, ‘I know you can do all things, and no plan of yours can be thwarted. I have spoken of things I do not understand. Therefore I despise myself and repent.
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AFM
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 1:53 pm
There more they speak I think the more they lose good church goers. They don’t want to be tied to these crazy people. I want to know since when has god turned to violence to solve problems? My god isn’t like that.
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Maple
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 8:42 pm
According to Gingrich, Huckabee, Dobson et al, “secularism” is the reason for the Newtown massacre, and of course all the other mass killings over the last 10 years. Funny how the countries with the strictest gun laws and the fewest number of murders each year (Canada, UK, Australia etc.) are all much more “secular” than the U.S.
Always amazes me how these idiots never look outside their own borders to find out what’s happening elsewhere. Same problem with healthcare: would it kill legislators to look at how other countries manage the high cost of healthcare, and still manage to have coverage for ALL their citizens, instead of always proclaiming “We have the best healthcare in the world”. Dumb-de-dumb-dumb.
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Ed Webb
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 11:26 am
The Avg number killed in a mass shooting when stopped by police 18.2 When stopped by an Armed civilian 2.2…
so whats acceptable
A 1997 high school shooting in Pearl, Miss., was halted by the school’s vice principal after he retrieved the Colt .45 he kept in his truck.
• A 1998 middle school shooting ended when a man living next door heard gunfire and apprehended the shooter with his shotgun.
• A 2002 terrorist attack at an Israeli school was quickly stopped by an armed teacher and a school guard.
• A 2002 law school shooting in Grundy, Va., came to an abrupt conclusion when students carrying firearms confronted the shooter.
• A 2007 mall shooting in Ogden, Utah, ended when an armed off-duty police officer intervened.
• A 2009 workplace shooting in Houston, Texas, was halted by two coworkers who carried concealed handguns.
• A 2012 church shooting in Aurora, Colo., was stopped by a member of the congregation carrying a gun.
• At the recent mall shooting in Portland, Ore., the gunman took his own life minutes after being confronted by a shopper carrying a concealed weapon….
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Dan
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 1:12 pm
I hesitated in replying to this because, as a former NRA member who subscribed to NRA progaganda for years before quitting that organization in protest for its irrational extremism, I am all-too-familiar with how such stats (whether true or not) are trotted out to defeat any possibility of gun reform.
But I will point out that, supposing the scenarios presented to be true, it is worth observing that in all the scenarios presented, the firearms used in opposition to the crazed mass-killers would remain LEGAL, even after we ban assault rifles, extended magazines and military hardware from our civilian streets.
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mathazar
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
Your first point is total rubbish. Apples and oranges. Then you list civilian interventions, and include a policeman. And to top it off, you throw in an Israeli success story.
You want Israel’s gun laws ? By all means, go for it.No gun show purchases,no private sales, no Internet sales, no one under 20 ownership, and stringent annual testing and safety training.
It’s estimated that if Israel’s gun laws were applied to America, the number of people legally owning firearms would drop from 30 million, to around 1.75 million. Bring it on.
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Paws
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 10:19 pm
The law school shooting was ended when the shooter was tackled by two (unarmed) police officers; a third went to get his bulletproof vest and gun from his car and when he came back, he saw the suspect had been tackled and was being held. A gun was not used to stop the shooter.
For the 1997 shooting, the principal did go to his car to retrieve his weapon but by then, the shooter was in the parking lot. The principal yelled for him to stop but he didn’t; he got in his mother’s car to escape but the principal managed to detain him. The shooting had already ended; in this case, the shooter had specific targets, including a former girlfriend.
I didn’t check the other items you mentioned because I don’t have the time, but I suspect that the others are missing quite a bit of context and detail as well.
My impression is that you really want people to see that people with guns can stop other people with guns but we can’t fight fire with fire; that’s too simplistic for what is an extremely complex issue. We’re dealing with guns, magazine clips that hold many rounds of ammunition, mental health, individual rights, etc., so our attempts to find a solution to these problems is going to require us to step out of our familiar comfort zones and to resist the temptation to go for what is easy and instead address what are very hard issues in an honest, non-adversarial manner.
I refuse to believe that the citizens of this country cannot find a middle ground between a wild wild west free for all and a total ban on guns. That middle ground is where common sense resides.
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darryl starr
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 12:09 pm
The NRA is an American terrorist organization sanctioned by Republicans. It’s 4 million members ( 1% of the population ) are holding this country hostage.
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Anne
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
The Republicans are famous for invoking God’s name and accusing others who don’t do it nearly as much of not being as righteous as they claim to be. It must not occur to them that even folks involved in un-Godly things such as slavery invoked His name in order to justify their evildoing. The same is true of people who invoke His name to justify the subjugation of women. What it boils down to is that religious faith is supposed to operate alongside critical thinking, not in place of it.
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sandppppr
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 2:25 pm
I have many republican friends, I have been in their homes, I have been boating, fishing and hunting with them on Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. (They are definitely not going to church.) I have been in their homes and dined with them and they definitely do not say grace before dinner. Now I don’t know if they pray in he the morning, or say evening prayers. Yet they are first ones to denounce the ten commandments not being legal to be allowed to be displayed in government buildings or that prayer is not allowed in our public schools. They seem to be hypocrites.
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Dan
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Clearly, the solution is for President Obama to proudly announce his membership in the
NRA and his solid support of the gun lobby. He should declare his unilateral opposition to any
attempt to create stricter gun control laws.
1. Immediately, Republicans will pile on in their eagerness to do the opposite of anything Obama wants. Democrats, for obvious reasons, will go along with the Republican’s new enthusiasm for strict gun control.
2. Finally — in an inspiring display of bipartisan cooperation — this country will finally have meaningful gun control laws.
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Anne
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 12:44 pm
I almost spit out my water laughing at this comment, but you are absolutely right because the stupid Republicans in Congress choose to be oppositional to what the president wants, even if he agrees with ideas they previously adopted on any given issue. Your comment is on point as well as hilarious.
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Dan
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 1:01 pm
Check out the article by Nate Silver in the Washington Post with detailed demographic breakdown of gun ownership (Party Identity in a Gun Cabinet):
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/in-gun-ownership-statistics-partisan-divide-is-sharp/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121219
Polling results show strong parallels between factors that lean people towards the Democratic party, and the issue of gun ownership. This article only shows poll data related to gun ownership, but we are all familiar with similar poll data about party affiliation:
The more education you have, the more likely you are to vote Democratic — and the less likely you are to own a gun.
If you are non-white, you are more likely to vote
Democratic — and less likely to own a gun. Etc.
Conclusion: “America” does not have a “gun culture.” White, less educated, religious Republicans have a gun culture.
But wait! aren’t those the very same people who, according to Fox News, are REAL America…? Recalling Bill O’Reilly’s election night rant, the rest of us are unwelcome pretenders who are dragging down real America, just like that Kenyan Socialist Muslim in the formerly “white” house.
Isn’t it interesting, that the mainstream media keeps reinforcing the idea that “America has a gun culture”? When in truth, that myth needs to be filed alongside the non-existent (except in Bill O’Reilly’s fervid imagination) War on Christmas.
NOTE: AS the polling data shows, many Democrats do in fact own guns. More rural households have guns.
However, having a gun is not the same as having a “gun culture.”
A “gun culture” is a belief system, like a religion, with many intertwined beliefs and passions, not subject to reasonable debate.
This is why the myth that “America has a gun culture” has been effective, in the past, in shutting down real debate, by making politicians afraid to go against it.
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Dan
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 1:04 pm
It is up to each of us to keep the pressure on our electeds, to keep their feet to the fire, and to not allow real action on gun control to die away to silence and inaction, like it did after Colombine, Virginia Tech, Arizona and Aurora.
And the next time you hear or read anyone talking about “America’s gun culture” please use every opportunity to set them, and the record, straight.
Don’t let the propaganda continue. That myth — that propaganda — serves the Republican Party and the Gun Lobby. Period.
America does not have a gun culture. Only a certain segment of our population has a gun culture. The same anti-math and anti-science segment that created birtherism, and believes humans co-existed with dinosaurs because the planet is only 6000 years old, and that Real America is a “straight white Christian nation”.
Those people have a gun culture. Fortunately, they are in the minority.
The rest of us need to keep the pressure on, to make our lawmakers serve the people instead of the Gun Lobby.
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Mary
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 2:09 pm
More:God”more”guns” same old garbage from the fake Christians and the insane right. We the people cannot continue to let these haters destroy OUR country.
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Kimbutgar
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 2:17 pm
Ironic isn’t it that these conservatives are the most ungodlike people you have ever met? They don’t give a shit about the people only getting money for re-election and tax breaks for the rich.
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Eddie Powell
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
I can not attest to who is or who is not a christian. That is the sole job of God. Judge yea not or yea be judged. One thing I can say on this subject is one’s actions speaks highly on the subject. If one follows a liar, brag about their faith, being only the “real americans”, live for the money of things and call people profaned foul names just because they are not of the same color persuasion, then case closed. All I see and experience from these right winged nuts and Tea baggers is hatred, lying and name calling. Then I can say without His judgement they that are about as Godly as used toilet paper in a pile of feces.
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SinghX
Dec. 19th, 2012 at 7:42 pm
As long as people like David Barton hold themselves out as “scholars” and “experts” on god and America, we cannot have a peaceful nation that reflects any religion. And with that said, here’s the latest from Right-Wing Watch…
“…On last night’s episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” guest host Tim Ballard brought on David Barton to give his “expert” perspective on how the Founding Fathers would have responded to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Barton insisted that the Founders called the Second Amendment “the biblical right of self defense” and crafted it to ensure that citizens could protect themselves again any and all threats, including the government, with equal firepower.
In Barton’s view, whatever weapons the government possesses must also be available to the population at large because the citizens might one day need to resist the government, so this principle of “equal power … has got to control the gun control debate”…
He says the bible gives Americans the right to have heavy artilary like an governmental army…
So,if people like Barton, Huckabee, Fisher, et al are not plotting an armed theocracy then I’m the crazy one!
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labman57
Dec. 23rd, 2012 at 2:51 am
Sanctimonious Christian pundits’ perception of God appears to be one of an ego-centric, malevolent, micro-managing sadist — somewhat akin to how many conservatives treat their wives.
It’s rather disturbing that so many members of the Religious Right believe that the Christian view of God is a supreme entity that would gladly sit on the sidelines and watch innocent young children be murdered in order to make a political point.
Curious. Some social conservatives claim that the tragedy could have been prevented if only religion was an integral component of the public school curriculum, while others insist that the mayhem would have been minimized if teachers were encouraged to keep loaded guns in their classrooms.
It would seem as though Obama was right — right wingers do indeed cling to their Bibles and bullets, expecting God and guns to solve their problems.
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