No citations, no quotes, just me.

Our guns:
In the US, we have the right to own guns, except for those guns that people in authority say we shouldn't have. There's a semi-automatic rifle in this house specifically because, during the administration of George Bush the First, the President supported legislation that would put "assault weapons" on the forbidden list. (Shotguns, which are more expensive and inflict as much pain as a semi-auto, were specifically exempted, because they are a "gentleman's weapon".) Who gets to decide which things are forbidden and why? This is, as are so many other things, a class issue.

People have free speech rights in the US under the First Amendment. We also have compulsory schooling, of some description, up to the age of 16. So we have at least some training in how to think before we go out and shoot off our mouths. It's true that sometimes the training is poor, or it doesn't "take", but at least the effort is there.

It amazes me that people in the US have the right to bear arms, a force more deadly than anything the First could possibly permit, and yet there is no compulsory education on the subject of the proper maintenance, use and safe storage of guns at any level whatsoever, except for hunters. To get a hunting license, a person must attend a hunter safety course. In PA, even this is only a one-day class. To buy a gun for "personal protection", that is, to keep in the house with the intention of using deadly force against another human being to defend one's self, a person need take no instruction at all. What kind of sense does that make?

The number of suicides would not be effected by education, but how many accidental shootings would be prevented if gun owners were expected and required to get a little instruction along with their toys? How many gun thefts would be thwarted if gun owners had a clue as to how to store and secure their weapons when not in use?

Our culture:
Justin, I was shocked to read your words describing the school shootings after Columbine as "a series of copycat incidents". Not that I think you were wrong or meant anyone ill, but that a lot of people probably share this view. "Copycat incident" is a way of minimizing the crime, to say to ourselves that the perps were just creatures of little imagination trying to get some attention.

The focus on the perp ignores the victims. It also ignores the culture that would, first, raise children who would do such things "for attention", and second, brush it off as only a copycat crime and part of the cost of doing business.

Why have these crimes "seem to have gotten rare again"? Not because the will to commit them has diminished -- we have no proof of that. It's because the high schools, the middle schools and the elementary schools have become lock-down areas. Children are getting suspensions for nail file possessions and expulsions for carrying pocket knives. (I myself carry a pocket knife, well known to my colleagues who ask me if they need a screwdriver or a pair of tweezers, and I must be very careful to leave it in my glove compartment whenever I visit a school, because I could be arrested.) Students' use of backpacks and bookbags has also been curtailed, lest they smuggle in a handgun to shoot unpopular teachers. This type of incident continues to be a problem. It's not as shocking as students shooting a dozen other students, so we don't see it in the national news.

In the US, we don't value bullies who lose. We value bullies who win. They are viewed as tough and therefore admirable, as long as we don't look at their tactics too closely. We are very careful not to look. People on the wrong end of this equation either seek revenge on the community that rejects them (school shootings), or seek to become the bullies who win by inspiring fear and pain such that they can get their way (gang wars). When complaints are raised about aggressive behavior, hateful treatment, and exclusion, I read replies about how "soft" and "feminized" such complaints are, and that the only way to be tough is to take your lumps. I also hear the usual condemnations of political correctness: It's OK to bully as long as it's a position with which we agree.

The lumps are being repaid with interest. In lead. Not just in school, but in the increase in domestic violence. If you can't take it out on the person who has bullied you, you take it out on someone who has less of an opportunity to strike back. Bullying makes victims, many of whom become bullies themselves. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em...and beat somebody else.

The response to these behaviors is often a "tough on crime" stance that wants to throw people in prison without addressing the situation that led to the violence in the first place, because that would be showing understanding and sympathy to the perp, another "soft" and "feminine" approach. Where we got the idea that justice cannot exist in the presence of mercy, I will never know.

We have shootings because we have guns. We have dumb shootings because we have dumb gun owners.

We have deliberate violence because we enshrine violence in our culture. We have deliberate violence because we don't care about each other.

Take away the guns, and the shootings would stop. The violence would continue. The guns can stay. The violence must go.

Regards--
Mary Anne