The horrific tragedy
at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School last week sickened the nation and was particularly appalling,
as most of its victims were between the ages of 5 and 10. AFL-CIO Boss Richard
Trumka lamented the “inexplicable horror” of the massacre, while President
Obama called for “meaningful action” to stop the seemingly endless wave of
violence (e.g., Wisconsin Sikh temple, Colorado movie theater, and California’s Oikos University
massacres earlier this year).
Even though
the shooter’s motives are not yet known, there is much that is explicable about
the incident, contrary to Trumka’s claims to the contrary. For example, it is probably
safe to generalize that a person who walks into an elementary school and
slaughters twenty young children is disturbed, if not insane. Apparently, there
is some indication that family members were aware of his emotional troubles.
Whether or
not they had tried and failed to get him the help he needed, the fact is that
it is unnecessarily difficult and expensive to obtain behavioral or mental
health care in this country. There are long waiting lists to get into addiction
treatment centers. There are millions of Americans who have no health insurance
and millions more who have such poor quality insurance that they cannot see a
competent practitioner for such routine conditions as depression or anxiety.
While we are
unlikely to ever eradicate mental illness, we could significantly reduce the
rare acts of violence and relatively common fear, depression, anxiety and
relational problems that accompany mental illness with a comprehensive health
care system that provided free and accessible physical and mental healthcare to
everyone.
Another
simple solution would be to enact stringent gun control laws. The U.S. remains
the only wealthy country in the world in which guns can be so cheaply and
easily obtained, and it continues to have the highest rate of gun deaths
because of this. According to the New York Times, American
kids are 13 times more likely to be gunned down than kids in other industrialized
nations. Overall, there
are 30,000 gun-related deaths each year in the U.S. The Connecticut gunman
apparently walked into his mother’s home, grabbed a few of her numerous weapons,
killed her and then let loose in the elementary school—something that would
have been far more difficult if guns were not so readily accessible.
It is ironic
that Obama made his most recent school massacre address from the James S. Brady
Press Briefing Room, named for Reagan’s press secretary who was shot and
permanently disabled in a 1981 assassination attempt. Brady has since become a
strong advocate for tougher gun control laws. Yet during Obama’s press
briefing, his own press secretary, Jay Carney, said this was “not the day for a debate on gun
control” and, as
president, Obama has consistently refused to make any serious attempt to strengthen
gun control laws. Furthermore, Obama is the first U.S. president to assert the right to assassinate anyone anywhere in the world, including U.S. citizens, having killed well over 3,000 people, mostly civilians, with drone attacks under his watch--hardly the actions of a president who wants to take meaningful action to stem the wave of violence.
Also not on
the table for discussion are the numerous other national social dysfunctions
that that contribute to violence in our communities. For example, pundits and
advocates for children often decry violent video games, movies and music
videos, but there is no evidence that any of these things increases the chances
that a child will be violent toward his peers or as an adult. However, there is
considerable evidence that adults sent into battle sometimes come home and
behave violently toward their families, coworkers or random individuals. Yet,
rather than increasing diplomacy and decreasing warfare, the U.S. has been
doing the opposite over the past few decades, attacking Granada, Panama, Libya,
Sudan, Somalia, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, just to name a few. And while
there is increasing acknowledgement by the military of the causes and
consequences of PTSD, suicide rates in the military and wait times for access
to VA services remain high.
In addition
to the occasional acts of violence that can be directly linked to the post-traumatic
stress that often accompanies combat, the cultures of the military and police
are about social control through physical coercion and, if necessary, lethal
force. Soldiers and police are trained to shoot to kill. Suspects and enemies
who do not cooperate fully and quickly are physically assaulted. Thus, it
should come as no surprise that rape in the military occurs far more often than
in the general population. In
2010, 19,000 soldiers were sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers and an
estimated 20% of all female soldiers are sexually assaulted during their service
in the military. In the general population, rapes are estimated to occur at a
far lower rate (some studies suggest fewer
than 1 per 100,000 people annually).
However, even
for civilians, violence is often a normal part of life. For example, the
majority of cases of violence and sexual assault against children are perpetrated
by adult members of their own families, often on a regular and ongoing basis. Equally
banal is the violence and threatened violence faced by women, people of color
and gay and transgendered people—violence that is rooted in bigotry, but that
is facilitated by lax law enforcement and prosecution and by right wing
punditry and religious intolerance.
Capitalism, itself,
also contributes to violence. For example, corporations weigh the costs of
litigation versus potential profits when determining how safe to make their
products, with the consequence that consumers are often killed or maimed by
defective products. Some corporations—particularly those operating in poorer
countries—facilitate or participate directly in violence against their
employees and community members (see here
and here for just 2
examples). However, U.S. corporations have a long and sordid history of killing
American workers in the name of profits (e.g., Ludlow
Massacre, Homestead
Strike, also see Modern School’s Labor History
Timeline for many more examples), while they
often kill and maim their employees through speed-ups, poor maintenance and law
safety precautions.
Regardless
of whether one has a good job, or a job at all, the capitalist system creates a
division of wealth and power that leads to want, privation and uncertainty for
the majority. This frequently makes people feel cheated and angry, though their
anger is often misplaced and directed against fellow workers or family members instead
of the bosses.
In response to this most recent school shooting, the only
change we are likely to see is increased vigilance by school districts (indeed,
we are already seeing this), with improvements in their protocols for dealing
with intruders and other emergencies. While this is an important precaution
that can reduce the amount of harm done by an intruder (or a violent insider), it
will not end school rampages if the other causes of violence are ignored and weapons
remain so accessible.
