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Obama on Oregon Shooting: ‘This Is Something We Should Politicize’
President Obama delivered an angry statement on the Thursday shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, OR. “Each time we see one of these mass shootings,” he said from the White House briefing room podium, “our thoughts and prayers are not enough.
In a 15-minute statement, Obama stressed that the US is “the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every couple of months.” He praised the gun control efforts in Australia, a nation that conducted a mass confiscation of firearms from its citizenry.
The President repeatedly complained about the Republican-led Congress and gun rights advocates. “There is a gun for roughly every man, woman, and child in America,” he said, “so how can you with a straight face say more guns will make us safer?”
Obama claimed that states with the most gun laws tend to have the fewest gun deaths and repeatedly called for “common-sense” gun safety legislation. “Somebody somewhere will comment and say, ‘Obama politicized this issue.’ Well, this is something we should politicize,” the President said.
Instead of offering a plan of his own, Obama told voters to change American politics on the issue. He even requested that the media make gun control more popular.
“I would ask news organizations — because I won’t put these facts forward — have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who’ve been killed through terrorist attacks over the last decade and the number of Americans who’ve been killed by gun violence, and post those side-by-side on their news reports. It won’t be information coming from me, it’ll be coming from you,” the President said, pointing to reporters in the room.
Published in Guns
I agree—there’s a Kardashian element in this.
And as long as we’re talking culture, I agree about the father-absence. I’d add that, as a culture (and I mean Western Culture) we haven’t figured out what to do with young men. You and I have both seen our boys go off to do a very traditional young-man thing by joining the military. The military takes the courage and sheer physical energy of a young man and channels it in a time-honored way, toward the defense of the vulnerable (broadly speaking, the women, old people, and kids). This was exactly what any self-respecting tribe would do, too. Indeed, it was the evolutionary goal of boy-becomes-man, not just that he would be able to win and impregnate a woman, but that he would use his strength to defend her.
Because our society is a whole lot safer than a hunter-gatherer tribe, we no longer need young men to be, well, young men. Some adjust to this better than others, but it demands a fair amount of socialization (e.g. having a father in the house to restrain and control the sons, and to model good manhood). Absent such socialization, boys are left to invent manhood for themselves, while still in the category of the vulnerable. My boys, fatherless, had to do a bit of this despite the best efforts of male friends and relatives, and it was hard. In the end, they did okay of course—most do.
There’s a reason it isn’t crazy young women, for the most part, who are shooting up schoolrooms. Crazy young women are still…young women. Lunacy is lunacy, but the form it takes will be culturally conditioned as anything else, which is why there is a canary-in-the-coalmine element in these mass murders.
The young man who shoots co-eds because he feels rejected by women who are “supposed to be” available (doesn’t everything in our culture proclaim sexual availability?) the ratty little racist who shoots nice black churchgoers and, yes, the Oregonian who selectively shoots Christians will have culturally-conditioned justifications for their crimes. It’s not that the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine (“sixty naughty moves to drive him wild!”) or a generalized disdain for Christians, or, as you say,
causes someone to shoot a classroom full of innocent people, but it will provide the context for his choice of target, and will affect his choices of weapon, costume (suit and tie, clown suit, or BDU?) and whether and how he been able to develop expertise in killing.
I fixed it, I think. I’m sorry about that.
I will look for it today! Thank you. (And thank you for being so patient with me— I really am trying to discuss this in good faith, even if it seems like I’m just being provocative. )
At least some mass killers seem to choose victims from a particular group that they have animosity toward, if not personal animosity toward the particular victims.
The Charleston church killer chose blacks in a church for that reason. He wasn’t shooting at random. The Roanoke, VA shooter chose victims he knew and had an imaginary grievance against. Elliot Rodger had animosity toward attractive young women. There was a case some years ago, I can’t remember where, of a young Muslim going into a college classroom, allowing all the males to leave, and then sexually assaulting and killing the attractive women. The Navy Yard shooter had animus toward the US Navy. Shootings by Muslims tend to be of non-Muslims, but often target Jews or US military. The Nickel Mines killer had some kind of grudge, real or psychotic isn’t known, against the Amish, and took it out on little Amish girls.
Some of the shootings are by perpetrators who seem merely psychotic, such as the Colorado movie theater shooter and the Sandy Hook elementary school shooter. The Virginia Tech shooter may have been psychotic but he did have particular targets. The Chapel Hill killer targeted neighbors with whom he had a parking grievance.
There also could be more than one kind of gun culture. For example, in contrast to this:
there’s this, arguably part of a different (better?) gun culture. The nursery-rhyme begins:
That seems a different (yet equally historic) cultural approach to me.
What you describe may also be a Redneck vs Yankee divide. A touchy redneck honor culture that would tend to escalate family squabbles, even if guns weren’t handy.
Definitely. And redneck honor culture (pace Thomas Sowell!) is also arguably extant in the inner city.
Read in The Week this morning about an 11 year old in Tennessee who shot the little girl from next door because she wouldn’t let him see her new puppies… he went and got Dad’s shotgun from an unlocked closet.
I can’t offer a link right now, but Glenn Reynolds has written some good law articles on the background and meaning of the Second Amendment (freely available in PDF).
What I am referring to here is the dysfunction in our society causing life to be not valued.
Millions of babies murdered through abortion – what’s the big deal about shooting up a school or a mall?
Malcom Gladwell has written some very interesting stuff about what you call the “redneck” culture. I believe he calls it a “blood” culture. The roots go back to places like Scotland, and it helped me understand some of the crazy Scots I know and knew while living there.
Kate,
Believe it or not this was not in any way an ad hominem attack on you. Anyone who was making the arguments you made I would have said the exact same thing to. We just had an incident in Israel that shows what I and most everyone on Ricochet knows. At the Western Wall during a time of prayer a Jihadist maniac with a knife attacked a couple walking home. The man was stabbed to death and the women screamed. Another Religious man who was just sitting down to a meal heard the scream. He got his gun and ran out to them. Instead of firing immediately he hesitated. The attacker stabbed him and took the gun out of his hand.
I am very sure of the attitude of most Religious Jews. They would go an extra mile to help anybody. I’m sure the man in question just wasn’t ready to use deadly force. He’s dead now because of his hesitation.
cont.
cont. from#226
Talking about dead bodies and helping people with emotional scars gives you no special knowledge of these situations. Police officers who in the line of duty are forced to use deadly force often have strong emotional reactions for a long time also. The flaw in your logic is simply that there is some other choice. You may wish that there was some other choice but I don’t think there is one.
In Chicago with the strictest gun laws in the Country the massive black on black gang related murder goes on unabated and unreported. This is because of wishful thinking emotionalism. We wish that blacks weren’t responsible for this much violence against each other. We wish that it was all our fault and by changing our behavior we could solve all of those problems. The media understands this wishful thinking and refuses to report this at the national level. Obama never makes a speech about it in seven years but “black lives matter”. Obviously, they don’t to the President or the media.
Sorry if I stung you personally Kate. I’ve listened to this for sixty-two years and it just goes round and round with the same result. More and more innocent people are killed by people who are without sanity or without any conscience. I am tired of people who choose to defend themselves being accused of every ridiculous pseudo-crime.
Regards,
Jim
I didn’t accuse you of a crime. (And thank you for the apology, Jim. Back at you, if it seems like I’m being willfully obtuse!) Completely agree about the mess in the inner city and the lack of response or even rhetoric on the part of everyone from the president on down.
And I also know that even insanity is conditioned by the culture it lives within. The guy who attacked the couple at the Wailing Wall may have been nuts, but he nonetheless chose targets according to an extant meme. One reasonable question to be asked in any given situation is whether a given cultural meme encourages young men to kill, and/or recommending specific targets.
This isn’t an easy question to answer in all cases. Obviously, if you are constantly preaching that the Jews are the enemy and that it is the duty of every good muslim to kill them, it’s hard to claim completely clean hands when someone actually goes and kills a Jewish couple. If we declare that a doctor who performs abortions is a mass-murderer, why wouldn’t an unbalanced young person feel justified in killing him? And if a culture constantly, relentlessly celebrates gang violence, surely that is one factor in why it continues to take place. The fact that gun violence is so unevenly distributed, both across the U.S. and within regions and states strongly suggests a cultural element. And then what? How do you change that culture?
cont.
cont. from #229
Kate,
I appreciate your candor. However, on your abortion comment it is a long time since the Pro-Life movement has been using inflammatory rhetoric and it is making much better progress without it. The difference is that Pope Francis is not preaching Jihad against all non-believers or doctors who perform abortions. The reality of politics in a free society is that your must state your position clearly for people to take it seriously and vote properly on it. The left has been playing a vicious game declaring speech that is only the clear statement of an opposing point of view “hate speech” or simply whining that it “upsets” them. When Jihadists world wide scream for the brutal murder of Christians & Jews (and anyone else that isn’t Muslim or even their special brand of Muslim) the press can’t quite grasp that this is real incitement to not just violence but genocide.
Nothing that Catholics, Christians, or Jews are saying comes even close to this relentless hideous incitement.
Regards,
Jim
That isn’t a merely rhetorical question, BTW: I really don’t know.
Yes, that’s what I’m referring to, too, Annefy. In fact, it occurred to me that the connection between the gun violence in, say, Chicago and the gun violence of the Oregon murderer (still don’t know his name) may be linked. The “gang-banger” culture of the ghetto leaks into the rest of American life through music and movies. Kids here in rural Maine will listen to gangsta rap (or blast it, rather pathetically, as they drive through some little Maine town with their car windows rolled down), and I remember being shocked when my friends’ sons told me that, after watching The Wire, they fantasized about being badass drug dealers. Two of them actually gave it a try, were arrested and basically ruined their otherwise promising young lives. They, too, wore hoodies and baggy jeans, and even acquired a gun (not difficult to do, in a gun-friendly state) as a kind of fashion accessory.
This is as very new notion, but anyway I wonder whether the violence we are allowing to fester in the inner-cities, the violence that then gets glorified in music and in movies, the violence that explodes into puerile riots (carefully explained away/encouraged as an urge for “justice” by liberal apologists) has been incorporated into the wider culture in such a way that middle-class boys take on a kind of pseudo-gang-banger persona in order to demonstrate masculinity by any means necessary? (And yes, father-absence is part of that). And the crazy ones then think of themselves as social justice warriors rather than plain old mean people?
I might be pressing this too hard. After all, these guys don’t dress like gang bangers. More like the bad guys in horror movies, for the most part…
One thing we could do is address this as a public health problem; maybe an ad campaign (like the anti-smoking campaign?) that simply urges people to keep their guns locked up where no one other than the responsible gun owner can get at them?
Could we change the way police officers are allowed/trained to respond to reports of potentially violent mentally-ill people, the way we pretty radically changed how they respond to domestic violence situations?
Agree—on all points.
So at least in theory, changing the rhetoric around an issue does have at least some effect, particularly when it comes from what is seen as a credible and allied source.
As I said above, one point of failure in the crazy people & guns problem is the family member who does not take steps to keep his or her guns away from other members of the household. (One of the murders I responded to was one in which the father of the murderer gave him a gun after his own had been taken from him by the police because he had threatened his family…on the grounds that having a gun would make his son feel more like a man. Oops.)
Another may be that police officers are not permitted to be as aggressive about responding to mentally ill subjects as they could be. A young friend of mine experienced a psychotic (that is, disconnected-from-reality) episode in New York City. The police responded… but they could do nothing, even though she was standing in the snow in her bare feet, talking to hallucinations. After twenty minutes or so of conversation in which an officer tried to persuade her to go with him to the hospital, she took a swing at him. He was, he told her mom later, thrilled. Now he could help her.
Kate,
I don’t think a review of the last 100 years of the mental health industry will get us anywhere. However, now that you mention it, you could hold gun owners responsible for the loss of personal control of their weapon if it can be construed as a form of careless disregard for the safety of others. For instance, if you gave the keys of your car to a 10 year old and told them “sure go for a nice spin”, I’m sure you should and would be held responsible for the result.
Regards,
Jim
Another natural analogy between guns and car keys :-)
We’d probably agree about mental health, actually. Deinstitutionalization has been disastrous, and I say that as a person with seriously mentally-ill loved ones. Addressing that problem would alleviate so much suffering that it’s worth doing even without the incentive of (potentially?) preventing murders.
I’d be for holding gun owners responsible for the loss of personal control of the weapon—and how would you be with an ad campaign around that issue? Like: “This is what careful regard for the safety of others looks like when it comest to guns…” Ideally, this would be done in partnership with the NRA, because they would be seen by the target audience (:-)) as credible.
Incidentally—and totally off the subject—I am blissfully happy. Because I was called out at oh-dark-hundred to respond to a double-drowning (duck hunters missing since yesterday afternoon, empty boat found floating upside down…). Drove fifty miles, and just as I was nearing the staging area, I got a call from the Lieutenant; they found the guys. Cold, wet and unhappy, but not dead.
I love not dead. I love being completely unnecessary.
Midge,
I think we can follow this logic and make some improvements here. However, we are in a climate of extreme prejudice against gun ownership. This government would violate the rights of every citizen to defend themselves if given half the chance. We must not let our own very good “common sense” confuse us when we are facing the twisted motives of the left. They will play on our best intentions and turn them into one more soulless government power grab.
Regards,
Jim
Some kinds of loss of personal control.
We had a car stolen. We were not pleased to get ticket notifications for it after it had been reported stolen, and it was only right that we shouldn’t owe. If a crime had been committed with that stolen car, we would not be expected to be held responsible.
In order to show liability for loss of personal control of an object, the person who lost control must be complicit in the loss of control in some way. What you described above – the father who gave his son a gun after he knew the police had taken the son’s own guns – sounds like complicity to me. Some forms of egregious negligence may count as complicity – there is some complicity implied by failure to take reasonable steps to avoid a foreseeable outcome, though low levels of negligence are quite reasonably not always actionable.
But I trust you know a line must be drawn here. For example, I am sure that, if a gun-owner had his weapon stolen, and that gun were later used in a crime, prosecuting the one who had been robbed rather than the robber and the actual criminal would offend your sense of justice.
Midge,
I think you are making the proper argument here. Again, some form of complicit, knowing, negligence must be involved. If so then the gun owner would be liable. Look out for the lefties who would stretch your common sense (and rock solid legal logic) to try to destroy gun ownership.
Regards,
Jim
Agree.
I know insurance companies get very annoyed (and parsimonious) when a car is stolen from a person who didn’t, for example, lock the doors. I don’t know how that would play out in terms of guns and law, but I don’t see why it couldn’t be worked through.
Jim—the politics of this are, I agree, tricky. And emotional. On the other hand, at least some of the hostility to gun ownership per se, and the reason that hostility gains traction among the general public, is, frankly, the body count. And the perception that gun owners/the NRA react to massacres by doubling down on the Freedom issue rather than addressing the responsibility issue.
So reducing the body count would obviously be a big plus on all levels, but even assuming there’s no really quick fix, a pro-active campaign to address the points that gun owners and non-gun-owners can agree on would help. For instance, if we all agreed that part of the problem is that too many gun owners aren’t being careful enough about keeping their guns securely stowed, what if the NRA teamed up with some other group or agency—ATF, even—to produce a series of advertisements for print, video, radio etc that addressed this? I think about how differently we view drinking and driving today compared with thirty years ago…or seatbelt use, or car-seats for little kids, or phoning or texting-and-driving (which we’re still working on).
Kate,
Once again Kate let’s not give in to the narrative in any way. You said “part of the problem“. There isn’t any the problem. Responsible behavior is a hallmark of a free society not of a totalitarian one. The totalitarian society gives you the illusion of control but then runs everything by a black market & corrupt government anyway.
Yes, I would like to see the NRA (not ATF) encourage people with a set of easy to follow guidelines on keeping control of your own firearms. The message would be obvious and need not be some guilt trip on gun ownership.
I think we need to send a message to responsible gun owners that they are welcome contributors to this free society not pariahs “clinging to their guns & bibles”. The President is the pariah. What a relief it will be when he is gone.
Regards,
Jim
Perfect!
The reason I added ATF is that I don’t think the NRA needs to foot the bill for this by itself, and because it would be too easy for critics to dismiss anything the NRA produced on its own. Maybe the Justice Department? (Under the next president if not this one—he’s sort of blown his cred on this issue, sadly…)
Responsible behavior is the hallmark of a free society, but all of us can require guidance to know what responsible behavior looks like in a variety of contexts. For example—again—seatbelts: when I was young, it was not considered irresponsible to drive a car without a seatbelt on, or without buckling infants into a car seat. The difference came not from each individual having the experience of smacking their head against the windshield in an accident (or, worse, losing a child) but through a combination of public education and new rules and regulations (e.g. the “4 and 40” standard in effect when my kids were small).
One could do more or less the same thing with guns—come up with the safety guidelines that one hopes will become second-nature to gun-owners, and then publicize them energetically, build them into the zeitgeist. In twenty years, it might seem just as peculiar to leave a loaded gun in an unlocked closet with children in the house as it does now to let a two-year-old crawl around in the back seat while you drive down the highway.
The major gun-related organizations already do and have for a long while had programs in place to not only teach children what to do should they come across a firearm (NRA, Eddie Eagle program), but also programs to encourage gun owners to lock up their guns not immediately in their possession from children (National Shooting Sports Foundation, Project Child Safe). These are not new programs by any stretch of the imagination. The Eddie Eagle Program alone has been around for over 25 years and NSSF has had similar programs to Project Child Safe for more than a decade now. These are just two programs that are still around and don’t include a mention any older programs.
For those not already aware:
Eddie Eagle Program: https://eddieeagle.nra.org (This program is intended as an educational tool for parents and children.)
NSSF Project Child Safe: http://www.projectchildsafe.org/ (This program is intended as an educational tool for gun owners, and also provides gun safety lock kits to those who need them. You may also find free locks provided by NSSF at your local gun store.)
This is why I thought the NRA would be really good at helping out with PSAs.
By the way, did you ever see that FRONTLINE documentary, where they used hidden cameras to record what kids did when they found a (planted, disabled) gun after undergoing NRA gun safety training? The girls did exactly what they’d been told to do—don’t touch the gun, go find a grownups. The boys immediately picked up the gun, pointed it at a friend and, in one case, pulled the trigger. It was pretty sobering. My first husband (State Trooper) talked a lot with the kids about gun safety…but he also locked up all his weapons when he came home from work.
The idea of “arms” was roughly weapons that were suitable for handheld use and which one man could carry (“bear”) and operate. So it would apply to almost all modern firearms including semiautomatic rifles, but exclude cannon and artillery as well as all the other explosives you listed in your previous post.
See Section III of this article for more details.