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El Paso, Dayton, and Us
A white nationalist murdered 20 shoppers in El Paso Saturday. Hours later, an angry progressive murdered nine people in Dayton’s entertainment district. Cable TV, politicians, and social media “experts” offered simple fixes conveniently aligned with their policy preferences and dealt sick burns to those who disagreed.
Everyone who supports the Second Amendment, strong borders, or Donald Trump was blamed for the Texas terrorist. Anyone who supports socialism, Liz Warren, or AOC is aligned with the Ohio terrorist. The other villains were 8Chan, video games, males, weak mental healthcare, family breakdown, white people, and loose firearm laws.
As awful as Twitter can be, post-shooting Twitter is a misery. A few share links to donate blood, money, and support, adding the inspiring stories of heroism from people on the crime scene. But the most amplified voices respond to hateful massacres with even more hate. Instead of uniting around grieving communities, they further divide traumatized Americans. “Someone shot people in another state? I’ll help by screaming at a stranger on the other side of the country!”
What’s to blame for this increasing cycle of mass shootings: guns, radical internet forums, mental issues, media violence, or eliminationist rhetoric? It’s all those things and many, many more, which is why bumper-sticker legislation will do little to prevent future attacks.
The ultimate blame is on two violent cowards who chose evil. If you don’t like the religious connotations of that word, replace it with “dark psychic force of collectivized hatred.” If you wonder why Marianne Williamson gained traction with that phrase, wonder no more.
However you phrase it, legislation can’t end human evil. Eliminate guns; murderers will use knives, airplanes, and fertilizer-filled trucks. Mandate mental health care; technically “sane” murderers will commit crimes sanctioned by twisted rationality. Ban 8Chan; the radicals will gather on countless other websites. That’s why Twitter’s 280-character policy pitches fall far short of ending future massacres.
At most, politicians can mitigate the threat around the edges. Treat white nationalists and Antifa as terror groups. Tighten up the enforcement of gun laws. Enhance access to mental health in all 50 states.
To the social media warriors, responding to hateful actions with hateful speech only makes things worse. Unleash your invective at the murderers all you want, but vilifying entire categories of your fellow Americans? You’re only contributing to the Ghostbusters river of slime coursing coast-to-coast.
Any meaningful change will come from each of us as individuals. Reaching out to the isolated, lending an ear to your neighbor, volunteering in your community. None of those will get retweets or likes on social media, let alone give a politician more power. Instead, you’ll be sacrificing your own time and energy to help someone you don’t even know. It beats screaming at them.
Published in General
So many of those hateful voices were just muttering to themselves or each other. Now they can scream at the world through social media. I always block and mute a lot of people when something like this happens and go back to tweets about how awesome the Astros are.
That Tlaib creature was particularly disgusting … again. She doesn’t want prayers … she wants Trump’s head.
Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, said it best:
“As long as we continue to only praise God and look at God on a Sunday morning and kick Him out of the town square at our schools the other six days of the week, what do we expect?”
It’s time to restore prayer in the public schools. Shortly before President Kennedy was shot, prayer in the public schools was banned by the Supreme Court.
Here’s the voluntary prayer that was banned:
Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country.
Without being reminded on a daily basis that G-d is in charge, children grow up thinking the world is a jungle and that there is no accountability. El Paso and Dayton are the result.
Is there an increasing cycle of mass shootings? It’s pretty well established that the violent crime rate in the U.S. is about half of what it was 25-30 years ago. Because of all the press coverage, everyone assumes that mass shootings are the exception to this trend and are increasing. But whenever I hear someone talk about actual crime statistics, it sounds like mass shootings are not increasing.
Absolutely. It’s so disappointing that so many people look for reasons to tie the latest homicidal maniac to groups of people they dislike.
Uh, Breaker 1-9, I do believe you need some citations behind that assertion. Violent crime stats in general–and mass killings in particular–are low and going lower.
The impetus of the driver making people feel we’re in an increasing cycle of mass shootings? The same social media that you call out for pointing fingers of blame.
I know you’re a public figure for whom social media presence is a core piece of the job. For me, I’d rather do my daily 100 burpees naked over a super-huge cheese grater than join Twitter.
[I don’t do 100 burpees daily, but if I was on social media, I could make it look like I do.]
Has there been an increase in mass shootings in the past 25 years. I ask because I am wondering if the internet has something to do with it.
Damn it Jon,
You’re right!
Regards,
Jim
Twitter is a cesspool of rage and accusations tonight. The problem is that much of it is coming from people whose voices extend beyond Twitter. There’s a lot of Blue Check Marked Verified Media Members leading the charge.
People who go around chastising Trump and his supporters believe that their own rhetoric carries no negative consequence. They believe that going around calling half the country racists, haters, scum, white supremacists, etc, will only turn the objects of their unrelenting scorn into withering wallflowers. Well, that’s not the way it works.
Taking positions that all white people must be “called out” and “punished,” made to pay for all sorts of historical sins, both real and imagined, gets tiring and tedious to those of us of sound mind. We push back to no avail as they are convinced this is “winning politics.” But to the unstable mind, the mind prone to paranoia, the mind that may have been in an altered state since kindergarten, it can be too much.
But instead or ratcheting down the rhetoric, as far as they’re concerned it’s another valid excuse to turn the volume and intensity up another couple of notches.
What unites the left and many who are staunchly on the right is an avoidance of the G word and the lack of a belief system based on divine revelation. However, without G-d, good and bad, right and wrong, are arbitrary designations. What makes the 10 Commandments special is that they were given by G-d. But if you are casual about Him, why should you follow His commandment not to murder?
Remember, too, that “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” the first of which is “life.” Astutely, the Declaration of Independence acknowledges that our right to life is G-d given. Take G-d out of the equation and the right to life itself is undermined.
“Any meaningful change will come from each of us as individuals. Reaching out to the isolated, lending an ear to your neighbor, volunteering in your community.”
Exactly right.
When they stopped showing people who ran onto the field during baseball and football games, fewer people did it. If they stopped publicizing, much less sensationalizing, mass shooters (and their manifestos), there would be fewer shootings. In a culture of social fragmentation, alienation, and loneliness, people are desperate for recognition and will stop at nothing to get it. There should be quick executions of shooters and little, if any, reportage.
Yes, but it does appear to be perfectly aligned with the limits of the attention span of the vast majority of its users. Which is why longer, rational, well thought out responses, such as the OP here, fall on largely deaf ears.
You know, this weekend I was too busy to check the news, and I didn’t find out about these shootings untill late Sunday evening. And my day was just fine and happy not knowing and caring. Maybe if we cared less and watched less news there wouldn’t be a market for these psychos. Rather than banning Twitter I say we ban 24 hour news channels that make money from selling adds to cover these incidents catering to their partisan audiences. #bancnnfoxmsnbc
It’s difficult to quantify mass shootings because there is no set definition of what a “mass shooting” is. Is it a mass shooting when two people are shot? What about gang violence? I’m always skeptical when mass shooting statistics are thrown around with no questioning whatsoever.
My understanding is that the FBI/DOJ define a mass killing as any killing with four or more deaths resultant. If a firearm is used, it is then called a mass shooting.
It’s not like there hasn’t been a country that has faced this kind of thing of ideological death and done a good job at it. We need to have an even more serious conversation. That country is of course Israel.
In Israel, all gun licenses are open carry. Many, perhaps most, terrorist shooters (and stabbers) are stopped by civilians with firearms. Open carry does make a difference.
By the same token, you have to jump through many hoops to get a gun license. You need to have reached a certain level of weapons training in the military and then you must undergo a thorough investigation of your police and medical — both mental and physical health — records. Without appropriate military training, you are still eligible for a gun license if you live or work in a security risk area such as Judea or Samaria (the so-called West Bank) or certain Jerusalem neighborhoods. You are also given guidelines — in a 30 minute class — as to when, legally, you are allowed to open fire. Then, you do actual training on a shooting range before being issued your gun license. Finally, the firearm you select must be a sidearm (handgun), and you cannot purchase more than one.
Interesting point. The weekend prior to this we had a shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival where 16 people were shot, three fatally. That same day, two gunmen opened fire at a block party in Brooklyn leaving one dead and 11 injured. The shooting in Brooklyn was on the local news here, but the Gilroy shooting seemed to get much more national coverage. Why? Because the Brooklyn victims and shooters were Black? Because police suspect it was gang related and that doesn’t fit into a good political narrative?
The FBI may have a definition of mass shooting but the media’s definition isn’t as clear.
That is one thing. Are there differences in building codes so that someone with a gun can be isolated to a part of the building? Or to easy ingress or egress? Infiltration of these groups.
………. and guns. Just because the government bans something doesn’t mean it goes away. Guns will still be in the hands of those who operate outside of the law and a huge black market will result. We’ve banned all kinds of drugs and our country is still saturated with them. We banned alcohol during Prohibition and more people drank than ever before.
Without God, all rights are undermined.
Ever heard of the 1st Amendment?
Nearly all shootings are outdoors because of security at building entrances and schools. In Israel, by law, every school must have a guard at the entrance. Over the last 45 years, after the law was passed requiring school guards, there have been only two school shootings and the shooters in both cases were stopped by armed teachers. Shootings tend to be drive by in nature because terrorists know that many civilians are armed.
You know, now that I’ve read few of the latest news articles on these two shootings I must say the way you phrase this sentence is incredibly disingenuous. The Texas shooter was clearly motivated and performed his act of terror for political reasons. We know this because like other such maniacs he “published” a “manifesto” outlining his crazed views and motives. The Ohio shooter (while also clearly equally mentally disturbed) gave no indication for his violence, and as of now there really isn’t a reason to think he was making some incomprehensible political point by his actions. His self identification as a progressive on Facebook or what not seems rather more incidental to his crime. While to the Texas shooter his white nationalist identity seems rather causal. By juxtaposing the two in the way that you do you are creating a false equivalence between these two reprehensible men. It really servers only to white wash the clear motives of the Texas shooter, in much the same way that liberal insistence of juxtaposing Islamist violence with other violence served to undermine and minimize the threats of jihadism as a violent and radicalizing ideology. Now it may come to pass that the the Ohio psycho did shoot all those people (including his sister apparently) because of far left political reasoning. But, as of now he is better thought of as a run of the mill psycho rather than an ideological one (hardly more comforting I admit). But white nationalism, like jihadism is an ideology that promotes radicalization and violence, taking of people of the psychological fringes and purposefully pushing them over the edge. It serves as an organizing and rationalizing principle and a perverted support network for this kind of thinking and action. We will probably always have people who snap for inexplicable reasons and commit horrendous violence, but we don’t have to have people who are nurtured into it by extreme and subversive ideologies. And while the effects may be similar the divergent causes carry with them different moral implication and solutions.
It’s depressing to listen to the responses of some of our politicians and celebrities. Beto is a total sophomoric moron. Colbert is an epic moron.
I also noticed that some writers on the right are trying lay some of the blame for the two most recent shootings at the feet of the President, for his rhetoric during the 2016 campaign and at other times since then.
David French (who is no moron) believes that there is some connection between mass shootings and the president’s rhetoric. He also links the rise of the “alt-right” to the rise and eventual election of president Trump.
His piece is full of contradictions. He believes that violent white supremacy is as evil as violent jihad. I agree.
But consider that before this President was elected, it was considered a religious slur upon the Muslim faith to use the words “radical Islamic terrorism.” For many, it still is. How did Obama characterize the Ft. Hood shooting? Workplace violence.
If we apply the Obama precedent to describing white supremacy, where does that leave us?
French writes in support of a space for discourse that allows people to debate levels of immigration, border security, and other controversial topics without using language that breaths life into white supremacy. He needs to consider that in our divided country today, a vote in favor of a border wall makes one a crypto “white supremacist.” Anyone who thinks that should get his head examined. But there it is. The space for discourse is narrow.
The Left and the “elite” Atlantic Monthly crowd made similar arguments after the Tree of Life shooting.
French simply sees the President as a very flawed man who makes a lot of grievous mistakes. I agree with him. However, the alternative is far, far worse, and I’m pretty sure Mr. French would agree with me.
I beg to differ, sir.
Yeah, but I’d like something more authoritative than David French’s opinion before I bite off on that. Because I voted for Trump (and because I think he”s a smug, pious fool) he wouldn’t hesitate to call me either a an alt-right goon or a white supremacist. I got no time for that guy.
I concur, too. But its a matter of scale, isn’t it? True white supremacists are less than a sliver of a fraction of a percentage of the US population. You can’t say that about world-wide violent jihadis.
And I’m more than sure that French believes that the arbiter of what language crosses the line is…French.
Val, I think that you’re unfair to Jon. At least some of the media is lumping the two shootings together under “white nationalist” headlines. Here’s an example from the WSJ and another example from NBC.
From the memes I see posted on The Books of Face, there were 255 mass shootings in the last 230 days.
That’s what I saw. I laughed. If it were true, gun stores would be out of stock.
Ok – I’ll bite. How do we not have people who are nurtured by extreme and subversive idealogies?
Love this. Especially the last part. I think this speaks to
It is right, that he the Dayton shooter, as far as we know, had no explicit political goal, even though he had explicit prior politics. So there isn’t that direct parallelism in the shootings. However, the Dayton shooter was aware of what happened and its political connotations (based on some twitter reporting). I think, can’t prove, that you have a weird copy-cat style thing. We know shooters like to follow each other. And I believe both of these people stewed in their own brand of political anger. And that is why I like quoted post. I don’t think a lot of blue checks realize just how much anger they are pumping out and how they have taken the guard-rails off of what is acceptable in terms of rhetoric in order to get at Trump. They think they are on the side of angels but there are a lot of crazy people who can latch on to that stuff. Am I blaming them for the shooting? No. But reading about the Dayton shooter and seeing some of his likes and retweets, this was someone who stewed in their own particular brand of political crazy– even if the shooting wasn’t political.