This is the formula for slaughter in the U.S.: a young, white man armed to the teeth. He has untreated mental issues and fantasizes about killing and hurting, bringing his fantasies to life against animals, his family, himself. He may consider himself a white supremacist or an alien being, but he has little connection to other humans. Rarely, he plans and executes the killing with another human (as in Columbine)—mostly, he commits suicide at the end of the rampage.
The resultant slaughter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida—the 18th U.S. mass shooting of 2018:
17 murdered and 15 injured, in 4 minutes. Shot with a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle while navigating an ordinary high school afternoon. Killed, maimed, traumatized, changed.
The shooter was 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz of Parkland, a white man identified as disturbed and violent from the age of 10. Armed to the teeth, he fantasized about killing. He hurt animals, his mother, and himself, and posted racist and white supremacist slogans. Although reported through the years, there was no intervention from local mental health agencies or law enforcement. A walking formula for slaughter.
Donald Trump told the survivors and the nation that he was open to suggestions and opinions about how to stop gun violence in schools. In a country awash with guns (more than 100% per capita), the answer is pointed right at us.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/21/17028930/gun-violence-us-statistics-charts
Trump and his NRA masters decided that the solution to gun violence in schools should rest squarely on the shoulders of the teachers of America. American gun violence in general was ignored, especially against African Americans. Again. The opinion of the majority of Americans who want gun control was ignored. Again. Instead, President Trump told the nation that the solution to gun violence in schools is gun-packing teachers.
In our particular democracy these are the factors around the formula for slaughter:
Our moth eaten social net and lack of provision and financial access for mental health treatment, especially for children—so, if you call and say that you think someone is crazy, you’ve called and said that you think someone is crazy. Mazel tov!
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/02/so-you-think-someone-might-be-mentally-ill/553487
Law enforcement—most unusually incompetent and even cowardly in this case, officers recorded but ignored the many times citizens reported Cruz’s violent and threatening acts online and in person—see above
Gun control—fahgettaboudid
In much of the world, farmers and hunters own guns. They generally own long guns—rifles and shotguns— of the one-trigger-pull-equals-one-round-released variety for hunting, protection of stock, and target practice. However, there is no contest between the staggering numbers of U.S. mass shootings and non-jihadist mass shootings in other countries such as England, Scotland, France, Australia and Germany. There is also no contest between the numbers of guns owned per U.S. resident vs. that of any other country, including Switzerland.
Coincidence?
The U.S. and Switzerland are among the world’s wealthiest countries. Switzerland has “a gun in every closet” policy, first set during the Napoleonic invasion in the 19th century, and confirmed during the World War II threat of German invasion.
Responsible gun ownership is still the norm for the Swiss, which has a militia style army with conscription for males. A quarter of the Swiss population owns guns and practices sharpshooting and hunting—which is not to say that every Swiss citizen agrees with the number of guns and the type of guns allowed (with the appropriate license, a Swiss citizen can own a semi-automatic weapon such as an AR-15). Gun ownership is definitely a Swiss thing—gunfire and sharpshooting are included in Swiss national/regional holiday celebrations.
There are 8.5 million people in Switzerland, which is roughly 1/30th of our population. One Swiss government agency cross-references attempts at gun purchase and the mental health of the buyer before the gun is sold. Switzerland is divided into cantons or states, and each one tracks every gun owned, purchased and sold within its borders, and tallies gun IDs with the other cantons. Swiss mental health facilities and treatments are offered extensively and are covered under their mandatory universal health insurance plan at low cost.
How well does it work in reality? There was one mass shooting in a Swiss regional parliament in 2001. Period.
We are not Swiss. We do not control our guns and we don’t have access to good health care at low cost. We also raise males who commit an ungodly number of mass shootings every year. Unlike their counterparts in Switzerland, they have little access to mental health care, but full access to weapons of mass destruction, whether illegally, such as from their parents’ careless storage, or via the many ways to circumvent our weak and leaky legal purchase requirements.
Cruz purchased his 10 weapons at pawnshops, and also at gun stores like Gun World, which still can’t provide a provenance for each gun he bought. No provenance literally means that the famously touted bad guys and good guys are exchanging guns, unbeknownst and uncontrolled. Per the NRA mandate, America does not control its guns.
Back to the teachers and their future in gun slinging. Some teachers may think it’s a good idea, but according to their unions and associations, it seems that most do not. Is it a good idea to place a teacher with a concealed weapon—a handgun by definition—in a close-quartered situation with a young and deranged man and his semi-automatic or automatic long gun?
Let’s say the chemistry teacher is an excellent shot—she even has combat or police experience, and has a semi-automatic handgun—will she stop the carnage, or will she add to it? The same question could be asked if she carries a matching weapon in power and rounds of ammo. And which person would the arriving police shoot?
Here’s a scenario: the man arrives in the school hallway, out of nowhere, with his weapon firing. The chemistry teacher, in the middle of writing a chemical reaction on the board, scrambles around for the gun, unlocks it (it’s loaded), aims and fires. It’s a lot to do in a split second while under fire, even for professionals in the military and in the police force.
We have a lot to do in order to stop gun violence, or even reduce it, but our NRA-run country (and why is that? When will politicians stop taking money from them and doing their bidding?) is asking our teachers to carry the burden, by carrying guns.
These same teachers, who each year buy classroom supplies with money out of their own pockets, and are provided with even less support and respect under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, are now asked to add a Glock to their shopping list?
We have no gun control at any level that is foolproof, even in the strictest states: purchase, sales, history, weapon or ammo restrictions, criminal or mental health requirements. We have little access to mental health treatment, and even less on the horizon (American health care in general is a subject for another post, or twenty).
The answer is not armed teachers, but gun control. Americans are not going to give up owning guns, but we have given up control— we should take back control. The day of the writing of the 2nd amendment and packing gunpowder into muskets is long gone. Gun control means several things: rejection of certain types of guns for civilians, tracking who has what, how responsible and capable the owner will be, how many guns any one person should own, and where they come from, their provenance.
The answer is gun control. Make it the single issue in every election, and with every single politician: no NRA–otherwise, they’re just going to kill us.
#BoycottNRA