Rudderless seems to be just the right word. We've had so many children shot, we've had a member of Congress shot: the one segment of violent crime in this country that seems to be getting more common is mass shootings, yet there has been no progress made in so much as definitively uncovering the causes of these crimes.
I am a recreational shooter, and I'm in favor of sensible gun control measures, which I think could do a lot to curb the inexcusable negligence of so many gun owners. However, I don't think gun control is the answer to ending mass violence. That said, I'm also absolutely open to being proven wrong.
I think that America's absurd macho culture, combined with our fetishization of criminal behavior would be a more effective target of our ire. Television, movies, music, games, and books are all filled to the brim with anti-heroes, and all too often there is no moral center to our shared fantasies. Even worse, "If it bleeds, it leads." still holds true in the news media. Nothing grabs more media attention than a mass murderer.
I think it's time the names of murderers die with them. I would like to see all media outlets forbidden from publishing the names, pictures, or any information about these murderers for at least two years from the date of the incident. Make their stories an obscure footnote, not a screaming headline, and let's see if that makes a helpful difference.
More below the squiggle of enlightenment.
Firstly, I am no statistician, if you can point to errors of logic, math, or statistics that disprove my conclusion here, please do so, but please look at the data before making value judgments. This is a problem that needs to be solved, and doing so requires an honest assessment of the situation.
Here's a spreadsheet I worked up last year after hearing about the Port Arthur Massacre in 1996, and the subsequent institution of strict gun control in Australia.
Some things to note:
1. America has nearly 20 times the homicides of any of the other countries listed, despite having only a roughly fourfold higher population, yielding a per capita homicide rate of roughly 5x over the nearest competitor.
2. Despite Australia's institution of strict gun control measures, Australia's and America's homicide rates are dropping at nearly the same percentage rate.
3. Germany and France are both experiencing even more impressive drops in homicide rate.
The only mathematical conclusion I can make is that gun control is not the driving factor in reducing Australia's homicide rate.
Personally, I would like to think that the rise of the internet has made the majority of us more empathetic, better communicators, and made us feel more empowered, but without proper study, those conclusions are just hopeful guesses.
The fact is, we need to make an honest study of what makes us violent, why we have in aggregate done so well at becoming less violent in the last couple of decades, and what it is that drives these horrifying exceptions to the pattern. Both sides of the gun control debate need to step back and commit to allowing honest studies to take place, so that we can identify and address the causes of this violence. Guns are a method of violence, not a cause, and though it may well be that restricting access to guns will suppress shootings, the root causes could push would-be shooters into even more extreme forms of violence.
As a final note, having a young child has opened me up to a whole new world of children's programming, and I note two things. Firstly, they often exhibit very good interpersonal dynamics and conflict resolution in these shows. Secondly, to my 20th century sensibility, these shows are almost intolerable. I can't help but wonder how this correlates with the fact that I so often think about solving problems with physical violence. My actual temper has, of course mellowed as I've become a parent, but I still find myself surprised at the fact that physical force is at the top of my mental tool box. It's a stubborn thing that I can't seem to relegate to the bottom corner where it belongs. My sincere hope is that my daughter's generation will continue to be drawn to good choices and reasonable problem solving both in entertainment and in life. Perhaps life can imitate art imitating life in a more positive cycle until we no longer need art to help us cope with life.