8 August 2019
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49261795
America had witnessed two back to back episodes of gun violence, which they term nowadays as ‘mass shootings’ and categorise them into ‘random’ or ‘hate’ crime category. So if you see the reports El Paso, Texas shooting that left 22 dead is a Hate Crime whereas the Dayton, Ohio one that left 9 dead is random. America is a country with a First Amendment that gave citizens the Right to Bear Arms, and it has an NRA which is a Rifle Association that refuses the make any concession between Assault Rifles and others in its interest of manufacture and sale of these deadly weapons.
What I find ironic but not funny simply because unlike Show Host comedians I refuse to find humour in the morbid, is how they run with headlines like “America Reels…” as CNN has. This year Americans killed hundreds in mass shootings so far, so how does a day with two of them matter, especially when we are clear as of now, that the two are unrelated. Every President irrespective of whether Republican or Democrat from George Bush Sr to Barrack Obama has promised to lead America to a solution on gun violence but failed. The Fab Four as America’s extremely talented first time legislators are called have legislated in the Congress House of Representatives, but the Senate has refused to act on these pieces of basic documentation which would filter out wanna be mass shooters! It shows the legislative urgency or potency of Gun Violence in American psyche!
One actually could say, Americans love the ketchup that seems sprayed all over in gun violence, if one did not see how heroes emerge in every mass shooting episode. Folks from ordinary walks of life like the paediatrician in El Paso or veterans and serving marines can stage miraculous efforts, that wryly one can redefine these horror shows of harrowing soul depravity ( One needs a certain coldness to fire into a grinning little kid dripping all over with innocence and charm!) as discovery programmes for emerging heroes. So in that portal when Americans reveal their worst, Americans also reveal their best! That is the only silver lining in these dark clouds that loom over America.
What America is perhaps not realising is the psychological costs of these mass shootings. Who ever is within gunshot, who was injured or bystander who was lucky, even up to those in the immediate block perimeter would suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. So each episode is setting up dozens if not hundreds of candidates amongst Americans who need screening and monitoring for PTSD. Once a person has PTSD, he or she needs support, may not be able to drive due to sleep disturbances, may not be able to hold a regular job due to confidence issues, may not be able to build stable family relationships because of a sense of ‘why me’, a gnawing cavity causing bite, which ends of leaving the individual psychologically an empty shell! It is surprising how a nation that sets so much store on individual lives, can send marines half way around the world to rescue Americans, can use force with out consideration for collateral damage if deemed necessary for such rescue, should not get activated over this ‘slow death’ imposed on hundreds of its own on its own soil!
In last one year, I have casually observed that gun violence has wrecked concerts, school days, and shopping days, effectively, reducing the chance of a mass shooter turning up to just about ‘anywhere and any time’! So how would an average American look at these episodes? With trepidation? With tension? With plausible anticipation of scenarios? Imagine walking into a Rock Concert and subconsciously looking for sniper angles and avoiding these, or a mall and avoiding alleys and gangways, escalators and such cross over points to avoid being on cross hairs of the shooter! Was the proposal for teachers to carry arms to school to counter school shooters going to make schools more tense or more relaxed?
Americans don’t want to be told by others how they must live their lives, fair enough. So the New Zealand model of immediate ban on Assault calibre firearms, their recall from the public through voluntary surrenders, like how New Zealand did after Christchurch is not for them. This is all the more ironical as it is clear from El Paso that the shooter was motivated by the very same Christchurch shootings! So shooters can be inspired by global events, but American law makers, and law enforcement and in fact American society cannot be. No Sir No! We are Americans, we are very clear in our priorities!
They are opportunities for Presidents to do ‘ticker tape’ parades like how Trump is doing now in El Paso after Dayton. How does it matter that folks want to boo him or local representatives protest his utterances and tweets that could have inspired hate. By their own admission, for El Paso Hate is responsible, for Dayton Mental illness is. So the culprit is not the obvious elephant in the room- the assault rifles, but the psyche of the people, and whom America refuses to screen because any profiling before the fact is intrusion of privacy and individual rights! That is what leads me to conclude that Americans are not bothered at the level of a policy perspective about these shootings.
May be the path would be what Alexandria Cortez tweeted about, that taking the Senate so that legislative control would be with Democrats who would take on the NRA! What about legal challenges in a Republican heavy Supreme Court? What about a Presidential Veto? What she and other ground level concerned Americans need to do is not focus on the guns, but on the victims left behind. America grass roots movement that relentlessly focuses on the citizens who suffer PTSD, bereavement and anxiety disorders as they go about their daily lives under the cloud of a mass shooting is the only way a movement with traction to get national attention can come about. Like “Black Lives matter”, American lives matter too. The living need to be free from the anxiety of being stopped and cut down by a volley of bullets, don’t they? They cannot move around like the ‘Walking Dead’ or ‘Death Walkers’ or whatever morbid fantasy Americans can come up with about those in-between death and life, can they?
Civilisational imperative would look at a demise of American prowess as a welcome change, for a less globally assertive America would consume far less, have less leverage to influence others into a mass consumptive growth pattern that has led to our moment where Earth Sustainability is now exhausted midway through the year! May be the Thanos is America’s Pro Gun Lobby, seeking to maim and murder America’s potential to persuade and lead the world, making space for others with better sense and sustainability awareness? I can imagine Thanos sitting on his huge haunches offering a battered Iron Man at his feet a toast-“Here is hoping America gets buried in the Debris of her Hubris over guns! May the love affair with lead continue and take America apart from within!”
indiarubberman.com 