What’s with all the gun shooting these past few years?
From Aurora, Colorado to the Washington Naval Shipyard yesterday, from Columbine to Newtown Connecticut, it seems that the media is infatuated, obsessed with gun shootings.
Or this country has a serious gun problem.
Gun violence has attacked the South Bay, as well. In 2010, there was a violent shooting in a South Torrance apartment complex. This year in Santa Monica, a deranged gunman assembled an assault rifle from disparate parts and went on a shooting spree from the streets to Santa Monica City College.
I attended a gun violence forum in Santa Monica this past July, and the Chief of Police commented that there had just been another shooting in which three people were killed, but no one was talking about it. She had originally served in Inglewood, where gun violence is more common, yet the community has not responded as strongly.
Gun violent offenders portray a number of sentiments, including a sense of powerlessness, rage, and a need to do something about their situation.
After five years of President Obama’s policies, a growing number of people in this country feel disillusioned, dispossessed, distanced from any sense of efficacy in the political process. They expect government to ensure that everyone has health insurance. The policies provided for in the Affordable Care Act have accomplished the exact opposite.
A growing malaise of frustration has emerged in this country. Furthermore, an entitlement mentality has impressed itself on people that all the difficulties of this life should no longer exist. These connections may seem useless or disconnected, but I submit rather that this imperiled fecklessness in the face of economic downturns and cultural misgivings has created more problems for individuals. Those on the margin, with mental health problems, with severe anger management issues, find that the normal remedies are not working.
People cannot find work. Mort Zuckerman lamented the crisis of one in five men waking in the morning with a job. Idleness, resentment toward a situation which people cannot fix is driving people to do more desperate things. Suicide, for example, often follows from industrious people who no longer have an industry, or who cannot get any work done.
People feel powerless in this country. Individuals without emotional restraint, who lack the capacity to relax and roll with the punches find fewer options for relief. The lack of enforcement, the instability of our political culture, the lack of leadership and honesty from our leaders, all have contributed to this growing, dangerous malaise of anomie.
In a generic sense, I submit that these problems are fostering the growing number of gun deaths in our country, including the mass murders.