Once again, a mass shooting has shocked the country. It was far from the deadliest we have ever seen, but the racist motivation behind this bloodbath makes it all the more appalling. It is redolent of the shooting last year in Atlanta, in which a man shot and killed eight people, most of whom were of Asian ancestry.
The Buffalo shooting lays bare two dire problems the USA has: racism, and easy access to guns. What makes both all the worse is our government’s tendency to turn a blind eye to both. Condemn guns, and the gun nuts accuse you of trying to “disarm everybody.” Condemn racism, and you are a knee-jerk whiner. When some bugnut brags on social media about stocking up an arsenal and posts a manifesto dripping with hate, “Boys will be boys” – as long as the poster is white. What if a Black man did the same? The police would be all over him.
All too often a mass shooting puts our society on the Gun Control Merry-Go-Round. Right after the massacre: “It’s too soon to talk about gun policy.” Then: “Thoughts and prayers.” The public roars for sensible gun laws. People march hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands strong; they sign petitions, bombard their elected officials with e-mails and tweets and phone calls. But time and again the voice of hoi polloi is drowned out by the jingle-jingle of the NRA’s blood money.
After the Port Arthur mass shooting in Australia, the nation implemented new gun control laws that limit the ownership of self-loading guns and instituted a buy-back program. The massacre took place in Tasmania, which had rejected a redesign of gun laws in all of Australia’s territories earlier that year. Does that suggest anything?
Even while we mourn the slaughter in Buffalo, more mass shootings have blazed across the headlines. Since the United States experiences, on average, at least one mass shooting a day – i.e., a shooting in which at least four people are wounded or killed – plenty more blood has been offered to the Moloch of the gun industry.
Some claim that gun violence is the result of mental illness or exposure to violent entertainment. Then why is the United States the only country that experiences daily mass shootings? Every other country deals with mental illness. People in nearly every other country have access to violent movies, TV shows and video games. So why are they not suffering the same level of gun violence? In the US it’s easier to buy a gun that has the potential for killing dozens at once than to adopt a kitten at the local animal shelter. Why, I ask, shouldn’t people be more carefully vetted before buying a firearm?
Gun lovers harp on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but they heed only the second clause about the right to keep and bear arms. The amendment begins “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State.” OK, Joe Gun Nut, what part of “well-regulated militia” do you not understand? The framers of the Constitution did not want the freshly-minted United States to have a regular standing army, but rather rely on minutemen (maybe a few minutewomen as well) who were ready at all times to grab their rifles and come to the nation’s defense. Also, the Founding Fathers had no way of anticipating such weapons as machine guns, bazookas, flame-throwers, etc. Many of the worst mass shootings have been done with assault rifles.
The other problem that the Buffalo shooting highlighted is racism, a monster that just will not die. The alleged shooter posted a rambling manifesto that stated he became radicalized early in the COVID-19 pandemic after research seemed to indicate low birth rates among whites, which he feared would “ultimately result in the complete racial and cultural replacement of the European people.” “Replacement theory” has become the phrase du jour for white supremacists. Some whites fear that they are being out-bred by non-whites (another motivation for the anti-abortion crowd) and thus will someday be completely replaced by people with darker skin.
The way I see it, the Old White Straight Male Fundamentalist establishment realizes it is losing ground as its members die off and newer generations reject its values. The OWSMFE cannot accept women, non-whites, LGBTQ+ and non-Christians as deserving of economic or political power. Women belong in the kitchen, gays in the closet, Blacks out in the field picking cotton. They have no concept of sharing power with people who are different from them. Thus, their mouthpieces on Faux News and dodgy websites vomit hateful propaganda in hopes of igniting a race war.
When hate meets guns, the result is tragedy like what we saw in Buffalo. This is why we need not just more sensible gun policies, but also education that makes our children aware of racial problems. Only then can we truly address race relations, and maybe find a solution.
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