Thanks for this very thoughtful piece. I am from country folks who own guns
to hunt deer to eat and to kill the occasional bear who threatens the house.
Guns are looked on as tools. My relatives do not have Nazi or Confederate
paraphernalia.
So, we must give a lot of thought to what ideas that we push.
Until we force the powers that be to provide more mental health care, do we
want assault weapons out on the streets? Should we have computer checks and
waiting periods?
Much violence can be avoided if public pressure was put on purveyors of hate
literature, insignias, etc.? This includes hate speech and actions by cops,
judges, some teachers, bosses, etc. Many of the school shootings could have
been prevented if hate and harassment had not been allowed in the schools and
at work. We must not look at bullying and prejudice as a part of growing up
or work life. My California State employer wrote me up repeatedly for
objecting to racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and classism in the work
place. They said that I was "weird" for objecting to such remarks.
This brings us back to mental health. We can fight a lot of prejudice with
education, we must demand the same quality of education that they have in
Japan for instance.
But, hard core haters almost always have some mental problem. The state of
care of these folks is appalling. I took a very mentally ill friend to the
clinic recently. They only talked to her for 10 minutes and then didn't want
to see her again. The mentally ill are usually the victims of violence but
the occasional violent one is not getting oversight, counseling, medication,
etc. After some tragedy, the media often interviews the perpetrators'
family. Hinkley's family had been trying to get care for him for years. The
uni-bomber's brother, David, was trying to get care for his brother. Why are
we shocked when these things happen? Prison and the death penalty do not
deter folks who are disconnected from reality and often view themselves as
martyrs.
As a child of the 1950's, I heard the holocaust stories when they were still
fresh in folks' minds. E. g. my mother describing a co-student with a death
camp tattoo. I have read of the child killers and cannibals in pre-Nazi
Germany. (Later the SS would recruit these folks.) Some people cannot take
stress so it comes out as violence. The purposeful growing gap between rich
a poor countries and people is the cause of violence. We must fight this
resolutely. Folks under stress can buy into scapegoats. We must keep
educating folks as to who their real enemies are.
Those nuts at gun shows often come in two types. One group has real
grievances but have been miseducated as to the cause. No, Mexicans and
Blacks are not taking your jobs. Rich white men sent the factory to
Indonesia where workers are imprisoned and killed for organizing. The other
is classism. White upper middle and rich Americans are taught that they are
entitled to professional level education/housing/jobs where they don't have
to work very hard. Quayle and Dubya are good examples. I call it the revolt
of the mediocre. This is bad for us as a species. The least qualified in
survival skills and most inbred are artificially sheltered at the expense of
the more qualified. When they don't get their expectations, they get
violent, actually and institutionally. The attack on affirmative action is
an example of this. These folks load up the Heritage Foundation, the Cato
Institute, the Pacific Legal Foundation, etc. Unfortunately, some poor
whites buy into this stuff.
As a side note, I have had upper class white female friends who have become
mentally ill. Their families have died or deserted them. They can't
function on their own as they were not taught to survive. One has already
died and I have had to rescue the other from near death twice. It is
pathetic.
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