Yet another shooting occurred in the US, where a gunman has left 27 dead at an Elementary School, including 20 children. This followed on from other tragic shootings earlier this year, where another gunman went on a killing spree during a screening of The Dark Knight Rises, back in July, and where another gunman killed six people at a Sikh temple in August.
This is not normal. People should not get massacred like this, especially not on such a regular basis. There is a major problem here, and it needs to be addressed.
As soon as this news story broke about this massacre in Connecticut, many, many people cried for tougher gun control, some calling for guns to be banned altogether. Let's explore gun control then.
Gun control
The US has a culture which is proud of its attachment to guns, which is upheld by it's most prominent and vociferal organisation, the NRA (National Rifle Association). At the time I write this, I do not know if they have made a statement (I go by Twitter) but I get the feeling that when they do (because they kind of have to), they will be on the offensive OR issue a statement saying their prayers and thoughts etc etc. The fact is is that the NRA are a powerful organisation and can influence quite a few politicians if they need to, to get their way. Hence, implementing tougher gun control in the US will be a very difficult task.
In my opinion, from over the Atlantic in the UK, tougher gun control is desperately needed in the US. But why? Because if less people have guns, less people are going to get shot. It is as simple as that. But why are Americans so reticent about losing their firearms? Let's answer those gripes.
1) I feel safe having a gun.
You feel safe having a gun, because it gives you a chance to shoot back, if some other guy has a gun and he's trying to kill you. Obviously, yes, you don't know whether some other guy has a gun on themself as a 'concealed carry' which he can whip it out at a moment's notice and shoot you dead. Of course, this means that if you do retaliate, you've got to be quick on the draw and paranoid about every other goddamn person around you. The postman - could be armed. The old lady you help with her shopping - could be ready to shoot you in the back for your wallet. What a tough dog-eat-dog world.
In a world where everybody had a gun, you'd feel safer if you had a gun too. And, yes, of course YOU'd be confident to say that, if you did get the chance to react and shoot back, that you'd hit your target before he can shoot you. You're like the
Han Solo of real life. And that you would not, definitely not, shoot an innocent by mistake, because you're that perfect at shooting guns.
Let's imagine everybody has a gun. You'd imagine such a world to have a self-regulating system where everybody is just too intimidated to go gun people down, so it doesn't happen at all. If you take into consideration reaction times, accuracy, the fact that the gunman (or gunwoman) might be suffering from a disturbance of the mind that pressures him (or her) to whip it out and start blasting people, a wannabe spree-killer can get some deaths in before the force of retaliation hits back.
Let's say you're a killer in the middle of a bustling city. You've got people walking to and fro from A to B. You whip out your twin pistols John Woo style and start gunning down random people. Men, women, kids. It's a likelihood that you will not survive, as let's say 8-10 people begin shooting back seconds later. Some miss and hit innocents. Some more people start shooting as they think the retaliators are the killers. By yourself, you've managed to
kill five/six people. Two men, a young woman, two kids. But the people who turned you into a bloody corpse killed ten or more.
And that's not taking into account the people who merely get injured.
Now who feels safe?
You take the guns away. Let's imagine this world now.
You're a killer in the middle of a bustling city. You've got people walking to and fro from A to B. You whip out your twin knives and start trying to stab people. You slash a woman across her chest before a man punches you so hard, you're knocked out. The police come, arrest you, charge you and so on. Nobody dies.
Now that's a better world to live in.
2) The Second Amendment to the US Constitution protects my right to own a firearm.
If you remember your History class, this amendment was in place for self-defence and for the protection of the state. It was, in summary, a measure for people to defend themselves and the state against the armies of King George III, a long-deceased British monarch, in the event of retaliation for losing the American War of Independence.
The current British Monarch, Elizabeth II, George III's Great-great-great-great granddaughter, has no desire to invade the US, neither does the UK Government. Officially, the US and the UK are very close allies and our relationship is
very good. We even fight together in wars. The threat of invasion by British forces is nil.
The Second Amendment seems obsolete now, huh?
3) I gotta admit it, I just love guns.
People are recommended to have a pastime, I must admit. Some people like to collect stamps, some people go trainspotting, some go for long walks somewhere. Some people like to purchase some firearms to go out into the country and shoot some targets up.
I can't disagree on the fact that shooting stuff is fun. My dad had an air rifle and I used to spend quite a bit of time shooting inanimate stuff, tin cans, bottles, CDs I no longer liked (I used to like Oasis, until I realised how boring they were. So I took a few Oasis singles and blew some holes in them). But even an air rifle is dangerous.
One day, in my late teens, I was gripped with a sense of curiosity. What would happen if I shot a bird? I had spent a bit of time out in the garden waiting for a rat (which had somehow taken up residency in the garden) to come out from under the Sauna, and I was ready with the air rifle to snipe at it. I was running out of patience (I'm not a patient person), so I saw a sparrow land on the washing line, and I shot it. The pellet went straight through the sparrow's throat. It fell straight down onto the concrete slab, and I watched its last moments as it twitched, bled and defecated.
That's when I realised what power a simple air rifle had, and needless to say, I never shot at any living thing again. I still feel bad about what I did. But I know other people would, and this is what I'm talking about, a simple air rifle in the wrong hands is quite bad. There are countless stories of animals being wounded and killed by malicious attacks. And people too.
It is fun to shoot. But if you want to have an environment where you are allowed to shoot, and no one gets hurt, then you need it to be regulated and everyone needs to understand why that has to be the case. For example, if you owned firearms and they had to be kept securely at the local firing range, there's more chance the target is going to be paper than flesh. That way, you keep the fun, and people stay alive. Everybody's happy.
4) I won't ever go on a killing spree myself, so I don't see why I have to be punished for having firearms just because some dick with a problem went into an Elementary School to kill a bunch of kids.
Oh, that's great, that's really great. YOU won't go on a spree kill, so that automatically means gun control is unfair. YOU are part of your country, and the laws that govern it are for everyone, not just for individuals. If you want to be able to access firearms in exactly the same way you always have done, then that same rule applies to everybody else. Including guys who want to kill a load of innocent people. Shut the fuck up!
5) Gun control isn't going to curb killing sprees. If someone is determined to do it, they will find a way to get a gun.
Yeah, but isn't making it a lot more difficult the aim of this exercise?
In the UK, after the
Dunblane Massacre, legislation was introduced to make private ownership of handguns illegal. Since 1997, there has only been one further
killing spree in the UK, in Cumbria in 2010.
And before that, there was the
Hungerford Massacre, which also prompted a review of legislation.
But this isn't just about gun control
You're right. Regulating gun ownership addresses only part of the problem. The other part of the problem is addressing why individuals feel the need to kill a bunch of people.
Mental illness
It is true to comment on the fact that spree killers tend to have disturbed minds, but it is not necessary for an individual to be actually suffering from a mental illness to go on a killing spree. They may have strong political/religious beliefs, or feel they have been pressured into a situation that they feel that a killing rampage is the only way they can get out of it.
Doctors have differing opinions as to which psychological problems
Anders Breivik has.
All in all there are different reasons why people feel the need to shoot others and it is more complex than people may think. Each case is unique, but just because someone may have a disturbance of the mind does not mean that they cannot be treated. The ideal solution is to reach out to potential killers and help them before they kill. Everyone like this deserves that chance before it is too late.
It's a male problem
Please feel free to digest the
statistics. Of course, there are more killings if you delve deeper, but from this list alone, pick out all the women.
OK, to save you the trouble,
here are all the women in this list.
But you may ask, "This can't be it, and she was driving a car! There must have been some women who've gone on killing sprees with firearms!"
Brenda Ann Spencer is one. But you'd be hard pressed to find more, and while you spend time looking and reaearching, you'll go through countless records of killings committed by men.
So what is it about men that gives them the urge to kill?
It could be
something in our genes which makes killers out of men. But how did we evolve to be this way?
Let's go back, right back into history to hypothesise.
Both men and women were responsible for the gathering of food, the so called 'hunter-gatherer' model accepted by many, with the men being the hunters and the women being the gatherers. Well, mostly, anyway. Experience of life tells us that not all men are the same, and the same goes for women - sometimes men have more 'feminine' characteristics and vice versa. You know this already.
OK, so the
majority of the men would go off, with their weapons (throwing spears), to go and find a wild animal to kill. The majority of the women wouldn't be interested in that sort of thing, they'd be off looking for fruits and things (maybe even raiding a bird's nest for eggs), and being with the children. And then they'd all go home with their takings, and combine them for a delicious, tasty meal. The only thing is that the men have gone out to end a life, and do not care much about what they have done - it's brought home food, and that's a positive, right?
If out hunting the men were themselves attacked, then their stress response would be to either run and hide, or take a risk and attack. Testosterone levels, known for influencing risky behaviour, may have played a part in deciding what to do, and the most macho of the men would have stayed to fight, usually getting killed, but sometimes winning.
You can see it in the way men and women behave when they are given a bunch of random things to make something out of. Women would tend to make something useful, a utensil, or make something pretty. Men tend to weaponise anything they get a hold of. Wooden sticks get sharpened into spears. A strip of animal skin becomes a sling. You see it in prisons, men making shanks out of razors and melted toothbrushes. Most weapons are invented by men.
In more recent times, this ancient desire to kill also manifests itself in the video games that men and women play. Women tend to be drawn to less violent games, i.e. puzzle games, games with social elements, games where the need to kill is more absent and draws upon other skills instead. The shit you find on Facebook that attracts middle aged women in droves. Men tend to be drawn to violent games, like beat 'em ups and First Person Shooters, the latter of which has always attracted much controversy for the belief that playing such games damages one's personality, making them more likely to be violent people who go on spree killings. There was the belief that the FPS game
Doom influenced
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold to go and do what they did.
Eric (as Rebdoomer) designed a level for Doom, and I actually played it. It was OK.
Don't get me wrong, I am not generalising either gender by saying all men do this, and all women do that. Some women enjoy violent video games too, and some absolutely own men when they play online FPS like Call of Duty. Some men wouldn't even dream of playing FPS. All this waffle about video games handlily links onto the next topic.
Do violent video games cause spree killings?
This topic polarises people. It is so controversial. In my opinion, as someone who has played quite a lot of FPS in my time, and thus can give a valued opinion on this matter, I would say no. Playing games can ease stress, and less stress means less cause to do something stupid. But there is the fantasy element, you go into a completely fictional world to kill fictional characters, over and over and over and over. You cause a lot of fictional bloodshed, that really is just a lot of 0s and 1s which cease to exist as soon as you turn the computer or console off. In a way, it addresses a need.
Playing FPS does put you into a protected bubble. Yes, you get shot at, but you don't feel physical pain. You don't feel real wind on your face as you traipse through open terrain. It's an alternate reality, but at the same time, while you can imagine yourself being there, it is far from real. You could argue that if someone is determined to kill others, they will plan it in whatever way they can, but spree killings isn't a new thing. It was not a problem created by violent computer games, neither will it be ended by them either. But the roleplaying element may reduce the need to do it in real life, just as people like to act out risque sex fantasies that wouldn't be acceptable if they were real. Why some like to watch porn and watch women getting badly treated instead of doing it in real life. But if someone is committed to doing the real thing anyway, a substitute reality may not actually be any hindrance or help. In essence, violent video games seem unrelated to spree killings.
Summary
What happened in Newtown is awful and we have only just been able to begin to understand what happened to cause this tragic and unique event.
The sad thing is that there will be more killings in the future, but understanding why, and doing something about it, will mean that they will be a lot less frequent. This means accepting some truths and dealing with them, no matter how inconvenient they are.
People should not have to die in the name of intransigence.
