The mass murders in Tucson are tragic, but not unprecedented. The reaction to it, however, is somewhat unusual in that a U.S. president attended a special ceremony to mourn the victims, comfort the survivors, and to reassure the nation that it was not descending into savage anarchy. I don’t recall such intimate presidential attention following most other mass murders, including the recent one at Fort Hood, Texas, where an Army major killed a number of unarmed soldiers. Nor the many similar incidents that have occurred throughout my lifetime; for example, the mass murders at a Luby’s Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, or the mass murders on a Long Island commuter train. Such incidents in America, even over the past 50 years, could make quite a list.
However, there was also special attention given to the mass murders at a government building in Oklahoma City. It is curiously contradictory that when the victims of such incidents include government bureaucrats or politicians, the latter whom polls consistently indicate are at the top of the list of the most despised, mistrusted folks in America, the severity of the incident is elevated to a national tragedy. It seems that politicians are held in low regard — until someone shoots one of them; then they are suddenly heroic public servants.
Incidents of mass murder in America incite great angst among Americans who seem to believe that such senseless savagery is so anomalous to the American gestalt that there must be some blameworthy cause for such aberrations. Never mind that our misguided, unnecessary military presence in other countries results in almost weekly mass murders of civilians in the market places, schools or restaurants of Iraq or Afghanistan? How many men, women and children have been blown to pieces in an effort to disrupt American occupation?
But such murderous mayhem should never happen in America, to Americans, so when it does, waves of emotional anxiety and anger wash away logic and incite people to look for something or someone to blame. Usually the object of blame is a tool, typically guns. The simpleton solution to mass homicide is to ban guns — something that is all but impossible.
Mexico has strict anti-gun laws. How is that working out for them? Banning guns does not prevent people from having them. It just results in the most dangerous people having them — criminals and the government. Even a casual student of history knows that a standard prerequisite for tyranny is for governments to confiscate all their citizens’ guns. Those who think America is somehow immune from this historical certainty are obtusely optimistic. One only need observe how this country has steadily descended deeper into a police state to understand that if only the police and military have firearms, freedom is soon forfeit. People who have power seem to love using it. That passion for power easily becomes abusive when civilians can no longer defend themselves.
The mass murder in Tucson has also been blamed on a culture of vitriol and violence in America — as if that is a recent phenomenon. As kids growing up in Middle America after World War II our favorite pastimes were playing war, cops and robbers, and cowboys and Indians. All involved toy guns — especially noisy facsimiles of automatic weapons. A boy’s most prized possessions were likely to include air rifles, BB guns or 22-caliber rifles. Some of my generation went to Vietnam where war was real. In spite of all of this, the percentage who became mass murderers is infinitesimal.
And, if malicious speech is the cause of mass murder, we will need to ban religious rantings along with political vitriol. As much violence could be attributed to priests, imams and prophets as to political blowhards.
Incidents of mass murder in America are like tornadoes and earthquakes. You can never know for sure where and when they will occur, but they will occur. Take away all the guns, ban all hateful speech, and there will still be homicidal violence. People who commit these atrocities are defective elements in the natural fabric. Nature is infinitely vast and complex. A gene here, some missed or mixed-up DNA there can result in an atypical brain and a pathological psychology. To ascribe any resulting negative behavior to external stimuli may be politically or emotionally convenient but it is an exercise in deception and false cause.
— Santa Barbara political observer Randy Alcorn can be contacted at randyalcorn@cox.net.