No One Has a Real Solution to Mass Shootings
Most good faith ideas to resolve this issue inevitably get absorbed by heated political debates and culture war rhetoric
The last several weeks have brought a series of tragedies across the United States. On May 14, 2022, a shooting occurred at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that left ten people dead and three injured. The next day, on May 15, a shooting occurred at a church in Laguna Woods, California, in which one person was killed and five were injured. On May 24, a shooting occurred at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that ended in the death of 19 students and two teachers. And most recently, on June 1, Wednesday of last week, a shooting occurred at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in which four people were killed.
I can’t even begin to imagine the pain the families, friends, and communities of these victims must feel, and I know that there is nothing I can say that will mend that pain or solve the broader issue at hand. My intention with this article is not necessarily to discuss the specifics of these shootings, but rather to focus more on the conversation surrounding such events. However, I can’t continue without at least stating that my heart truly goes out to all of those affected by these tragedies.
These disgusting acts of violence are just the latest additions to the ever-growing list of mass shootings that have taken place within the U.S. over the years. To be fair, it is true that statistically speaking mass shootings make up a very small percentage of overall gun violence in the U.S., regardless of the perception one gets from the constant media coverage that events like these understandably get.
However, the rate at which they do happen is still very disturbing and it is ignorant to deny the clear reality that something must be very wrong within a society that produces such depravity. What that is, however, I’m not sure anyone can say, and I personally don’t believe there is one specific cause we can point to. Instead, I think there must be many issues that coalesce around an already unstable individual in order to result in such mayhem.
In the aftermath of these events, many people are far too quick to blame their political opponents or push for legislation that they claim will solve this horrible problem. Oftentimes (whether intentional or not) they end up exploiting the tragedy in an attempt to push their narrative or garner support for policy changes that stem from long-held political beliefs and preexisting opinions that they would’ve had with or without these acts of mass violence.
While it makes sense that these events inevitably spark debates over things like gun control, many people refuse to even allow an appropriate amount of time for the victims’ families to grieve before they use the tragic deaths to advocate for their preferred political action or place blame on their political adversaries.
Immediately after the shooting in Buffalo, for example, left-leaning pundits were quick to blame conservative commentator and Fox News host Tucker Carlson for the shooter’s twisted ideology, due to the motivation for the shooting hinging on “The Great Replacement Theory” — a ridiculous theory that suggests white people are being replaced by people of color — according to a 180-page manifesto supposedly written by the shooter. While it is true that Carlson has talked about Democrats using illegal immigrants to “replace” U.S. citizens in order to bolster their voter base — also a ridiculous theory — that does not mean Carlson is to blame for the loss of life in Buffalo.
As journalist Glenn Greenwald pointed out in a recent article he posted to his Substack, Carlson’s ideology is not the same as the shooter’s. Whereas Carlson’s version of the theory is based on illegal immigration, the shooter justified his violence “on the ground that any non-white citizen is automatically an ‘invader,’ regardless of how long they have been in the country or how much legal status they have.” (Emphasis his) Also, Carlson has never made a call for violence in the name of this theory, and he was never mentioned in the manifesto in which the shooter revealed several sources of his inspiration.
Another problem with blaming conservative commentators for the Buffalo shooter’s horrific actions is the fact that he self-proclaims to be a “left-wing authoritarian” and also condemns conservatism in his own manifesto (which led many people on the right to try to place blame for the shooting on those who lean left).
The larger issue with this tactic, however, is that the responsibility for these shootings rests solely on the shooters themselves, regardless of their political affiliation. Placing blame on someone else based only on their views should be seen as a disgraceful attempt to use a tragedy to score points over political rivals. As Greenwald put it in his article: “It is virtually impossible to find any ideology on any part of the political spectrum that has not spawned senseless violence and mass murder by adherents.”
Naturally, as is the case with all mass shootings, this string of tragedies has renewed the debate over gun control in the U.S., but that’s not the only policy debate taking place at the moment. The Buffalo shooter claimed that he was radicalized through internet rabbit holes during the lockdowns, which led New York Governor Kathy Hochul to call on social media platforms to increase their content moderation.
To be clear, the people who run these companies have every right to remove content as they see fit, and open threats and calls for violence should absolutely be taken down, but when government officials get to decide what’s considered “hate speech” and what isn’t, well-intentioned policies can very quickly lead to much broader censorship.
The desire to prevent the spread of false, misguided, and hateful information is understandable, and most reputable platforms have no desire to amplify those voices, but any attempt at limiting speech (even when it doesn’t necessarily violate anyone’s rights) can have unintended consequences.
Banning people who espouse wrong or hateful opinions from social media platforms does not make those bad ideas go away, it simply pushes the banned individuals to darker corners of the internet. In such spaces, where those false ideas are not as likely to be openly challenged or ridiculed, echo chambers form, and those dangerous beliefs are reinforced. This does not prevent extremism but instead foments it.
That being said, I do believe that social media undoubtedly plays a role in the toxic divisiveness our country has seen recently, but to what extent is unclear. And while social media may not necessarily cause mental health problems, I think it’s safe to say that it certainly might exacerbate them.
Traditional media also adds to the equation. The constant coverage of these events creates an incentive for the shooters, as they likely think that they will be solidified into history. (For that reason, I refuse to refer to any of these shooters by name.) The way these stories are covered can also lead to copycat shooters, which may help to explain why they often happen in clusters.
Another aspect of this conversation is the role that lockdowns, school closures, and other pandemic restrictions may have played leading up to these events. Granted, there were many mass shootings that took place well before Covid-19 and the response to it, but the negative effects of lockdowns are very real and it may take years for us to fully realize the scope of the societal damage they caused.
As I stated earlier, the Buffalo shooter claimed he was radicalized during the lockdowns, which isn’t hard to believe. A mentally unstable individual — or anyone really — falling into a dangerous ideology is always a possibility, but it becomes even more probable when that person is stripped of purpose and isolated from other people who likely would’ve noticed any red flags and challenged those newfound beliefs.
To what extent the lockdowns pushed these shooters over the edge, we’ll never know, and even if we could find out that wouldn’t excuse the horrific acts of violence or ease the pain of the victims’ families. I personally believe, however, that the lockdowns and other mitigation measures imposed during the last two years contributed to the broader societal ills that led to these tragedies.
A proposed solution from the liberal side of the argument to the mental health aspect of these shootings is to implement universal healthcare. I believe this is a well-intentioned pursuit, but I also believe that it’s misguided. I personally have no desire to allow the government more control over our healthcare system, especially after the last couple of years of oppressive Covid-19 mitigation policies.
Also, the vast majority of mass shooters have had some kind of connection to psychotropic drugs. While correlation doesn't necessarily equal causation, it's certainly something worth looking into further as it's possible that more pharmaceuticals might not be the best solution and may even add to the problem.
And as I’ll discuss later, the government seems incapable of preventing or stopping these events with the power they already possess, so I’m skeptical of any calls to give them even greater authority.
I apply that same line of thinking to the debate over gun control, but even without mistrust for any and all government intervention, the fact of the matter is the measures that politicians want to enact have fundamental flaws that would make them unlikely to have any meaningful effect on this issue. Politicians calling for these policies are also hypocrites, as they push to disarm citizens while they’re simultaneously surrounded by armed guards.
For example, calls to ban “assault rifles” are misguided because they focus primarily on cosmetic aspects of these guns that don’t actually alter their lethality. This is how the Buffalo shooter was able to legally acquire the gun he used even though New York has strict gun laws. The gun technically wasn’t an assault rifle under the law when it was sold, but due to bans on these weapons being based on arbitrary distinctions, the shooter was able to turn it into one quite easily.
Another gun control measure that is often pushed for is red flag laws, which would allow the government to prohibit individuals from owning firearms if they are deemed to be a threat, typically after being tipped off by family members, teachers, and significant others, etc. While that may seem like a good idea, there are a couple of problems with laws like these. As Jacob Sullum recently wrote for Reason:
Predicting violence is much harder than advocates of this approach are usually willing to admit, and trying to overcome that challenge by erring on the side of issuing red flag orders inevitably means that many innocent people will lose their Second Amendment rights, typically for a year and sometimes longer, even though they never would have used a gun to harm anyone. In short, minimizing false negatives means maximizing false positives.
Politicians seem unfazed by the issues with these proposed laws, however, as they continue to advocate for them. President Joe Biden has shown support for all of the aforementioned policies, and Congress is currently trying to pass bipartisan gun control legislation. In response to these shootings, even politicians in Canada are working to implement harsh gun laws. Most notably, a freeze on the average Canadian citizen’s ability to own a handgun.
This is especially worrisome considering the slide toward authoritarianism the whole world has seen since the onset of the pandemic, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration in Canada has been one of the worst offenders. As The Free Thought Project recently put it:
Given the sheer tyrannical nature of the Trudeau regime over the last two years — barring the unvaccinated from traveling, arresting anti-lockdowners, freezing the bank accounts of peaceful protesters, and forced quarantines — the idea of Trudeau and his cronies being the only ones with guns is terrifying.
Even if there weren't these issues with the proposed gun control measures, I would still advocate against them. As I recently stated while writing about the Biden administration's latest rule on so-called ghost guns: “There is no clear evidence that gun control works to prevent violent crime, it simply keeps guns out of the hands of those who follow the law.”
Instead of calling for gun control, many conservatives are proposing that we arm teachers and place metal detectors at a single point of entry as a way to prevent school shootings, essentially turning schools into prisons. This is ironic considering that public school teachers have frequently been at the center of conservative culture war talking points like race and gender. While I feel like some aspects of those concerns are valid, it still seems odd that conservatives want to arm the very teachers that they don’t trust in other areas.
I don’t necessarily support the idea of arming teachers or schools implementing harsher security measures — because simply giving someone a gun who lacks a proper understanding of firearms seems like a recipe for disaster and having schools resemble prisons feels dreadfully dystopian — but I also don’t support the status quo of most schools being “gun-free zones”.
I think a compromise would be to allow teachers to choose for themselves whether or not they’re comfortable carrying a gun and then have them go through a thorough vetting process that shows they’re capable of safely operating a firearm and are mentally fit to do so. Another option would be to allow schools to hire private security, but that also has the potential to give schools more of a prison-type feel.
Many parents might not be comfortable with the thought of armed guards at their children’s schools, however, which can be resolved by enacting school choice legislation. If education funding followed students rather than institutions, that would create more options for education. This would allow parents to more easily homeschool their children or send them to schools that fit their preferences. Whether that’s schools with or without armed teachers/private security or curriculums that will instill the values parents want their children to be taught, school choice would grant parents and students more flexibility.
The discussion of how to address this problem in schools specifically only applies to one of these recent shootings, but given how many times events like these have taken place at schools in the past, it’s a problem that desperately needs to be solved. While any mass casualty event is a tragedy, that’s especially true when the majority of the victims are children. The fact that there even needs to be a discussion about how to prevent children from getting shot at in their own schools is heart-breaking and gut-wrenching, but this is the very unfortunate reality in which we live.
This latest school shooting is even more devastating than usual, however, as the complete and utter lack of urgency the police showed in response to a killing spree at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas was a shocking and horrific display of incompetence that highlighted the fact that many police officers will let children die before putting their own lives at risk. Not only did the police officers on the scene refuse to enter the classroom for over an hour, they actively prevented parents from attempting to rescue their children themselves.
The police even went as far as to use pepper spray, handcuffs, and physical force on parents whose children were in mortal danger, putting forth more effort to restrain the parents than they did to stop an active shooter. The Uvalde Police Department has also since refused to cooperate with the ongoing investigation into their horrible response.
There is absolutely no excuse for such a lackluster response to such a serious situation. I cannot put into words the anger I feel toward those police officers without resorting to language too colorful for me to write here. All I’ll say is that in my opinion, every single officer involved in that response should be fired immediately and brought up on criminal charges. That is unlikely, however, as police have no legal obligation to protect citizens.
“This is due to the fact that police officers have absolutely no legal duty to protect you,” reads an article from The Free Thought Project. The article goes on to explain that “the leading case on the topic is Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. Ct. of Ap., 1981) when the Court stated that the ‘fundamental principle of American law is that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.’” (Emphasis theirs)
The fact that there is a legal precedent absolving police from almost any obligation to protect citizens highlights one of the dangers of allowing the government to disarm us. Those who push for gun control aren't against guns, as guns would be needed to enforce any new gun laws. They instead think the government should have a monopoly on them, but this line of thinking stems from the misbelief that the government agents who use those guns will protect us and defend our rights.
If the response to this recent school shooting is an example of the level of protection we can expect from law enforcement, however, then the argument that only cops should have guns falls apart entirely. Clearly, police will not always be able or willing to protect citizens, and therefore, we must retain the right to protect ourselves.
On a similar note, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) also has an abysmal track record when it comes to preventing mass shootings. There have been several times when the FBI was aware of these shooters before the shootings took place and failed to stop them from happening. That may be due to the fact that there’s not much law enforcement can do until a crime is actually committed, and to be clear, I’m not advocating for lessening due process. Still, it seems like the FBI should have been able to at least anticipate some of these events, and then been able to react accordingly as they happened.
Many people claim that mass shootings are often false flags staged by the government in order to garner support for stricter gun laws. These theories often contain plot holes and preposterous claims, but the concept itself is not outside the realm of possibility. Our government has engaged in this sort of behavior in the past, and the FBI is often involved in schemes to entrap would-be extremists.
I’m not making the claim that these recent mass shootings or any similar events in the past are definitively the fault of the government, as I’ve yet to see solid evidence to support that claim, but I am saying it’s not as crack-potted of an idea as one might initially assume.
Regardless of whether the FBI grooms these shooters or not, our government very likely does play a role in encouraging these mass murders. People often want to blame violent crime on violence seen in movies, TV, or video games, but what about the real-world violence perpetrated by our own government?
Unarmed civilians are often injured or killed at the hands of police, and our military is used in violent warfare all over the globe. We shouldn’t be surprised that people are getting desensitized to violence when our own government can drone-strike an innocent family in Afghanistan — including seven children — and then claim it was just a simple mistake and absolve themselves of any wrongdoing. And that is just one out of countless examples.
This epidemic of mass shootings is clearly multifaceted, which means any approach to solving this problem will need to be multifaceted as well. It’s not as simple as banning guns or arming teachers, and at this point calls for either proposal seem less like a real attempt at finding a solution and more like empty partisan talking points from people who are more focused on signaling to their side of the debate than solving this devastating problem our country faces.
I did my best to cover as many aspects of this discussion as I could here but as this problem is very complex there are several I didn’t address. For anyone interested in hearing another perspective on this issue, specifically on the conversation about gun control, I would recommend watching this video by YouTuber Beau of the Fifth Column in which he answers several questions from his subscribers. While I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, I still think it’s a thoughtful and knowledgeable perspective that’s worth listening to.
I’m not sure anyone has a real solution to mass shootings. I don’t know anyone who would disagree that something needs to change, that this problem cannot go unaddressed, but to me, it seems like most good faith ideas to resolve this issue inevitably get absorbed by heated political debates and culture war rhetoric that stems from the false left-right dichotomy we’re all constantly subjected to.
Our society is sick, and these tragedies are part of a horrific symptom of that sickness. We won’t be able to solve this issue until we discover the root of the problem, and we won’t be able to do that until we stop talking past each other and arguing amongst ourselves. This is not an argument to be “won” and it shouldn’t be treated as such. This issue affects us all, and we all need to acknowledge the many potential aspects of this problem and do our best to address them however we can. Hopefully one day we can heal enough as a society that events like these become a thing of the past.
To the friends and families of the victims of these tragedies, I send my deepest condolences.
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