Sunday Message for 11th August 2019
Another time, a mass shooting took place in the US, and for another time, people had to die because madmen carried their guns to public places and pulled the trigger. For another time, the nation is drowned in dismay, anger, incomprehension why something like this could happen; why nobody prevented this shooting, why the government didn't enact to prevent these people from dying as innocents. And for another time, people are divided between partisan lines on the question how it could be prevented. But this time, something is different–this time, Trump is the president, so the division becomes stronger and viler.
Before we begin to this oft-discussed topic, we will have ourselves some numbers to clear the field we're standing upon. According to the «Gun Violence Archive,» only in 2019, already 33,682 armed incidents took place, at which 8,937 people were murdered and more than 17,659 people were injured, among them being 358 children ranging in age between zero and eleven years. At the time of this writing, we have the eighth August 2019. The most recent shootings which made it towards public attention (there also were smaller shootings with fewer victims that didn't make it into national headlines but only into local ones; numbers were put in bold to highlight them in the text, not for means of sensationalism).
Before we begin to this oft-discussed topic, we will have ourselves some numbers to clear the field we're standing upon. According to the «Gun Violence Archive,» only in 2019, already 33,682 armed incidents took place, at which 8,937 people were murdered and more than 17,659 people were injured, among them being 358 children ranging in age between zero and eleven years. At the time of this writing, we have the eighth August 2019. The most recent shootings which made it towards public attention (there also were smaller shootings with fewer victims that didn't make it into national headlines but only into local ones; numbers were put in bold to highlight them in the text, not for means of sensationalism).
Currently, according to online crime news outlet «The Trace,» approximately 393 million arms are in privat possession, either legally or illegally, although the numbers themselves vary widely, as the outlet writes, and in regards to the fact that these numbers are taken from a last year's survey, although the latest numbers might not differ significantly, since there was no major raid on repossessing guns and arms in private possession, while also no run towards gun shops and retailers legally selling arms was commenced in a wave of angst due to a «Hispanic invasion» which the 45th POTUS Donald J. Trump presaged in one of his rallies. But we shall come back to this later on.
The 2nd Amendment and the case for «well-regulated militias»
The number is incredible for various reasons, but for one especially: In July of yesteryear, approximately 327 million people populated the States. What we can tell from these numbers is that there were 20 percent more guns and arms in private possession than there were people to actually possess them. There were five more guns and arms than there were people to use them. What does this tell us about the people of the US, since these are only statistical numbers, in regards to the fact that there might also be people who don|t own guns in the first place, who therefore have to be outnumbered by weapons enthusiasts who own more guns? One thing is for sure: Either do they prepare for the upcoming civil war many right-winged pundits on their behalf presaged; or they just thought that the Second Amendment of the Constitution indeed gave them not only the permission to horde as many arms as they could afford, even though it actually doesn't. To clarify this fundamental misunderstanding that led to the only state in the Western World with an inadvertently volunteering people's army, we should look at the Amendment itself, and what it says:
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Many scientists of fields dedicated to political sciences and linguistics (maybe cultural studies as well) highlighted the complicated formulation of the Amendment that makes it hard to decide upon whether it really permitted people of the States to legally possess arms privately or not; but in reality, it isn't. The only term that matters is the terminology before the first comma: A well-regulated militia. What we have to really have to examine is the definition of a so-called well-regulated militia. What is this? A militia is a force assembled by at least two adults who called upon themselves to protect their community about hostile foreign forces threatening the security of their community. Or so I would unofficially define it, and to be honest, despite my poor wording of little creativity, I think it hits the nail in the head. In Germany, such a militia too existed during the Third Reich, in the demise of the Nazis in World War II, when even schoolboys were called to arms to support their troops at the frontier. They were told to supply ammunition on bikes and whatever was at hand; men and women assembled to form the so-called «Volkssturm,» poorly armed common folks with guns, carrying the same command as the boys and girls supplying ammunition. We all know how it ended. The same example applies for militias in the sense of the Constitution: People should be ready to fight for their country when its safety and even its existence was at stakes. Back in the days of the Founding Fathers, this was a realistic imagination, the US back then didn't yet hold a hegemonial strength to oppress every force close to them (although we can't tell so either, today, after having lost the Korean war (you cannot call the separation of a people into an Authoritarian and a Democratic side a victory against the Soviets) and the Vietnamese war (what good did the US bring in this proxy war?)), they didn't even manage to fight back the Mexicans a long time ago then. During these days, sudden ambushes to communities close to the Southern border were more realistic than they are now. Still, Amendments weren't mended ever since their first signature, although some of them have become archaic, as one might tell. Only some of them were either replaced or repealed by additional Amendments, such as to permit African-Americans to vote in elections as long as they were naturalised or official citizens to the United States. But what about the Second Amendment? Well, this one maintained its original formulation throughout the centuries, either to one's liking or disliking. At least in my opinion, miscomprehensions and partisan disagreements cost several lives, a mutual understanding of what it says and doesn't say couldn't be reached yet.
Trump, Hatemonger-in-chief
To not get any much deeper into the problem of ICE and the DHS altogether, we shall come back to the issue of gun violence in the US, and what a true militia is; furthermore, whether it might require a militia in these times. Needless to say, the situation in the US is tough. Or at least, this is what Trump describes when he's not talking about how he would make America great again. At least this was his overall promise during his inauguration speech, when he was painting a somber picture of the US, a once-tremendous country now worn off like a dirty rag. #MAGA–Make America Great Again. A slogan comparable to his predecessor's slogan, Yes We Can. But unlike his predecessor, not as many people felt like he only made a false promise to win the election, twice. Currently, many people feel like a reëlection of the incumbent president would realise their worst nightmares. Of course there is a high likelihood that many Conservatives might have thought the same thing about Obama's reëlection, but at least, he didn't accomplish a national division of a degree as Trump managed to break through. Despite being able to having continued an ongoing trend of economic well-being that didn't serve the middle class anyhow (although he promised the middle-class cuts, while finally having cut taxes for the upper class), his approval rating hardly ever crossed the bar of 50 percent (The latest poll concerning his job approval as of this writing sees him at about 42 percent). Instead, he usually faces harsh criticism up to death threats and downright insults. Yet, he doesn't face them for no other reason than partisanship among the people, having divided the country irreparably (not to claim that this partisan division wasn't existing; it's real, it might be irreparable, and maybe, we also should accept it as here to stay).
The Time magazine once ran a frontpage titling «The Divider in Chief,» featuring a portrait of Narendra Modi, incumbent president of India, and too slurring Islamophobic hatred, he often is described as a Hindu nationalist. If there had to be words to describe Trump's ideology, it doubtlessly would be the terminology «White Supremacist.» There are good reasons to believe its match to him, one of them being the endorsement by Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, who, during Trump's campaign race, called upon voting for him, or otherwise, one betrayed one's American heritage. Further examples were compiled by Bulwark editor Jonathan V. Last, including some of his worst utterances, about disabled journalists, the drug traffickers, rapists, criminals coming with the migrant caravans from Central America. There are comics depicting such some comments aptly, showing how hateful rhetoric inevitably (and most likely intentionally) causes a surge in hate crimes, as they are described in the US, meaning crimes against ethnic minorities with racist intentions. Now, one might wonder whether there was a rise in such hate crimes during Trump's presidency until now. The response is as separated as the US society. On the one hand, crimes against Muslims have dropped, while communities who hosted Trump's rallies saw an increase in hate crimes by staggering 226 percent compared to previous numbers. Still, these are all just very limited views on hate crimes in the US, incapable of presenting an entire nation of so many layers. Thus, we won't be able to avoid looking at the official FBI statistics to see whether there was a trend going upwards during a presidency that was signified by hateful rhetoric targeting minorities such as Hispanics and African-Americans. Unfortunately, for some reason, the hate crime statistics for 2018 are not published yet, thus not publicly accessible. Hence, we can only tell for his first two years of his presidency, whether his rhetoric already sparked an increase in hate crimes, beside the murder of Heather Heyer during a protest in Charlottesville, GA, at which she was hit by a car steered by an outspoken white supremacist and fascist; Trump's words were that there were very fine people on both sides, as well as violence. It of course was an incredible offense to the entire public, but only an exhibition of his true beliefs, and where he saw his own supporters.
What has to be said, nonetheless and much to the quality of this Sunday Message, there can be no real prognosis on whether Trump evidently caused an increase in hate crimes, as long as the numbers from 2016 to 2020 are not available for a comparative examination. What can be told, on the other hand, is that his policies and what they caused subsequently were hateful, and only thanks to him. It may often be heard that the detention centres were erected during Obama's presidency, and no-one denies that; what is also true is that under Obama, many more migrants were detained, they also were detained quicker than under Trump. Many leftist Democrats decry these actions, obviously. But at least, what no-one can deny either, is that these people at least didn't have to suffer under inhumane conditions, awaiting their inevitable fate which also looms for their kinship under the Trump administration. Trump intentionally lets them suffer, because he doesn't think they deserve a humane treatment. He transported these thoughts through his words, through his rallies, his speeches, which he gave wholeheartedly, compared to his static and monotonous condemnation of bigotry after the shootings in El Paso (TX) and Dayton (OH). One could tell after having attended one of his rallies or having watched them afterwards that this was the uttering of hollow phrases he didn't believe in himself, when he would, on the other hand, flawlessly hold an impromptu speech full of life, spitting hatred against his enemies, namely the free press, the Democrats, Hispanics, and so on. He did so shortly after he was forced to visit the mayor of Dayton, Nan Whaley (while beforehand, he confused the Ohioan city in which the shooting took place, saying that it was Toledo). Even shortly before he visited her, he couldn't resist but to rant about Rep. Sherrod Brown, who once unsuccessfully ran for president, calling her a loser. During his visit to El Paos, meanwhile, he showed the whole world why he was often depicted as a full-grown narcissist, claiming how excited the victims in the hospitals were to meet him, which couldn't be verified anyway since the press was not allowed to enter the rooms with him, to record the meetings. Prior to these visits, which to him were all about him, he complained about mistreatment of his person in Dayton, much to the suspicion of Ms. Whaley, who thereby dropped a phrase that would sum up Trump's entire presidency, all of his actions:
“Where is it? I don’t see it?” Whaley said, looking at her phone. “I’m really confused. We said he was treated very well. I don’t know what he’s talking about misrepresenting. Oh, well. He lives in his world of Twitter.”
[Quoted from the Cincinnati Enquirer] Trump does evidently live in his Twitter world, he usually rants and falsely claims anything from his Twitter accounts, twice even ended up before the court because he blocked people on his account for criticising or insulting him, which he wasn't allowed to since he uses Twitter as his main source of amplification, to make public statements, unlike all of his predecessors who preferred to give public speeches to reach out to their people. His short messages, sometimes rowed up in shorter threads of up to three single pieces, sometimes contain his opinion, commentary, or quotes from his senior advisers on Fox News or whatever he saw on fringe right broadcaster «One America News Network» (which also employs Russians, alias Trump's unofficial employer).
Especially the shortness of his messages are a toxic aspect: Because each tweet and comment has to be limited to 280 signs, elaboration is as possible as during CNN's Democratic Debates, none; there simply is no way Trump could elaborate on policy decisions if he wanted to, because then, he had to create a never-ending thread of single comments that even when compiled by the Thread Reader App, would still look hideous and close to illegible due to the inconvenient layout. Twitter might be a handy tool for journalists to transport information snippets across a wide range, giving them quick spread to interested readers, but it's a dysfunctional tool for politician's who are required to express themselves broadly and easy to understand while making wide-ranging comments on what they intend to do, either as candidates for council, Congress or Oval Office. It doesn't work out for them when all they have are 280 signs per tweet, which some readers might laconically answer with Too Long, Didn't Read.
All of this, on the other hand, would not function as an excuse for Trump's preferred choice, though–he does have a choice on which platform to adapt for his work if he is that scared of speaking in public. He could as well move over to Facebook and write there, but wordier, so that decisions become easily understood because he had enough space to expose his intentions and arguments. Alternatively, he could do it like the presidential hopefuls Elizabeth Warren (D - MA) or Pete Buttigieg (D - IN) who wrote (or write) blog posts on «Medium» when they have got something to say they prefer to write rather than transport in speaking.
In the end, another confession may have to be made: Trump simply doesn't enjoy to write except when holding his Sharpie in his hand and giving signatures to Executive Orders. His spelling is poor, just as his vocabulary is. He might not be capable of writing an entire coherent text, let alone be able to punctuate correctly (speaking of the Oxford comma). And as long as his message is understood by those who are supposed to understand him, he may not care for switching to a different platform that would allow him to write more than three mid-long sentences with poor grammar and punctuation. But how much is to trust someone who confuses council and counsel, or become an internet sensation for neologisms like covfefe? This might be funny for a starlet or someone who was blue-checked for hosting a popular podcast, but not for the President of the United States; the same rule applies for resharing memes on Twitter without any further commentary. With the presidency, a certain codex is being applied, one of them being the representation of moral standards of the country, being a beacon of hope and unity especially in trying times; always being held accountable for one's actions, and solving trouble between partisan lines; standing up for the underlying ideals that once moved the people upon the establishment of the States. Regarding these standards being selected by myself, one might assume that this also required having read the most fundamental texts that shaped the country he was supposed to represent–texts like The Federalist Papers by John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison; «Common Sense» by Thomas Paine; the «Declaration of Independence» and the «Constitution.» Only few people might assume Trump even read half of these magnificent pieces of writing that created the foundation of the once most glorious nation in the world. He's a man who fired retired generals who tried to give him briefings on foreign policies which he didn't have the concentration span to follow by. He is the man who underwhelmed the nation's principles to create an authoritarian state, which the Founding Fathers and everyone else on the Mayflower tried to escape to not do the same mistakes as King George III. He has become what the Founding Fathers feared to be ruled by in the outcome.
Gun Violence–a threat, with and without ideologies
Coming back to the actual topic of today's Sunday Message–the gun violence. The shooter in El Paso released a four-pages long manifesto, previous to his shooting frenzy, consisting of racism and Trump's ideology and utterances. He feared an Hispanic Invasion, thus choosing a city that was a hundred miles away, near the border, with a high amount of people with a migratory background. Thus looked the toll of casualties. The Dayton shooter was supposedly left-winged, declared to be anti-Second-Amendment and having shared opinions on Facebook aligning with presidential hopefules Elizabeth Warren (D - MA) and Bernie Sanders (I - VT), both either being quite left-winged or decidedly Socialist. In spite of this point of view, the shooter's ex-girlfriend wrote a Medium post explaining that the shooter was actually mentally ill, having suffered from a bipolar disorder. She says that he was obsessed with violence, with terrible people doing terrible things, which she understood, since both of them studied psychology, and that psychologists are naturally interested in the most obscure depths of the human mind. Her more intimate knowledge about the shooter might turn the table around, especially in one regard: How was a man who was knowingly mentally ill able to purchase guns legally? And how was an outspoken racist able to acquire guns? Trump, perhaps involuntarily, pushed for stricter gun laws, namely for further background checks that would require future gun owners to undergo psychological examinations to assure that they had no mental background that would increase the probability that they might not be stable enough to carefully handle lethal instruments such as assault-style rifles such as an AK-47 or an AR-15. It's especially about guns like these that raise people's eyebrows when discussing the right to keep and bear arms for themselves, privately. It raises questions that might be declared outrageous abroad: Do people really need to own semi-automatic guns privately? Guns that normally come into use on battlefields such as in the Middle East? You couldn't even use them for hunting deer–no-one wants to eat meat that is perforated with poisonous lead, if any of the meat remained after an entire magazine of bullets hit the innocent buck.
Challenges concerning the sometimes sturdy language of our forefathers who were trained in the high art of aesthetic speech went even as far as to approaching the Second Amendment linguistically, which gratefully brought us a 12-pages piece by the Duke University's Law School (PDF). On page three, the author describes that to privately possess guns in terms of self-defense was in accordance with what they expected to be the freedom of bearing guns. Caveat: A pistol, they never called arms, they are once cited. Yet, on the other hand, more generally, they are explained as that
Challenges concerning the sometimes sturdy language of our forefathers who were trained in the high art of aesthetic speech went even as far as to approaching the Second Amendment linguistically, which gratefully brought us a 12-pages piece by the Duke University's Law School (PDF). On page three, the author describes that to privately possess guns in terms of self-defense was in accordance with what they expected to be the freedom of bearing guns. Caveat: A pistol, they never called arms, they are once cited. Yet, on the other hand, more generally, they are explained as that
In the 1830's, Madison wrote: "A Government resting on a minority, is an aristocracy not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical [and] physical force against it, without a standing Army, and enslaved press, and a disarmed populace." 37 The Founding Fathers in general strongly endorsed the right to bear arms for self-defense; they gave written expression to their views through the second amendment and personally exercised the right by owning and possessing arms. (p. 6 | 156)
In today's knowledge of the variety of firearms, this might not be too exciting to know that they of course supported the private possession of guns, times were rough back then, and the US as we now know were still in the making, the scaffold was vague,; yet, regarding the fact that we have developed machine guns that are able to fire hundreds of bullets within minutes, capable of dismembering plenty of people in no time. And this is exactly the point that has to be contemplated, but never was, thanks to stubborn Republicans who want to maintain Constitutional rights untouched at all costs, thus risking people's lives. An honest and thorough debate on restrictions on the Second Amendment, as, e.g., for semi-automatic assault-style rifles, never really took place but usually was corrupted by uncompromising Congressmen who would not move one instance away from their point. In their cases, the question whether they might receive money from groups like the NRA arise naturally, even in their personal defense–one might not directly believe that they really wanted to have the blood of their constituents stuck to their hands. This is what is the case once they bar themselves from any compromise towards gun control, background checks, or whatever might be thought of in regards to regulate the sale and possession of arms.
The debate surrounding the Second Amendment is oftentimes described as emotional because the right itself was one of the most fundamental ones to the freedom of the United States, as one could imagine when reading the texts being mentioned afore–the military is a recurring theme evermore. Thus, why shouldn't the people be ready all the time to defend themselves against hostile invaders? But as I said before, militias are non-existent in these times, although militias are what the authors of the Constitution meant when they said that the people should have a right to arm themselves. It's what former Supreme Court associate judge John Paul Stevens (who deceased this year, on July 16; Requiescat in Pace) complained about in his op-ed for «The Atlantic:»
The debate surrounding the Second Amendment is oftentimes described as emotional because the right itself was one of the most fundamental ones to the freedom of the United States, as one could imagine when reading the texts being mentioned afore–the military is a recurring theme evermore. Thus, why shouldn't the people be ready all the time to defend themselves against hostile invaders? But as I said before, militias are non-existent in these times, although militias are what the authors of the Constitution meant when they said that the people should have a right to arm themselves. It's what former Supreme Court associate judge John Paul Stevens (who deceased this year, on July 16; Requiescat in Pace) complained about in his op-ed for «The Atlantic:»
Even if the lobbyists who oppose gun-control regulation actually do endorse the dubious proposition that the Second Amendment was intended to limit the federal power to regulate the civilian use of handguns—that Burger incorrectly accused them of “fraud”—I find it incredible that policy makers in a democratic society have failed to impose more effective regulations on the ownership and use of firearms than they have.
He too was upset about the weakened regulation of gun ownership in the US, and also mentions the primary offender who made this weakening possible: The NRA. The National Rifle Association, the largest US special interest group and also the closest and mightiest donor to the GOP. Many Republican politicians kept close ties to this group, or, more colloquially speaking, were in their pockets. After the Parkland shooting, one student confronted Sen. Marco Rubio whether he would cut ties with the NRA; the room was flooded with applause to his delight, having asked such a tremendous question so calmly. Sen. Rubio didn't respond to him immediately, but also only gave a vague response that didn't affirm his question. Critics of the event accused the students of being bought and prepared by unknown outsiders, they didn't expect them to be prepared for the questionnaire. Still, the question was highly justified, since Congressmen and -women should only represent their people, not any special-interest groups. Integrity is only vouchsafed when no invisible extra money floats the pocket money of an elected Congressmember.
But how much do they exactly spend in their lobbying? A good question. One could take a closer look to the last two election cycles: In 2016, the year of Trump's inauguration, the NRA spent an amount of US$ 54,398,558 in outside spending only; respectively US$ 3,188,000 and US$ 1,091,659 were spent on lobbying and contributions. For sure this is a lot of money they invest in their candidates, at least five times as much as organisations would spend in Germany, just to influence the decision-making of legislators (thanks to «Open Secrets» for the numbers).
I firstly mentioned Marco Rubio, who was confronted by victimised students (not meant deprecatingly, but as it happened: They have become victims to a school shooter who was legally able to obtain a weapon, and start his cruel deed), asked whether he would cease accepting money from the NRA. Expectedly, he ranks the highest when it comes to receiving money from the NRA, as we can see in a schort screenshot I took from the same page I linked previously (to see it yourself, switch to the folder «Recipients»):
Although named 15th in the chart, he received the third highest amount of money from the NRA with about US$ 9,900 amongst many more Congressmen in House and Senate (For the record, a short injection: Marsha Blackburn (R - TN), who received the highest amount of contributions by the NRA–US$ 15,800–recently exclaimed her dismay about the back-on-back shootings in El Paso and Dayton and thereby promoted further extensions on mental health recovery, or so they say. No word about the gun's share on such incidents were heard by her). The Parkland shooting took place one year prior to his reception of these contributions, so one could tell that his evasive response to the student was meant to be a No.
What have to leave to Marco Rubio, who was confronted by survivors of the shooting, is that after he was asked whether he would henceforth reject money from the NRA, he no longer appears in the list by Open Secrets for the 2018 election cycle. Whether we can admit that he has got a bad conscience on being financed by the organisation that prevents such shootings from happening through rigid gun control measurements, or if they simply lost interest in the Florida Republican, we don't know. What we do know, though, is that the students' action to have a standoff with him did show efficiency: He went off the list. Maybe such measurements should be contemplated more often, until they lose their efficiency.
Nevertheless, it's crystal clear that the NRA won't soon break up with the GOP, since Trump already ascertained everyone that the NRA's interest will usually be around during talks about the sharpening of gun laws, so it didn't even need a commentary in the New York Times, written by Bulwark editor-in-chief Charlie Sykes, assuring on his behalf what I said before. The NRA and the GOP share a long history of companionship and the related security of the Second Amendment in its bloated exhibition.
Sykes especially mentioned one of his main reasons why he grieves some of his compatriots who still support the NRA and its stance on the Second Amendment: The almost childish, nagging behaviour of the organisation itself. More recently, this behaviour went alight, when it [the organisation] told emergency and trauma doctors who criticised the organisation to stay in their lane. Needless to say that many of them were appalled by this command, since it is their lane. Whenever a shooting took place, it was up to them to immediately take oftentimes life-saving care of the victims of such shootings. What the NRA promotes–at their best, no regulations on guns at all–usually falls back to them, in the emergency rooms. Thus, it's not in the least depressing to not hear that doctors won't have their say in the upcoming debate in Congress with regards to gun safety and the aftermath to every shooting that will continuously affect them, during and after the operations, including the removal of bullets from either living or dead bodies, the comforting of relatives and the victims themselves (especially psychologists), or the coroners who will possibly have to autopsy more infantile casualties from school shootings as during the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (even though right-winged pundits like Alex Jones still don't believe the shooting really took place).
Subsequent to the NRA's comment of doctors who'd be better off staying in their lane, some of them cooperated with «The Atlantic» to record a short video in which they explain to the public what is their job and why the NRA's concerns about the extension of Second Amendment rights is located totally in their lane. Whether the NRA Took the doctors' comments serious nor not, is unbeknownst to most of us, they at least didn't try to have an honest discussion on what they have expressed with their belief that doctors shouldn't bother to contemplate what they had to do with guns and rifles. As long as people are being targeted with guns, health will be a prevailing issue interwoven to it. There's no shortcut around them.
[Topics related to the NRA, such as the organisation's ties to Russia, their crumbling finances or Wayne LaPierre's overall prick-ness will not be discussed since they have no closer ties to the issue of gun violence, as long as Russia doesn't consider the US' population's self-destruction through an armed civil war between the masses an alternative plan to nuking the whole country]
 |
| A shortlist of recipients of NRA contribu- tions in the 2016 election cycle (not all are seen her) |
What have to leave to Marco Rubio, who was confronted by survivors of the shooting, is that after he was asked whether he would henceforth reject money from the NRA, he no longer appears in the list by Open Secrets for the 2018 election cycle. Whether we can admit that he has got a bad conscience on being financed by the organisation that prevents such shootings from happening through rigid gun control measurements, or if they simply lost interest in the Florida Republican, we don't know. What we do know, though, is that the students' action to have a standoff with him did show efficiency: He went off the list. Maybe such measurements should be contemplated more often, until they lose their efficiency.
 |
| The bottom of an alphabetically ordered list of NRA contribution recipients, suddenly ending at the letter <h.> Rubio would've been found in such a bottom if he received money from the NRA, which he seemingly doesn't. Prove me wrong if I'm mistaken. |
Sykes especially mentioned one of his main reasons why he grieves some of his compatriots who still support the NRA and its stance on the Second Amendment: The almost childish, nagging behaviour of the organisation itself. More recently, this behaviour went alight, when it [the organisation] told emergency and trauma doctors who criticised the organisation to stay in their lane. Needless to say that many of them were appalled by this command, since it is their lane. Whenever a shooting took place, it was up to them to immediately take oftentimes life-saving care of the victims of such shootings. What the NRA promotes–at their best, no regulations on guns at all–usually falls back to them, in the emergency rooms. Thus, it's not in the least depressing to not hear that doctors won't have their say in the upcoming debate in Congress with regards to gun safety and the aftermath to every shooting that will continuously affect them, during and after the operations, including the removal of bullets from either living or dead bodies, the comforting of relatives and the victims themselves (especially psychologists), or the coroners who will possibly have to autopsy more infantile casualties from school shootings as during the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (even though right-winged pundits like Alex Jones still don't believe the shooting really took place).
Subsequent to the NRA's comment of doctors who'd be better off staying in their lane, some of them cooperated with «The Atlantic» to record a short video in which they explain to the public what is their job and why the NRA's concerns about the extension of Second Amendment rights is located totally in their lane. Whether the NRA Took the doctors' comments serious nor not, is unbeknownst to most of us, they at least didn't try to have an honest discussion on what they have expressed with their belief that doctors shouldn't bother to contemplate what they had to do with guns and rifles. As long as people are being targeted with guns, health will be a prevailing issue interwoven to it. There's no shortcut around them.
[Topics related to the NRA, such as the organisation's ties to Russia, their crumbling finances or Wayne LaPierre's overall prick-ness will not be discussed since they have no closer ties to the issue of gun violence, as long as Russia doesn't consider the US' population's self-destruction through an armed civil war between the masses an alternative plan to nuking the whole country]
How do we prevent gun violence from happening?
Now, for the most integral question of this entire (slightly getting-out-of-hands lengthy) Sunday Message: How do we prevent this entire mess from happening? First of all, we have the two most extreme suggestions from the left and the right aisle:
- Ban guns from the country altogether, without any exceptions, or
- Tell the people to get themselves their own guns so that they can defend themselves when an armed offender faces them.
What we can tell with our horseshoe-theory centrist stance on politics, both sides are wrong. But seriously, they are: Neither is a total ban on guns going to solve the problem due to the illegally possessed guns whose owners won't give their arms back since they also didn't purchase them the expected way, nor will more guns (we remember: There are 20 percent more guns than there are populating this giant country. There are enough guns already, and just because some people with mental instability or hostile ideologies driving them towards shooting up people in public places, doesn't mean that those who might become victims in the next shooting should arm themselves in order to be prepared for the (perhaps) inevitable. This is what used to be described as an arms race, before World War I took over the stage in Europe. We all know how it ended during these days.
Yet, since these arguments were all already fought over, no-one seriously brought them in again, even though Fox News couldn't resist to blame video games, causing a backlash of ridicule even from the right. The reason is clear: Video games are the most defunct argument when it comes to arguing what drove a shooter, even though there might hardly be evidence that clarifies the shooter ever played (violent) video games on a continuous base. A different, more arguable suggestion during the debate was the thought that the shooters might have suffered from mental illnesses. As it was mentioned in this text before, this argument might work for the Dayton shooter who evidently did suffer from a bipolar disorder and have a likely unhealthy interest in violence. This argument, albeit it might explain what drove the Dayton shooter, doesn't have the potential to generally explain to us what drives people into shooting up their contemporaries. Knowledge like this didn't hinder more Conservative outlets from suggesting exactly this: That we should have a more cautious eye on shooters' mental states. What the latter addition to this discussion offers us, on the other hand, is the indicator why it might not be the guns that are the primary issue in mass murder in the US. It had got me thinking, especially because editor-in-chief and professional flip-flopper Ben Shapiro raised awareness to the FBI statistics that show how many people are also murdered through weapons that are not arms and rifles. Again, unfortunately, the latest charts provided by the FBI to the public are from 2017, on August 09 in 2019. To break down on the numbers, we'll extract it for those who don't want to check out the link:
In 2017, 15,129 murders were committed. Of these 15,129 murders,
- 10,982 of these murders were executed with arms of any kind–rifles, handguns, etc. (this makes 72.59 percent of all murders committed in the US 2017, meaning that from this point already, the handsome Alt-Right kiddo was wrong, and there is no visible chance he might have spoken of any different year, because there is no reason to speak of any further behind in the past when the presence is troubling us; this might have just been a bizarre form of gaslighting or how one might call it)
- 1,591 knives or other cutting instruments, to adapt the FBI speak (this makes about 10.52 percent of all murders committed in this year. Still a terrible amount, but only a little piece compared to murders by shooting)
- 467 murders with blunt objects (hammers, bats, lumbers because you're a mad Scotsman, etc.) (this applies to a death toll by percent of approximately 3.10 percent of all murders. Surprisingly, Americans don't rely that much on death by fracturing the victim's skull).
- 692 murders by so-called personal weapons, meaning fists and the such (an amount 4.57 percent this is)
- The last ones, we will just row up quickly: Poison: 13 | 0.09 percent; Fire: 103 | 0.68 percent; Narcotics: 97 | 0.64 percent; Strangulation: 88 | 0.58 percent; Asphyxiation: 105 | 0.69 percent; Other: 979 | 6.47 percent.
So, disregarding the offenders' ethnic background (which we can take a look at quickly too, if you, dear reader, are interested in being either confirmed in your prejudices, or surprisingly falsified), we can tell that guns are still the preferred tool for unjustified executions, with a convenient lead.
As I hereby submitted to you all, guns are still in the lead when it comes to murder in the US, even though we don't have access to the definitive statistics from the FBI for the years to follow, namely 2018 and 2019. But because some people might already hook up on the race card and blame the murders specifically on foreigners (or those who look like foreigners although they are US-Americans in the third or fourth generation), we shall take a look at this as well. Again, we will rely on statistics from the FBI. Thus, let's begin (begin the beguine; I'm sorry, I couldn't resist):
Of all the 15,129 offenses that were recorded, of about 6,370 offenders, their race (CAVEAT: Race doesn't equal ethnicity, but since ethnicity only included the Shakespearean question of to be Hispanic or to not be Hispanic, we will just add it upon the other two categories for means of usage) was known to the FBI. God knows what happened to the remaining 57.90 percent of offenders; whether they shared the same race as the partners they committed their crime with, or the FBI agents weren't able to identify their race because through a wild life their parents led, their ethnicity was a hodgepodge of races, we don't know. Anyway, we will deal with an amount of 6,370 offenders in this comparison. And of these cases,
- 3,227 offenders were white. This applies to more than 42,10 of all offenders by race. As I said before, the rest of them, the 57,90 percent, weren't white. Whether this might float the racists' boat or not, this is up to the reader on his or her known. It might do so, because the white people weren't in the majority. But before they will all begin to stand up and cheer, we have to remind ourselves that not every African-American is an inherent gang banger as well as not every Hispanic or Latino in the US is an illegal worker or drug trafficker (or rapist, stabber, or whatever). There are black sheep on every side, although, as we now know, the white folks are not the majority in the whole play. But we will see how this continues, in the following numbers.
- 1,359 offenders were of African-American heritage. The KKK's darkest fear (no pun intended) commits by far fewer crimes than the wonder bread guy. This applies to about 21.33 percent of all crimes. Now, for our fellow racists, there are about two options how they can now approach this downfall of their beloved prejudice: Deny the FBI's credibility, even though Trump dethroned it of its neutrality by firing the director, seeing two if its agents being held accountable for anti-him text messages, and even declaring a loyalist to him the national director of intelligence (an acting one, but still); or they will start crying because they are statistically more offensive than those they usually thought were more offensive. But numbers don't lie, because numbers have no soul. Anyway, let's move on.
- 454 offenders wer Hispanics or Latinos, or whatever term you want to use for them (Beaners or wetbacks doesn't count, because this is plain racist and indisputable). But unlike the other two categories we dealt with before, the FBI lists Hispanics and the such in a different category (ethnicity) which only contains 5,131 offenses. Thus, the number isn't completely comparable to whites and African-Americans. Still, we have a number of percent: 8.85 percent.
- Three smaller pieces no-one cared about: 49 crimes (0.77 percent) were committed by Natives of America and Alaska (altogether, not respectively, you genius); 42 crimes (0.66 percent) were committed by Asians; and three entire crimes (0.05 percent) were committed by Native Hawai'ians and/or inhabitants of other Pacific Islands such as Puerto Rico or Guam (must be this Aloha spirit the NYT and Barack Obama were talking about).
What is known to these above-mentioned numbers is that of the 6,370 crimes, about 475 were committed in groups of mixed races, meaning that groups of different races committed these crimes. This would make about 7.46 percent of the crimes were executed in groups. Good to know, I guess. And before we moth on to crimes by ethnicities, I want to confess that yes, I know that these comparisons are all nice and fancy but they do not mind the crimes per capita, so that Islanders and Asians look like the most peaceful people in the US disregarding the fact that they are also less represented due to little shares in overall population. But does it matter when we speak of general violence? More or less. What we do know, though, is that even though they might be more violent per capita, they still commit only a few crimes compared to those who are also in the majority of representation. In the end, it doesn't matter if Asians committed 42 crimes for a small population when white men committed crimes up to more than three thousands. They would still be the race with the most crimes, thus still be the more dangerous race. On the opposite side, white people are comparably higher in the class system of the US; normally, one would already expect the African-Americans, although a minority compared to white people, to absolutely commit more crimes than whites annually, but still they don't.
But since I know that the wannabe Conservatives are going to grind my gears because I didn't do the math on who commits more crimes per capita, I will just do it, but will provide you with the numbers so that you can correct me if necessary.
As we heard before, about 327,167,434 people live in the US in 2018. Of these many people, about
- 250,283,087.01 people were white folks, which amounts to about 76,5 percent;
- 43,840,436.156 people were of African-American heritage, about 13.4 percent;
- 59,871,640.422 people would apply as Hispanics or Latinos, about 18,3 percent.
Since we now know about these little snippets of information, we can continue to calculate who commits more crimes per capita, although the race might already be cleared, again due to a comfortable lead by the wonder bread guys. But to be fair, we will reckon each percent respectively. Thus, we can tell that per capita,
- 0.0012 percent of all white Americans commit crimes. A cheering number, we could all agree upon. A little amount of white Americans are criminals.
- 0.0031 percent of all African-Americans are criminal. A slightly higher number, unfortunately, but this is how the statistics roll.
- 7,58e⁻⁷–or to say it in the incumbent president's words: «Look guys, very low numbers! They are very low, just like my approval rating!»
Assuming that I didn't make a mistake when figuring out how many offenses are committed in a certain race or ethnicity per capita, we can tell that no matter which one you choose to hate, you will have very little reason to hate any of these in regards to how they look, they all are mainly law-abiding citizens who try to make it through the day. What one sees in the news are single cases that fall into oblivion inside the statistics. One shouldn't watch that much of the action news, they work upon sensationalism to raise the quotas. They hardly represent what is going on. On the other hand, of course, we have regional differentiation. For example, crime in Chicago , IL, is exceptionally higher than in, let's say, Flagstaff, AZ. The point that one of the two places to live in is a metropolis, while the other one is a town in the South. The question is whether there is a higher criminality in comparison to the population, which is the case. Chicago is a special case de to a high rate of gang criminality. Flagstaff, on the other hand, is a town that many people might just cross when driving on the highway, although I am not sure about this, I have never been there myself. Thus, we will just move on with the actual topic, on how to prevent gun violence from happening.
What we already had were the issues of video games (just throw it away, it's a myth) and mental illnesses (arguable). With mental illnesses, background checks are strictly related, because they are supposed to send out warnings about probable future offenders. Previous to their purchase, buyers have to undergo checks to secure their mental stability to properly handle their lethal weapons. What would be required to secure the functionality of these background checks would be regular comebacks, meaning that the buyers have to be reexamined in intervals, since no-one is an island, we all are continuously affected by outside influences onto our mental health. Someone who was perfectly stable during the time of the gun's purchase might turn into a deranged madman or -woman throughout the time of possession. And then, one day, this proprietor will gun down several people because the instability turned into madness.
What one is often going to hear is the term red flag. But what does it mean: Simply: A history of minor offenses and misdemeanors that were known to the police. Someone who later on became a murderous offender already appeared to be problematic due to offenses he was charged for. These offenses that remarkably affiliated to murder are therefore called red flags, because they should have been understood as warnings. Preemptively, the police should have taken away the guns of the future offender to prevent him or her from ever committing this cruel deed. Oftentimes, they don't do because they relativised these warning signs as untelling. The responsible officers' behaviour was flawed, and cost lives. Hence, should we change officers' behaviour, to be more paranoid and take away guns more often, because someone behaved offensive in certain ways, showed remarks of mental instability? Possibly, although this should be a question directed towards experts in the field of psychology, not to those who never dedicated themselves to it profoundly. Those who regularly fell such decisions are mostly biased, therefore unreliable to fell a neutral decision.
What could be related to mental illnesses is a craving for public attention. Something like this could partially be found with the Christchurch (NZ) shooter who live-streamed his shooting on Facebook, with a presentation that was close to ridiculing the entire situation, playing with internet memes en masse. Even back then, we already traced evidence to the growing internet culture surrounding shooters, the glorification they receive, alive as well as posthumously. Closely connected to this macabre culture is the forum 8chan, as the investigative journalists of «Bellingcat» precisely reported. There, worshipers of shooters hold up high scores documenting how many people were murdered by each shooter, so that those who ran could compete with others in an inhumane game. Not due to this at last, its creator already demanded its shutdown, confessing to his failure in creating an anonymous internet forum, seemingly unaware of who it would attract the most, obviously. The fact that he is remorseful should be honoured nonetheless.
In the end, we should not deny what is the most driving factor for mass shootings in the US: Domestic terrorism through white supremacist terrorism. In the Commentary Magazine, it was already complained that journalists were quick to frame shooters with political ideologies, just as it is usually complained by the left that policemen and women were quick to execute a racial profiling to break down on the field of offenders to detect them as quickly as possible. Unlike journalists, though, the police is required to use any means possible to accelerate the work, yet without following a false trace for racist assumptions; as journalists, they have to work clearly, without any prejudices put afore, only working with bare facts. Without this main pillar, their work would become pointless and obsolete, it could as well be scrapped and invested into something more useful, such as prevention programs.
Those things aside, what were we up to? White supremacist terrorism. A driving force in the US society, especially since Donald Trump took over the Oval Office with a hateful agenda that only became more furious when developing throughout three years. We already saw it in previous sources that his hateful rhetoric persuaded his sympathisers to commit hate crimes en masse. It's true that I would like to have shown how this could be spectated in the numbers, but unfortunately, those numbers are not here yet, so that we don't have enough of them to draw a line. Of course we do have opinions by experts that say that Trump's presidency fueled white supremacists' hatred to give them a reason to do what they already planned to do; the El Paso shooter did recite Trump's false assumptions; David Duke did call upon voters to elect Trump into office in 2016; European autocrats like Marie Le Pen (France; Rassemblement National) praise Trump as much as Victor Orbán (Hungary; Fidesz) and Matteo Salvini (Italy; Lega Nord) do. Steve Bannon, his former adviser, went to Europe to unite the fringe right parties to create an alliance of nationalists who all are like Trump. Trump finds friends in people like Jair Bolsonaro who cracks down on ethnic minorities, indigenous people and left-wingers; in dictators like Kim Jong-Un; he told Congresswomen of an ethnic background to go back where they came from, and laughs about supporters who shout to shoot people of ethnic backgrounds, like Hispanics. He rushes against the free press because some news stations who are not loyal to him dare to criticise him for what he does. His narcissism makes him incapable of feeling empathy or sympathy for victims of any kind. All and everyone he cares for is himself, which is the reason why he digs onto verification from anyone around him. Due to his cognitive inabilities, he is unable to comprehend complex problematics or systems, which is the reason why his preference for simple grammatical structures and a binary political field of friends and foes strictly separated from one another might not be out of ideology but bare necessity–anything beyond a field of two layers would overstrain him cognitively, while his narcissism keeps him in office forcefully, and tells him to run for office again. He enjoys himself in such a powerful position. Whether his business runs well or poorly, we don't know, his tax returns might never ever be seen by anyone but himself, his tax adviser and the IRS employees who once happened to hold it in their hands. What we do know, though, is that from the mid-80s to the mid-90s, he was annually indebted and only wrote red numbers, while his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner planned to cut some debt when his father-in-law was in office.
What I can submit as information on whether white supremacy is evidently a driving force in mass shootings and/or politically/ideologically motivated violence of any kind is an annual report (PDF) by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Previous to this text, I held it back since non-governmental organisations are mostly linked to a political bias, such as the ADL and the Southern Law Poverty Center (SPLC) are alleged to follow a strongly left-winged bias. Thus, I normally prefer to rely on governmental resources when trying to make general statements. But as we will learn later on, the FBI doesn't think political biases in violence mattered, and so, it only prosecutes violence generally, disregarding the motives. Anyway, for what it's worth, the ADL noted about 50 extremist-killings in 2018, iwhile also noting that in the past ten years, in 73 percent of all incidents that caused murders and mass murders, guns were involved. Most of the incidents in which they were involved could be declared high-casualty incidents, meaning that multiple people were murdered in these incidents.
How many of the 50 attacks were gun related? A staggering 43 out of 50, or 86 percent. (All the information I hereby presented and commented on can be found in the document linked above, on page 19)
A separation of their findings can be found on pages 23 and 24, although only the ten most deadliest incidents were listed in a table to see how they were motivated. After having read this entire text, the findings might not be surprising. Of the ten most deadliest incidents, at least four were motivated by fringe right beliefs, while respectively three of them were linked to fringe left and Islamist beliefs. In regards to the full picture of the fifty incidents, the pictures is comparably mixed, although fringe right beliefs again enjoy a comfortable lead, although it must be noted that, as well as with the FBI, the report for 2018 is only preliminary,meaning that no definitive edition was yet available, at least in shape of statistics. Thus, we unfortunately only have seventeen cases at hand, which I demand to be apologised, it's one of the reasons why I put it at the end of the text.
Still, of the 17 cases that are known to us,
What I can submit as information on whether white supremacy is evidently a driving force in mass shootings and/or politically/ideologically motivated violence of any kind is an annual report (PDF) by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Previous to this text, I held it back since non-governmental organisations are mostly linked to a political bias, such as the ADL and the Southern Law Poverty Center (SPLC) are alleged to follow a strongly left-winged bias. Thus, I normally prefer to rely on governmental resources when trying to make general statements. But as we will learn later on, the FBI doesn't think political biases in violence mattered, and so, it only prosecutes violence generally, disregarding the motives. Anyway, for what it's worth, the ADL noted about 50 extremist-killings in 2018, iwhile also noting that in the past ten years, in 73 percent of all incidents that caused murders and mass murders, guns were involved. Most of the incidents in which they were involved could be declared high-casualty incidents, meaning that multiple people were murdered in these incidents.
How many of the 50 attacks were gun related? A staggering 43 out of 50, or 86 percent. (All the information I hereby presented and commented on can be found in the document linked above, on page 19)
A separation of their findings can be found on pages 23 and 24, although only the ten most deadliest incidents were listed in a table to see how they were motivated. After having read this entire text, the findings might not be surprising. Of the ten most deadliest incidents, at least four were motivated by fringe right beliefs, while respectively three of them were linked to fringe left and Islamist beliefs. In regards to the full picture of the fifty incidents, the pictures is comparably mixed, although fringe right beliefs again enjoy a comfortable lead, although it must be noted that, as well as with the FBI, the report for 2018 is only preliminary,meaning that no definitive edition was yet available, at least in shape of statistics. Thus, we unfortunately only have seventeen cases at hand, which I demand to be apologised, it's one of the reasons why I put it at the end of the text.
Still, of the 17 cases that are known to us,
- 11 single incidents ( 64.71 percent) were motivated by fringe right beliefs,
- 04 single incidents (23.53 percent) were motivated by fringe left beliefs, and
- 01 single incident (05.88 percent) was motivated by an Islamist motivation.
What has to be noted in order to handle these numbers with care is the question of whether the incidents that were selected by the ADL are really able to be categorised as incidents motivated by extremist beliefs. I for myself noted about two such cases in the fringe right category, one in the fringe left category (also noting that in the incident at the Waffle House at which a former employee shot up the customers and his former colleagues alike had a history of mental illnesses), and one in the category of non-ideological motivations, which might apply for the fringe left category, but I was uncertain and didn't want to fully go with the ADL's categorisation. In the fringe-right category, one incident might as well be motivated by Islamist beliefs, as the offender switched from white supremacy to Islamism, although nothing in the belief of Muslims tells them to stab children during a sleepover, no matter which translation of the Qur'an one reads.
As one can tell, non-profit organisations such as the ADL (or the SPLC, which I didn't check now) try their best to fill the gap the FBI left so far, thereby also showing us what are the challenges one faces when trying to map the field of extremist-motivated incidents. Sometimes, it's not that clear: Does a murder during a complication of a car sale by a Moorish sovereign citizen apply for fringe left anti-government motivations, or is it just a murderous overreaction due to disputes in regards to how much to pay for a car? Does, as I mentioned before, the Qur'an justify the murder of children during a sleepover, even when one of the children doesn't believe in Allah? Is every murder of a police officer when one is a member of the sovereign citizens apply for fringe left beliefs? Such some questions are usually questions of what the offender (as long as he or she still lives) says, and what experts might say; experts in sociology and political sciences, as well as psychologists who examine the offender's mental state. It's never that easy, but the FBI should finally take up on the issue, so that it won't be solely to the non-governmental organisations.
To wrap it up now, what we can tell is that there are two major driving forces: Mental illness on the one hand, and extremist ideologies on the right wing on the other hand. Because, let's be honest about it: Unless we have tables that show us how many crimes are politically motivated, we don't know how large the threat of white supremacist terrorism is. Unfortunately, FBI chief Christopher Wray already explained that there won't be a federal crime option about politically motivated crimes. There are people who' disapprove of this stance, while there are also people who approve of this omission. In my opinion, such an option is long due, not to further frame offenders, but to make clear on what the executive forces have to focus. To actively and effectively fight crime, you have to know what drives offenders; are they driven by social burden such as financial issues, a lost job, their surrounding, the borough they grew up in? Or is it a political ideology, such as, when they are fringe right-wingers, the belief that their country was overrun by foreigners who plan to overtake one's country, or a culture war between the left and the right? Such are the factors that cause crimes, and to ignore it is to ignore one's duty. Especially in times at which a political extremist rules the country, the neutral institutions inside a country have to arm up to prevent a further endangerment for the people they swore to protect from hostile forces, such as the president of this country poses now. And in a country in which there is a 60 percent chance that the morrow day, another mass shooting might take place, something does have to change. One might be safer to live in a war zone rather than a US metropolis. And to be told that to go back there if you don't like it here is not a solution to a problem, but pure ignorance to the problem. America has to get back together and confront the problem. The only solution can be found in unity, not in division. Thus, Trump has to be removed from office, he's the problem that bars the people of America from solving their all-American issues. People of the US, unissez-vous !
Have a nice Sunday.
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