Following yet another mass shooting in the US of A, with all the predictable and understandable gut reactions that pour forth, my gut feeling is that nothing of substance will be done since American history, culture and the Constitution rule; gun control isn’t the real issue; things will get worse; people kill (it’s in our genes – deal with it); and it provides another reason why God is an increasing irrelevance in society.
One undesirable cultural phenomena, often witnessed in the United States, though hardly the exclusive property of the US of A, is the fairly indiscriminate and outright random killings of innocents that the killer has some apparent, albeit impersonal, grudge against. The most recent in a long line of case histories involved the Sandy Hook Elementary School at Newtown, Connecticut (December 2012). However, I don’t want to get into specific cases, nor dwell on the human element as experienced by those most intimately involved, friends, family, and authority figures like the police who have to deal with the situation. Rather, I’m going to focus on the broader issues, two of which are always present in the aftermath. There’s the human element, and often the related gun control issues, and there’s the religious element, an often focus being why does God allow evil and why do people seemingly ignore this facet?
The Human Element
People kill. We’re very good at it. That we are killing machines seems to be hardwired into our neural networks. Why is probably irrelevant, but no doubt can be traced back to our early hominid ancestors and the days of nature red in tooth and claw and that famous summation of biological evolution – survival of the fittest – kill or be killed - or in more modern phraseology, shoot first and ask questions later. Is there any human on this planet over the age of five who hasn’t secretly wished to bash somebody’s head in to a brain dead pulp? If so, the numbers are probably so low as to be statistically meaningless.
People kill. Again, we’re very good at it. And so now and again someone with a gun(s) goes off the deep end and lots of innocents die (or are seriously wounded but pull through even though the intention was for them to snuff it). Whenever one of these mass killing events ensues, especially in the US of A, there will be the inevitable outcry for tougher gun control measures. There will also be the inevitable outcome of keeping the status quo. It’s not easy to change the American Constitution which gives Americans the right to bear arms! American history and culture reinforce that right. Gun control isn’t the issue though that’s the gut reaction, but gun control just ain’t going to happen. But even if it does, even if not one private citizen in the US of A had a gun, so what? If I wish to kill someone indiscriminately or at random, I’m not going to be stopped just because I don’t have a gun. It’s a trite but accurate phrase that “guns don’t kill, people kill”.
How can I kill thee, let me count the ways. Well there are still knives, bows and arrows, swords, and spears. Eliminate those, well I can throw rocks or bang you over the head with a brick. No rocks, no bricks; well I can choke you to death. Maybe I have access to hand grenades, sticks of dynamite, Molotov cocktails, or have the know-how to make homemade bombs or make nerve gas or otherwise employ poisons effectively. Clubs, like baseball bats, are pretty effective too since they can clobber more than just a baseball. I can always drive my car into a crowd at high speed, and cars are unlikely to be banned just because their drivers can employ them to kill. If you really want to go out with a bang rent a fully fuelled plane and crash it into a crowded sports stadium. Then there’s arson via the humble match. No, eliminating guns is not going to end the slaughter of the innocents. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
People kill. We love it. You’d probably be hard pressed to pick up any general history text of any nation and not find, somewhere between the covers, at least one killing contained therein, and truth be known, probably lots of them. Recall all those human sacrifices made to the Aztec gods – slicing open the chest and ripping the heart out kills just as effectively as a gun. Closer to American hearts and minds, once upon a time it was peachy keen to slaughter the Native Americans including women, children and infants, as in “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”. Afro-Americans fared only slightly better.
We almost tend to make cultural ‘heroes’ of those who kill, from Billy the Kid to Captain Kidd, Jesse James to Ned Kelly (Australian), Doc Holiday to Bonnie & Clyde, even villains like John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack the Ripper have acquired a certain mythological aura that surrounds them. The passing of time has a way of softening their impact. If you source though the histories of all nations that list could be extended a thousand-fold.
The total number of biographies of the bad guys (and gals), killers and serial killers, the gangsters, the outlaws, the pirates, the assassins, even famous celebrities who were murdered, would fill up the entire shelf space of many a good sized public library. There’s just something about the cold blooded killer that appeals to our genetic makeup.
Our works of fiction are full of human slaughter and not just war novels and westerns. There’s that whole genre of slasher films aimed usually at the teenagers. We love a whodunit murder mystery and those with a ‘license to kill’ like the ever popular 007. Cop and P.I. TV shows do well; even courtroom dramas which usually feature a murder trial. The Bible (another work of fiction) contains more blood and guts and gore and slaughter of the innocents per page than the most graphic of novels, and you’ll find murder ranging from Shakespeare, Homer and even unto operas – there’s a least one murder in each of Richard Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” quartet of ‘musical dramas’.
And if we get tired of humans killing humans, there are always aliens and monsters on the rampage to satisfy the bloodlust.
I forget exactly the number now, but a study was made of the number of fictional murders shown on make-believe TV shows but the end result was alarming. We are graphically exposed day-in-and-day-out to humans killing humans, and not just on the evening TV news, though that too of course.
I fail to see why people get all worked up over the mass slaughter of, say, 30 innocents. What they are worked up about is the fact that one person killed 30 people, not that 30 people were killed. I’m sure that everyday, in everyway, in the US of A, even a lot more than 30 people are murdered, but hardly a headline, apart from the local murder mentioned in the local rag, gives note to the daily 30 killed by 30 others. But if one individual does murder 30 people at one go, then its global headlines and hundreds of human interest stories follow. In either case it’s the same number of innocent people dead, so why does one rate a massive outpouring of soul searching and the other rates barely a whimper of concern? Is there really anything different in principle between killing 30 or the one? Murder is murder; mass murder is still murder.
And what of that other mass slaughter? It’s what humans do best, not only killing other humans but innocent animals, especially animals, for no reason. A ‘sportsman’ hunter kills 30 deer; a ‘sportsman’ fisherman kills 30 fish. If anything, the ‘sportsman’ gets a pat on the back for his skill.
Speaking of skill, doesn’t the military award marksmanship medals for such gunmanship skills? What about sportsmen (and women) in competition up through and including the Olympic Games for their shooting skills in not only marksmanship with a gun, but say in archery. We reward those who can shoot, and in a manner of speaking, shoot to kill (by hitting the bullseye).
The bottom line is that while most of us are restrained most of the time from acting out our primeval instincts by the laws of the land, each and every one of us can snap; some more readily than others, but snap nonetheless. Perhaps the really amazing thing is that the slaughter of the innocents is as at a low a level as it is. And though this sounds cruel, in the time it takes one person to snuff out 30 lives, another 30 are born. In a nation of 300 million, if 30 are murdered, well that’s a drop in the ocean, but in the real world, the world of nature red in tooth and claw, that sort of ratio wouldn’t cause Mother Nature to bat a proverbial eyebrow, and aren’t humans part of that real world (although we’d probably deny it, since we think we’re something special, like something special in the eyes of God). In the cosmic scheme of things, an elephant stepping on an ant hill, while a tragedy for the ants concerned, is of no consequence for the overall survival of the ant species.
So what’s going to happen? Nothing is going to happen except things will get worse! With every passing day there are more and more people – more and more chances for a massacre of the innocent to come to pass. With every passing day, more and more instruments that have lethal powers are manufactured. Even if there come to pass legal ways of preventing the two trends from interacting, there are always the illegal ways and means, and if history is any guide, what Lola wants, Lola gets, even if Lola has to beg, borrow or steal.
To be continued…
