George Rebane
[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 14 August 2019.]
Each spate of mass shootings reveals yet another aspect of current American politics and how easy it is to manipulate the country’s masses. As a result of the El Paso and Dayton massacres we are drenched in daily calls to ‘do something’, anything to stop rightwing ‘racists’ and ‘white supremacists’ from continuing their reign of terror wherever innocent people gather. The ‘do something’ cries have reinvigorated our Second Amendment opponents to take more “common sense” steps on the road to total confiscation of guns. Currently these steps involve more background checks, red-flag laws, and, of course, the ban on so-called ‘assault weapons’. (more here)
Non-political experts continue to tell us that neither the current background check laws on the books, nor the newly House-passed Background Checks Act would have stopped any of these killings by first-time lone wolves with clean police records. Nor would red-flag laws, already on the books in many states, provide any guarantee of prevention, since people naturally hesitate to apply them because of their high false alarm rates and their impact on personal relationships. This latter point was highlighted by psychiatrist Richard Friedman in a recent NYT op-ed where he stated that “experienced psychiatrists fare no better than a roll of the dice at predicting violence. The evidence suggests that while red-flag laws do stop suicides, it isn’t clear they prevent mass shootings.”
And our progressives, including the Democratic candidates, declare that the real problem for such indigenous terror is the presence of a persistent and burgeoning number of ‘racist’ and ‘white supremacist’ Americans. According to these leftwingers, the problem now is so bad that all of President Trump’s supporters can be classed as ‘white supremacists’. It is this massive body of misfits that spawns the killers of innocents among us. For such progressives, America is still a racist country overrun by white supremacists who continue to deny people of color their legal and constitutional rights. These assertions are ludicrous on their face as argued by among others, historians such as Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institute and David Harsanyi of the Federalist. America is the overwhelming destination of emigrants from all over the world, and over 90% these emigrants are people of color, most of whom clamor for entry from Hispanic America and Africa. So, what do all these would be immigrants know about white supremacy in the United States that Democrats don’t know?
A more cogent explanation of the why and from where of these young white lone wolves derives from the massive transformation or breakdown of our culture. Today millions of teenagers and young adults sit in front of their computer screens and spend almost all of their free hours consuming social media and playing video games. Other such millions make up the audiences of the new billion-dollar game-streaming industry brought to you by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and such. These are people who watch gamers, usually professionals, compete with each other or the computer in very realistic and gory shoot-em-up combat scenarios. By definition these young men are social loners. To them the pros, earning tens of millions from sponsors, are heroes to be emulated. (more here)
These loners no longer attend churches or temples, join affinity clubs, volunteer to work with others for a worthy cause, and in general partake of a face-to-face social life. Instead, they have become social media and video game junkies. These are solitary souls who live in virtual worlds of limited and one-sided inputs. They absorb fantasies and hateful screeds from unsavory sources to explain away their overall hopelessness and dissatisfaction with a society they see as corrupt and rejecting. Inevitably, for a few such loners at the end of a road with no perceived alternatives, their last resort to relevance is to make an exit by massacre, sometimes leaving behind a pitiful apologetic as their attempt at vindication. (more here)
My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the addended transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively. However, my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR. Thank you for listening.
[Addendum] Some points to ponder –
- The US does not have anywhere near the highest firearms homicide rate. In fact, we are 16th in the world, and our gun murders are overwhelmingly committed in urban minority communities under permanent Democrat management. (more here and here)
- “Americans often demand perfection for (just) being good.” Victor Davis Hanson
- The cost of the Second Amendment is not free. But it is cheap as a price of maintaining our freedoms and government at bay. Comparisons with other countries under our security umbrella are mostly specious misinformation – we are NOT a Denmark or Estonia, or even a Germany.
- Gun homicides in America from fivethirtyeight.com. (here) Note the fraction of black homicides, more than half for a population of one in eight.
- And finally, science responds with 'Researchers are working on a pill for loneliness, as studies suggest the condition is worse than obesity'.
Not about lone wolves per se, put a good illustration how fruitless Red Flag laws and gun control is when one is bent on destruction. The Philadelphia shooter.
“Hill’s history in the adult criminal justice system began in 2001 when he was 18 and was arrested with a gun that had an altered serial number.
Public records show that he has been arrested about a dozen times since turning 18, and convicted six times on charges that involved illegal possession of guns, drug dealing, and aggravated assault. He has been in and out of prison; the longest sentence handed him came in 2010, when a federal judge gave him a 55-month term.
“And, his record would indicate, he does not like to go to prison. In 2008, he was convicted of escaping, fleeing from police, and resisting arrest. Along the way, he beat criminal charges on everything from kidnapping to attempted murder.
Hill also spent time in federal prison. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to federal firearms violations after he was caught with a Smith & Wesson .357 and later a Taurus PT .45 semiautomatic. His prior felony convictions should have barred him from owning those weapons. U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond sentenced him to four years and seven months in prison.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-police-shootings-six-shot-suspect-maurice-hill-20190815.html
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From Townhall:
“The gunman is allegedly a serial criminal. He has a record with the law. He's not supposed to have firearms in his possess but, as gun rights advocates have long said, criminals don't suddenly wake up and decide to follow the law. Passing a new gun law isn't suddenly going to make them decide to follow the rules.”
So, we are left with two radial choices. Either confiscate every gun in America and leave millions of women defenseless against the rapists, abusers, and those who are hell bent on doing harm as well as hell bent on getting a gun no matter the consequences or lock up every criminal for life.
Ok, there is a third choice. One thing for certain is that by definition a criminal will never follow any gun law written and not be deterred by a thousand more gun laws. That’s why they are known as criminals.
Posted by: Bill Tozer | 15 August 2019 at 08:01 AM