Think about the last decade plus of mass shootings. not only have we seen a major increase in mass shootings, but out mass media has entirely dismissed these shootings under two excuses: Mental Health Issues and Terrorism. The result has been a shift of the narrative away from any real conversation about violence.
I want to push this even deeper towards a national discourse on race. The fact is that every publicized mass shooting by a white male has been dismissed with this short disclaimer ‘He had mental health issues’ Likewise every mass shooting by a black person has been under the header of terrorism. So, I am to believe that the only black people who kill en masse are doing so under the behest of Allah and the only white people who do so are bat shit crazy? First of all, if you think that killing in the name of your God is going to get you into heaven, you too are bat shit crazy. But that isn’t the narrative. Even the narrative of ‘mental health issues’ is suspect. What mental health issues? Why do we allow that disclaimer to override their often anti-government slants?
I think the so-called gun lobby is ridiculously powerful. The narrative has been any effort to create gun law is an attack on the constitution. Of course, other efforts to remove rights created by our bill of rights have been openly attacked without the blowback any politician gets for even mentioning guns without attaching the Hestonian, ‘from my cold dead hands’
This inability to really consider why violence is occurring is hurting us as a society. We want to ignore the violence and even deny it. I hear more on a daily basis about how Sandy Hook was a hoax than I do about the concept that a grown man would storm a school and kill 20 kids, or the conditions that created such behavior. Well, he had ‘mental health issues’ so I guess we can dismiss that shooting and the most recent theatre shooting as stuff best forgotten or overlooked.
Tell that to the victims in Louisiana.