This Is Who We Are

“This is not who we are!” - President Joe Biden and several million others in response to the assassination attempt.

As is the case in mass shooting after mass shooting, all the attention is diverted from the real issue of gun violence in America. 

Perhaps most absurd among the absurdities are the pleas to ratchet down the rhetoric. Not that ratcheting down is a bad thing, but the ease with which Democrats swallow the false equivalence is startling. The rhetoric to which MAGATs refer are comments about threats to democracy and the rise of authoritarianism. That’s reporting, not inflammatory rhetoric. 

By contrast, Trump implores his supporters to beat the hell out of protestors, his allies suggest executing political rivals, the violent insurrectionists are “patriots,” his Republican colleagues threaten opponents, MAGATs strut around with automatic weapons and fly “Don’t Tread on Me” flags (which derive from “real harm will come to any person or group who might plan to step or tread on colonial Americans”). You Proud Boys stand back and stand by!!

Here’s one Trump fanboy’s enthusiastic political speech: 

“. . . and then we’re gonna fucking go through the FBI and just start throwing you fuckers into jail. Or, you can steal another election, and then the guns will come out, and we’ll hunt you fuckers down and slaughter you like the traitorous dogs you are in your own fucking homes. In your own fucking beds. The last thing you’ll ever hear are the horrified shrieks of your widow and orphans. And then you know what we’re going to do? … We’re going to slaughter your whole fucking family.”

By acceding to this narrative, Biden et al are aiding Trump’s ascension to martyrdom,  emerging bloodied and triumphant from what lowlifes like Lauren Boebert call a Democratic conspiracy to kill him. God saved him. (Which perhaps explains why He is too busy to tell Biden to leave the race.)

While I’m not a fan of internet memes, this one works:

I’m begging y’all to care like this when it’s a third grade classroom instead of an ear.

While the characters are more prominent, this incident is just one more chapter in the American story of unending gun violence. A crescendo of thoughts and prayers. Everyone wants to know more about the shooter and his motive. As though that will prove something. 

Little is known about the gunman, but I suggest that any person who clambers onto a rooftop to shoot a presidential candidate, or shoots his way into a school, or goes on a rampage in a gay bar or . . . is not just an overheated political partisan. Such a person has become twisted and desperate, often by complex family and/or social dynamics, and seeks some combination of perverse justice, insane catharsis or suicidal notoriety. Irrational acts evade rational analysis. But we keep trying, thinking that if we can figure it out, there won’t be a next one. There is always a next one . . . and a next one . . .  and a next one.

What is certain is that this tortured soul managed to get his trigger finger on an AR15-style rifle. In a never-fails-to-shock reprise, it seems his suburban Dad bought it for him. It doesn’t really matter, for any enterprising 20 year-old can acquire a semi-automatic weapon if he really wants it. If Dad helps, it’s just a little easier, but no more or less deadly.

I suppose there is some value in finding out what internal demons or external cruelties drove this particular shooter. But our society has no more appetite for softening the psychic blows we rain on boys than we have appetite for restricting access to deadly weapons. Neglecting the aggregate effect is lethal.

Addressing the root causes of male anger and violence would require decades of cultural reflection. Addressing the easy availability of military-style weaponry would only require a few hours of political courage. But that will not happen.

This time it was an ear and a spectator. It won’t take long before it’s a school again. 

You see, the Second Amendment is just more important than the Third Grade. 

No, Joe. This is precisely who we are.