“Very Troubling”: Gun Violence Is The Tragic New Normal
The horrific tragedy at the Navy Yard Monday ought to reignite a national discussion over gun violence in the country, with tragedies now known simply and universally by their venues: Virginia Tech. Tucson. Colorado. Sandy Hook. And now Navy Yard.
But in all likelihood, the rampage will have the same public policy result as earlier mass murders did: a lot of people will get on TV and offer their thoughts and prayers to the victims’ families. Some lawmakers and activists will call, yet again, for tighter restrictions on guns. And the effort toward any kind of gun control – even background checks for gun buyers – will be shunted aside or defeated on the floors of the House and Senate, where gun lobbyists have strong allies.
If the most recent shootings show anything, it’s how accustomed we have become to guns and the death and damage they cause. The suspect, now dead, had been arrested in two prior shootings, one in Seattle and one in Fort Worth, Texas. In Washington state, the accused killer, Aaron Alexis, had apparently shot out the tires of a construction worker Alexis believed had mocked him the previous day. No charges were filed against him. And in firearms-loving Texas, Alexis was arrested when he fired his gun in his apartment (he said he had been cleaning the gun at the time). The bullet went through his ceiling and the floor of the upstairs apartment, missing his neighbor by a few feet. Alexis was not punished for that act, which, at the very least, was one of gross recklessness.
Washington, D.C. used to be a place where you didn’t have to worry so much about security. You could go into almost any public building without even so much as a metal detector screening you first. The district also banned handguns, which, it’s true, did not stop gun violence. Since D.C. is bordered by two states, including one (Virginia) where gun laws are quite lax, it wasn’t too difficult to acquire a firearm and bring it over the city line. But since the Supreme Court decided the sweeping gun ban was unconstitutional, there’s more of a free-for-all attitude with guns. What galls Washingtonians more is that it wasn’t locals who wanted the gun ban lifted. It was people who don’t even live here.
The acceptance of guns – or the presumption of the presence of guns – leads to other unintended consequences, as well. In New York City this week, a deranged man in Times Square pretended to point a gun (using only his hand) at police. They shot, wounding two bystanders. It’s a terrible mistake, and one wonders whether it would have occurred if we were not all so ready to assume everyone has a gun.
Pro-gun activists say the answer is to arm more people – the teachers in schools, regular citizens on the street, security people in commercial places. Does adding more guns work? Not really. A Mother Jones investigation last year showed that in the 62 mass shootings of the previous 30 years, not one had been stopped by an armed civilian. More guns just means more opportunity for another tragedy, even another accident. And what’s more troubling still is that we have come to accept it as normal.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, September 17, 2013
“Under The Dome Of The NRA”: Navy Yard Shooting, A Jarring Reminder Of America’s Gun Problem
At least thirteen people were killed at the Washington Navy Yard on Monday, including a suspected gunman, in the latest iteration of a now-familiar US news event: a mass shooting that claims victims apparently at random.
As the streets of DC came to life Monday morning, reports emerged around 8:20 am that shots were fired at the naval facility on the city’s southeast waterfront, less than two miles from the US Capitol. It quickly became clear that multiple people had been shot during a rampage, and at a 2 pm news conference on the perimeter of the crime scene, police confirmed that twelve people lay dead inside. The number was later updated to thirteen.
During a press briefing at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center not long after the shootings, a spokeswoman speculated that “it had to be a semi-automatic [weapon],” based on witness descriptions of gunshots heard in “rapid succession.” Authorities later confirmed that indeed the suspected gunman had an assault rifle as well as a pistol.
Police identified the deceased suspected shooter as Aaron Alexis, a 34-year-old man from Fort Worth, Texas, who reportedly worked at some point as a contractor for the Navy.
In the context of increasingly frequent mass shootings and a highly visible congressional debate on gun control, any further mass gun violence is sure to become a political issue—all the more so when it happens in Washington itself.
Had the scene outside the Navy Yard been in a movie about a fictional gun control debate, it probably would have been rejected as too didactic.
The Capitol dome was part of the nearby skyline as reporters, television cameras, scattered passerby and law enforcement officers converged on M Street Southeast at the western edge of the perimeter set up by police. To the east, all one could see was a small army of emergency responders in the street; the sidewalk-to-sidewalk flashing lights made individual vehicles almost indistinguishable. A US Park Police helicopter flew in tight circles extremely low overhead.
In isolation it was not that unusual of a sight in DC: it looked like perhaps one of the many motorcades that criss-cross the city from time to time. But people on the street were unusually quiet and unsettled, because of course there was no dark limousine nor group of dignitaries in the middle of the chaos but rather the scene of a grisly multiple murder.
Many of the reporters at the scene wore congressional press credentials and might have otherwise been covering a comparatively dry budget debate, but instead scoured around for witnesses to the shooting. Blocks away, Senate office buildings were placed on a two-hour lockdown, with staffers unable to exit or enter, and intimidating military-style vehicles surrounded the Capitol complex.
In that fictional movie, this is where a dysfunctional Congress finally springs into action and helps solve the problem. The very same staffers who worked behind the scenes to scuttle this year’s big gun control legislation, now trapped in their offices because a mass shooter might be on the loose, suddenly see the light and pull the Manchin-Toomey legislation out of their desk drawers.
But will that happen here? While it’s clearly very early on, and the gun control debate has taken some surprising turns in the past year, this scenario seems unlikely. Senator Manchin already told reporters Monday afternoon he still didn’t have the votes to get his gun control legislation passed; no previously opposed members suddenly announced a new position. Only hours before the shootings, members of Congress and gun control advocates were bemoaning a recent loss of momentum in Congress thanks to recall elections in Colorado that cost two longtime legislators their jobs because they supported tighter gun rules earlier this year.
Continued inaction seems likely because the gun control debate has never suffered for an absence of bloodshed. Manchin-Toomey didn’t fail because the slayings at Sandy Hook Elementary School weren’t quite tragic enough. More indiscriminate killings—even right in the backyard of Congress—probably won’t change the fundamental calculus made by Senators to sidestep the wrath of the National Rifle Association (on display in Colorado just last week) and extremely pro-gun conservative voters, who value “gun rights” to the exclusion of almost any other issue.
That said, the gun control package was only a couple of votes short in the Senate this year. Maybe more shootings will finally convince someone to change his or her vote. But more likely, until the fundamentals of the debate change, this mass bloodshed will only serve as gruesome illustrations of a problem nobody in Washington can seem to solve—nor even meangingfully address.
By: George Zornick, The Nation, September 16, 2013
“The Madness Continues”: Navy Yard Shooting Hits Home Amid Complacency Of Our Elected Officials
Washington was under siege Monday, with SWAT teams racing through the streets and military helicopters circling overhead. Not immediately threatened, however, was the complacency that allows our elected officials to argue endlessly about the threats we face rather than work together to lessen them.
“We are confronting yet another mass shooting,” President Obama said at midday, “and today it happened on a military installation in our nation’s capital.”
A few miles away, at the historic Washington Navy Yard, authorities were just beginning to assess the carnage left by a gunman — or perhaps gunmen — who sprayed the halls of the Naval Sea Systems Command with semiautomatic-weapons fire. Police have put the number of fatalities at at least 13, but the tally of dead and wounded kept changing throughout the afternoon.
Was this an act of terrorism, similar to the Fort Hood shootings or the Boston bombings? That theory advanced and receded during the day, amid conflicting reports of multiple assailants and speculation about possible motives.
Since no possibility could be quickly ruled out, all the old arguments about the nature of the “war on terror” were deemed in order. Obama’s supporters praise him for killing Osama bin Laden and smashing al-Qaeda to bits. Critics say that decentralized terrorism and “self-radicalized” individuals constitute an increasing menace. Both positions are more often used to score political points than to seek solutions.
Or was the Navy Yard rampage “just” another senseless multiple shooting, like so many others? During his presidency, Obama has mourned the victims and consoled the survivors of Fort Hood, Tucson, Aurora and Newtown. There was a weariness in his voice as he spoke of Navy personnel who had served bravely overseas yet “today . . . faced the unimaginable violence that they wouldn’t have expected here at home.”
The one confirmed shooter — who died at the scene — was reportedly carrying at least three firearms. Following the unimaginable horror of Newtown, in which 20 children were slaughtered, Obama could not even convince Congress to mandate universal background checks for gun purchases, let alone take stronger measures to keep powerful weapons out of unstable hands.
Opponents of gun control argue that, instead of infringing Second Amendment rights, we should focus on the fact that most, if not all, of these mass shooters are psychologically disturbed. But many of the officials who take this view are simultaneously trying their best to repeal Obamacare, which will provide access to mental health services to millions of Americans who are now uninsured.
So what difference did it really make what motivated Monday’s shooting? Beyond tightening security at military bases, what is our sclerotic political system capable of doing to prevent the next slaughter of innocents?
The shocking events in Washington eclipsed what otherwise would have been headline news from New York: U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon released a report providing “clear and convincing” evidence that chemical weapons were indeed used in Syria.
The report did not seek to ascribe blame. But it described the trajectory of rockets carrying nerve gas that were fired into a Damascus suburb on Aug. 21, and the data strongly indicate the projectiles were fired by forces loyal to dictator Bashar al-Assad. If ever there was doubt, none remains: Assad used poison gas to kill more than 1,400 civilians.
In a rare display of consensus, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) both favor passage of a resolution giving Obama the authority to launch a punitive strike against Assad. But neither congressional leader is able to convince his rank-and-file members to back military action.
Failing to decide, however, is a decision. The multiple conflicts that intersect in Syria — Assad vs. rebels, Shiites vs. Sunnis, Iran vs. Saudi Arabia — have the potential to reshape the Middle East in ways that clearly will have an impact on U.S. national security. Whatever we do or decline to do, we will live with the consequences.
We don’t want to get involved in Syria. We don’t want to honestly assess where we are in the war on terror. We don’t want to deal with gun control. All these issues are fraught with political danger. Much safer for our intrepid elected officials to stake out their positions and yell at the other side, knowing the words will bounce off harmlessly. No progress made, no political damage done.
But the world doesn’t stop just because Washington does. Sometimes the issues our officials want to ignore hit tragically close to home.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 16, 2013
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