Mass Murder and Guns

Published in

Church of Freethought

8 min readJun 3, 2018

by Peter Tim (March 2018)

The latest mass shooting, this time at a school in Florida this past February 14th, has again brought the controversy over “gun control” and “gun rights” into prominence. The terms must be set off in quotes as just what they mean is itself a matter of controversy. The disagreements and political orthodoxies related to this are familiar, as are the slogans and emotional appeals that often clash with facts and reason. Some say it is finally time to enact “sensible” laws that may stop such events. But many laws have already been enacted and what is “sensible” is hotly debated and has been hotly debated for some time with little progress toward a consensus. At one extreme are those who want to effectively repeal the Second Amendment. At the other are those who say that existing laws should be more vigorously enforced and that more people who can be trusted with firearms should be able to have them, even in “gun-free zones.” Others say that more restrictions may be enough for now, such as banning “assault weapons” (the term is vague and seems to refer mostly to “scary-looking” firearms), banning firearms or magazines that do not require frequent reloading, raising the age requirement for the purchase of firearms and so on.

Freethinkers can and do disagree on this subject as there is no “right” opinion from the standpoint of facts and reason. This is because there is considerable subjectivity in considering how facts and reason relate to the need for political institutions and public policy to protect “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Rugged individualism including carrying a firearm clearly suits some but just as clearly is not for everyone. Related to this is the historical context of both the Second Amendment and of law enforcement. The Founders were clearly opposed to standing armies. Yet professional police forces did not exist at that time. Instead, everyone had a personal responsibility to defend themselves in case of need, to come to the defense of others as appropriate as well as to participate in the discovery and apprehension of perpetrators of crimes. Thus, everyone needed to be able to arm themselves. As might be imagined, though, these involved somewhat tiresome risks and responsibilities, especially when people’s lives were interrupted by the need to help enforce the law. The creation of professional police forces helped to solve this problem.

The first police force in America was established in Boston in 1838, forty-seven years after the Second Amendment was adopted as part of the Bill of Rights. The Dallas Police Department was not set up until 1881. This delegation of responsibility to individuals hired and trained to exercise them was clearly an improvement. But, of course, at first it was hardly widespread and even today police protection is not uniform and reliable. Another question is whether this delegation of responsibility eliminated everyone else’s personal responsibility. Certainly, it did not eliminate the concept of “citizen arrest” though probably few ordinary citizens are capable of carrying out the duties of trained police officers. It may be less apparent that the personal responsibility of self-protection and self-defense was also not eliminated either in practical or legal terms. Importantly, the US Supreme Court ruled in 2005, in Warren v District of Columbia, that police departments do not owe a duty to protect any member of the public from harm, even individuals under a protective judicial order against a violent partner or ex-partner. Police only have a legal duty to protect someone in their actual custody or under their control. So it is understandable that some people feel the need or at least the desire to possess the means of personal self-defense, i.e., firearms. It is also understandable to recognize and feel that it is now the 21st Century and not the Wild West. Many people are simply not interested in exercising their Second Amendment rights and see no reason for anyone else to have such “rights” either.

None of these issues seem especially “religious.” What does relate more to religion is the how and why of the motives and thinking of those who commit atrocities. About this there should be less controversy. Those who commit violent crimes are seldom ordinary people who “snap.” Crimes that are out of character for the perpetrators are rare. And even those that may seem out of character often turn out not to have been so when looked at more closely. The perpetrators of the mass shootings that have been in the news over the years have all been individuals that were recognized as being “weird,” “loners,” had trouble relating to and getting along with others and who exhibited many habitual antisocial behaviors. Many were fascinated by weapons, death, violence and mayhem. Some expressed hatred of various social subgroups or expressed a wish for others they knew to die. Others expressed admiration for mass shooters or boasted that they planned to commit such crimes. In the case of the Florida shooter, others were aware of such behaviors that were also exhibited on social media to the point where numerous tips were communicated to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office going back to 2016. The FBI received similar information in September of 2017 and again in January of 2018. Neither of these law enforcement agencies took any action. One wonders how many other such missed opportunities that did not result in deaths and injuries on the scale of the Florida incident but which, in the aggregate, nationwide, may well have exceeded the Florida death toll, could have been avoided.

Part of the problem seems to be a mindset on the part of law enforcement that until and unless there are actual injuries of some kind that they cannot take any action. In five states now, this is not the case. Connecticut was the first to pass, in 1999, a “red flag law” allowing police to temporarily confiscate guns from those considered by a judge to pose a threat to themselves or others. Similar laws are now in force in California, Washington, Oregon, and Indiana. Texas currently allows weapons to be taken away from mentally ill people who are deemed dangerous. But the “red flag laws” do not require that a medical diagnosis be made, only that the person’s behavior is threatening. An article in The New York Times this past February 23rd described cases under “red flag laws” in which guns were taken away from a distraught man who said that he would kill himself, his wife and their child if they left him, from an ex-Marine who expressed his unfounded fears that others wished to harm him, from an intoxicated man who discharged his weapon in his backyard, and from people suffering from dementia, alcoholism or accused of domestic abuse. The article notes that it is unclear how many deaths and injuries may have been prevented by such laws but that a study of the Connecticut experience published in 2016 by Duke researchers estimated that one suicide was prevented for every 10–20 gun seizures.

Even in Connecticut the 1999 law was slow to be used. Perhaps the reluctance to pass such laws, or to use them when they are in force, reflects a cultural reluctance to take action against those who are “only” threatening. regardless of how credible the threat may be. We are reluctant — and should be reluctant! — to demonize people for only being eccentric or expressing offensive ideas. Americans are people who believe in giving everyone the benefit of a doubt and that everyone deserves a second chance. Unfortunately, they also believe in harsh punishment for some criminals, which works against the idea of “red flag laws” which is simply to help keep everyone safe. Yet surely confiscating the guns of those who pose a threat is better than confiscating the guns of everyone who has them, especially when the latter is impractical or politically impossible. It is simpler and more direct, as with background checks for the purchase of firearms, to determine who should not have guns as a consequence of their own behavior than to try to determine who can be safely allowed to have guns. Still, as The New York Times article noted:

“‘It’s fair to say that everyone, law enforcement included, is learning how this law might work in the process of using it,’ said Garen Wintemute, a professor of emergency medicine and director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the Sacramento campus of the University of California, Davis.”

What will seem more controversial to many but ought to be less controversial is the idea that we should begin to make efforts to identify those who are at risk of future violent criminality as early in childhood as possible. This may be objectionable to many parents. But as with identifying children with visual and hearing impairments who can be helped, children with cognitive and social interaction impairments may be helped, not only to reduce their risk of behavior problems, but to improve their chances of living productive and satisfying lives. To what degree such impairments may be “nature” or “nurture” is irrelevant. But if we truly believe that violent criminals think and behave as they do because of what is going on in their brains rather than because they choose to do evil — who in their right mind would do that?! — then it makes sense to try to understand it psychologically/neurologically beginning in its earliest stages. Some work in this area has already been done. Psychologist Stanton Samenow, for example, has interviewed multitudes of offenders, studied “the criminal mind” and written about his findings since the 1980’s. One of his books, Before It’s Too Late, deals with troubling behavior in childhood and what can be or might be done with such at-risk children. This approach could find more acceptability as people become more aware of such things as psychological profiling which has come into use by law enforcement authorities to address the problem of serial killers and terrorists who are understood to have cognitive disorders. Most of us are familiar with films and TV shows that feature this way of addressing serious violent crimes.

So there is strong reason to try to discover what future criminality may look like in its earliest stages. This is not to say that all children who may be at risk go on to become criminals, of course. It may be that few actually do. But some almost certainly will and interventions to reduce the risk of its developing into its full-blown form would be very helpful, not least to the individuals so identified. An additional benefit is that surveillance and interventions in childhood do not involve as serious concerns of violating anyone’s civil liberties. Nothing could be more loving than doing whatever may be possible to avert the misery and suffering connected with violent crime, both that of victims and perpetrators. What is not loving is allowing children to grow into dysfunctional adults and then demonizing and punishing them when they hurt others. Regardless of what may happen with the Second Amendment, we need to get serious about the real roots of violent crime and addressing its greater costs.

Mass Murder and Guns

Written by Aaron Kelton