Make It Stop…
It’s been another bad week. Coming on the heels of shootings by police in Baton Rouge and Minnesota, the killing of five police officers in Dallas, the intentional mowing down of dozens in Nice, France, and the unrest in Turkey, one could perhaps be excused for being a little worn out by the whole thing.
But the tragedies seem to keep coming. This morning, we’re just getting news of another shooting, again in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. News is still coming in, but early reports suggest that three officers were killed and a number injured, and that one of the suspects is dead. We don’t yet know the motive, but one has to imagine that it’s related to the ongoing racial tensions in the region and the recent Dallas shooting.
It goes without saying that these are trying times for the nation and that these events will not help. Police officers are already feeling threatened and it would be hard to fault them for being just a little more apprehensive, just a little more suspicious when going about their daily activities. Combined with a population that is also feeling unfairly targeted by authority, the phrase “powder keg” rarely feels more apt.
There are many things that could ignite that powder keg, and there are few simple solutions to the long-simmering racial, social, and economic tensions that divide us. But the ready availability of firearms in this country makes any spark far more explosive. Vigilantes will take up their weapons to defend their “way of life” from a system that is increasingly ineffective at maintaining the peace. Individuals will arm themselves as protection from the angry mobs. And rather than combating the bad guys by having more “good guys with guns,” as the NRA has advocated, we will only create an escalation of tensions, where heated tempers combine with an overactive trigger finger to create yet another tragedy.
America is not the only nation grappling with injustice and inequality. One need only to look at the other headlines dominating the news to see that. But ours is one of a relative few where the ownership and use of high capacity killing machines by members of the public is not only tolerated but celebrated.
As I mentioned in an earlier story, there is an average of greater than one mass shooting in this country every single day —245 so far this year and 1280 since January 1, 2013. That’s according to massshootingtracker.org, whose very existence speaks to the incredible sadness of where we are as a society.
We may not be able to make short work of the very real systemic issues that divide us, and certainly reducing the number of guns on the streets will not be a panacea that reduces gun violence to zero. But we must recognize that our current policies really do turn guns into weapons of mass destruction, capable not only of tearing apart families and communities, but potentially our very values and societies. We must have a true conversation on gun control that does not instantly resolve into personal attacks and hardened battle lines. We must allow research into gun violence to make firearms safer to own and use. And we must create the conditions that allow people to feel safe in their communities and have trust in their leaders.
We must get away from police vs. blacks; the left vs. the right; us vs. them. We must make this stop.
