Getting at the Roots of Gun Violence in America
We’ve seen this “movie” genre before. A frustrated, well-off Caucasian kid whose father is in the sci-fi film business declares a war on women because he can’t get laid or kissed. He murders three of his roommates with knives and then shoots other students. All this is prefigured in a YouTube video. His family reported him to police who found him courteous, friendly, and not a danger. The weeping father of one of the victims blames the NRA and cowardly politicians for this violence.
The full narrative of the shooting plays out in the inevitable media frenzy. The NRA will lay low for a few days and then announce to a willing public that guns don’t kill people; people kill people. They will probably suggest arming all students on campus, especially women because that is a very desirable market for this lobbying group. Most politicians, hiding behind the Memorial Day flag and the blood of the fallen, will try to duck this issue. If they can’t, they will mumble something about tightening mental health checks for prospective gun buyers but will do absolutely nothing about it. Most will continue to block sensible gun reforms, while continuing to bastardize the Second Amendment, which they know is no more absolute than other amendments in the Bill of Rights.
When the children and teachers in Sandy Hook were murdered a year and a half ago, I thought that this would be it. Reason would finally prevail. No politician worth his or her salt would dare vote against sensible legislation. I was wrong. Sensible gun reform didn’t make it through the Senate.
America has more mass shootings than any other country. Why is this? Certainly the NRA is in the gun-running business, backed by munitions companies who foresee a dwindling consumer market as the aging white male sector declines. And they have enough politicians in their pocket to allow this monstrosity to continue for the foreseeable future.
Beyond the speeches, the laments, and the islands of teddy bears and flowers to commemorate the Santa Barbara dead is the reality that America is a violent nation. And the gun is a central part of our myth, meaning and psychology. The NRA might be a well-heeled bully that wraps itself in the flag, righteousness, and a perverted reading of the Second Amendment, but to maintain such power after so much gun-related violence in America suggests that they are tapping into something already present in the American psyche.
Enough Americans must believe the purist America Creation story, the taming of the West, and the taking of the land for Christ, for the NRA to be able to milk this perverted mythology for so long. These marketers of violence are tapping into existing fantasy archetypes that suggest guns, even in our modern, complex society with all of its tensions and inequalities, is the final answer, allowing me to stand my ground and openly carry my weapon in every hamburger joint in town. My home is my castle and so is every other place I frequent. I will decide when you cross the line that could very well move. In a pinch, I can always fall back on the militarist “Onward, Christian Soldiers” anthem.
It’s reassuring to see that “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America” is having some success in open-carry states like Texas. The role of the feminine is fundamental here. This will be a long struggle because the root fascination with guns lies in our cultural psychology and our fantasy notions about Americans being the New Adam and how the West was won. I know the high school textbooks coming out of Texas and influencing the national book trade don’t reflect the shadow side of our gun and martial history. By some accounts, 600,000 Americans were slaughtered in the Civil War, a battle still being waged in the psyches of some citizens. That kind of bloodshed doesn’t just disappear from the collective consciousness. We rightfully mourn the honored dead on Memorial Day, but we rarely take time to reflect on the psychological overhang.
It is really very difficult to displace deeply imbedded myths. “Mother Jones” magazine has done a fine job dispelling the many lies the NRA wraps itself in, especially the notion that guns make us safer. That is simply incorrect but bluster has a way of dominating the field. We know that guns cause twice as many deaths among children as cancer but politicians of both parties, fearful of the NRA, have prevented the Center for Disease Control from studying the effects of gun violence in America.
The late James Hillman, a medical doctor and Jungian psychologist, suggests in his “A Terrible Love of War” that it is difficult to imagine the fascination of American males with the gun without reflecting on the myths involved. The god Mars should be right at home with our favorite Western hero who rids the town of the bad guys. Updating the tale, complicated by deep cultural, racial and social complexities, will likely take us down a much more violent road, especially with the aberrant. In his manifesto, “My Twisted Life,” Elliot Roger writes in his delusion that the Glock-34 and two other guns made him feel like a god, a real alpha male. The more he writes and vents, the more godlike he becomes. Madness yes; archetypal to be sure.
A brief aside: this 137-page manifesto will be required reading for forensic psychologists. In some respects it reads like a bad, tight chronological novel or a narrative that might flow from a one-way therapy session where the patient constructs without challenge his neurotic, misogynous world view. This is not “The Catcher in the Rye.” The epic rant, fueled by a sense of envy and a massive inferiority complex about the size and shape of his body, becomes his Epic Fantasy as he imagines the world taking notice when he launches his murderous War on Women. This inferiority is reflected in his antithetical thinking style and simplistic view of the world. Deranged as this man is, there seems a predictable and lucid progression in his rage as he puts his murderous plan in place. The purchase of three semi-automatic guns becomes central to his planning and confidence. Well-armed, he imagines himself the “closest thing to a god.” This is massive unchecked solipsism that is armed to the teeth. He proved in life and death the psychological dictum: “The way we imagine our lives is the way we go on living our lives.” The gun was a major part of the man’s indulgent, deadly romance with himself.
The father of one of the dead asked the 20,000 mourners on the UCSB campus to chant “Not one more.” This can be more than a cultural hashtag in a moment of terrible pain. To put it crudely, this can be a teachable moment. After its mourning period, perhaps the University of California, Santa Barbara, can endow a chair or two to study gun violence in America. Perhaps every college and university in America could do the same thing, exploring the history, culture, and psychology of the gun. Vanderbilt, Duke, John Hopkins and others are already contributing to this field. But we need to look more closely at the psychological, mythological, and religious implications of the gun in the American psyche. Pacifica Graduate Institute, close to Santa Barbara, is a center for the study of archetypal and Jungian psychology and could be helpful in this important work. Moreover, a lot of Dr. Hillman’s papers are housed there.
On a practical level universities are already deeply involved in this debate. Virginia Tech and Purdue know the horror of a shooter on campus. And universities are becoming another battleground for “open carry” campaigns and the like, whether they need it or not. Boise State finds itself in that position with the state as politicians try to put guns on campus because they can.
The researchers will want to look at the relationship between the gun and violence against women. They will want to study what role religion, especially Christianity, has played in the glorification of war. They will also want to look at our country’s “invented myths.” They should be sure to bring a few archetypal psychologists to the table. And we cannot forget the children.
At the very least, research, dialogue and open discussion on a national level might be able to change the predictable story lines we find in the media when it addresses gun violence, replete with its “he said/she said” inanities before the conversation fades into predictable silence. We cannot let the NRA and politicians own this conversation any more than the media, which seems to feed on mass shootings while largely ignoring other gun homicides. (According to the FBI, between the years 2006 and 2012, 11,078 Americans were killed in gun homicides; 900 in mass shootings.)
Dr. Hillman suggests that a purposeful slowness, reflection and aesthetic enterprise might slow down our martial inclinations. Hillman was very fond of the Italian Renaissance and saw that period as a cultural and intellectual reprieve. The universities of America can bring the same sensitivity to the gun debate. That would be a real tribute to those who were murdered in Santa Barbara (and the eighty people who were killed by guns in America in the preceding week). If college students and the very engaged Millennial crowd are looking for a cause, #Not One More seems a perfect opportunity.
That’s the least we can do in these murderous times.
