The real American carnage

Donald Trump came into office with the promise to end what he called the American carnage. Instead, he has ushered in a whole new level of carnage by supercharging the most hateful, violent elements in American society, white supremacists, and sticking with the Republican policy of infinite tolerance for guns. Last weekend, we once again saw the results.

In the last few days, more than thirty innocent people senselessly lost their lives as a result of the 249th (El Paso, Texas) and 250th (Dayton, Ohio) mass shootings in the United States so far in 2019.

These numbers are stunning, but the full toll of events like those in El Paso and Dayton this weekend goes way beyond the high number of incidents and deaths. Like a seismic shock wave, the pain and trauma of these events extend far outward. It includes the dozens of people who survive one or more bullets but are left with lasting physical and psychic wounds. It encompasses the bereaved who lost a loved one; the communities that lose the sense of security that home implies; and the people of the nation, who witness such seemingly random, horrific events so often that they become numb to them or, like a person in remission from an aggressive cancer, live in constant dread of a reoccurrence of the malignancy.

Earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and other natural disasters happen almost everywhere on earth, but only in the United States do mass shootings take place with seemingly inexorable regularity. Elsewhere, mass shootings are rare events; here they happen almost every day, and sometimes two in a single day. Why?

Simple answer? Guns. Guns kill, and we have more of them than anyone else by far, almost 400 million. Guns are a very effective instruments of homicide. Rapid-fire assault weapons are especially effective. That’s why the infantry in modern armies carry them as their main weapon instead of bows and arrows, spears and knives.

The longer answer is basically the same. The virtual absence of gun control is one of the ugliest sides of American exceptionalism. When the Republic was founded amid a world ruled mostly by absolutist monarchies, American exceptionalism was a good thing. Today, American exceptionalism is mostly a bad thing.

This country, in comparison to other Western democracies, has an exceptionally miserly safety net; an exceptional level of economic inequality; an exceptional proportion of spending on the military; an exceptionally undemocratic electoral system where the candidate that loses the popular vote can win the presidency. Plus, we have an exceptionally high homicide rate, by far the highest among developed nations.

This is the answer to perennial question of why. Not mental health or any of the other excuses. We don’t have more crazies than anyone. We have a lot of haters but not an exceptional percentage. Other countries have plenty of haters too. What we do have is an exceptional proliferation of the type of guns that can quickly fire many rounds that travel at great speeds and can kill dozens of people in a minute or two. People may kill people, but guns make doing it on a grand scale many times easier. The rest is bullshit.

There is no mystery as to why the government never does anything when these repeated murderous outrages happen. When it comes to gun control, this country is immobilized by a straitjacket of its own making. A straitjacket woven by the power of the gun lobby, the Supreme Court’s conversion of the Second Amendment from a limited right to weapons for collective defense to an unlimited right to guns that are mainly used for slaughter and mayhem; and the complicity of essentially all Republicans and too many Democrats.

Our lack of gun control is a tragedy always waiting to happen. When you combine that with a president who deliberately and constantly whips up racial hatred and expresses a devil may care attitude about the violence that comes with it, you get targeted killings against Latinos, Blacks, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, gay and transgender people. These killings resemble ethnic cleansing crusades, anti-Semitic pogroms and Nazi rampages like Kristallnacht more than the acting out of deranged individuals.

Donald Trump bears the major responsibility for this witches’ brew of hate. But he couldn’t do it without an army of fellow haters, enablers and brownnosers. The title of an old book comes to mind: “Hitler’s Willing Executioners.” Trump gives the order to persecute immigrants, and others follow his orders, becoming willing executers of hateful policies and sometimes willing executioners of hated people. The line is a very thin one and since Trump we have been crossing it all the time.