What the Shootings Meant: Examining the Recent Tragedies from a Moral and Policy Perspective

This past week has taught Americans something that makes us deeply uncomfortable and which goes against everything that we have been taught since 9/11. We are finally beginning to realize that the greatest threat to our “national security” comes not from abroad, but at home; that the real danger we face lies in our own disaffection and our own instruments of violence, not somebody else’s.

Why has this truth been kept under wraps for so long and, indeed, why do many Americans continue to deny it?

I would suggest that the first reason is human nature: it is much easier to blame our problems on a sensational outside enemy than to implicate ourselves.

The American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the innumerable secret drone wars that the government continues to prosecute – many of which, as we speak, are in the process of escalation – makes this beyond clear. Foreign lands provide a convenient canvas upon which our prejudices, paranoia, and internal discontent are projected like a city’s refuse on an unseen landfill. People whose language, customs, and skin-color are different from our own provide a convenient enemy – those “hajjis”, “rag-heads”, and “sand-niggers” – to disparage and recoil at from the leisure of our living-rooms while watching the six-o-clock news.

We can sleep contently at night knowing that we are the “good-guys,” daily delivering a fresh heaping of justice to those aberrations of humanity overseas.

However enticing and convenient these distorted beliefs, the discomfiting truth is that as a nation we are no safer today than we were eleven years ago. And while many would have us believe that the terror that transpired in Clackamas or Newtown were regretful but unpreventable anomalies, whereas the terror that transpired on 9/11 merited a total realignment of our national security priorities, this is simply not the case. In fact, the truth is the reverse: Americans would be much safer if the government confronted gun control and the prevalence violence in the media – something within its ability and means to address– instead of pursuing an elusive and ambiguous threat abroad – something that is simply beyond its ability and means.

If we chose to approach the issue of national security seriously and honestly we would realize that this is the absolute least we can do.

According to the Violence Policy Center, more than 30,000 Americans die a gun-related death each year. This number is far greater than the total number of U.S. soldiers who have died during the Global War on Terror (less than 7,000), and dwarfs the number of Americans who have died in terrorist attacks since the 9/11 attacks (less than 50).

What makes this all the more aggravating is the fact that the lion’s share of arguments that are in favor of maintaining a porous arms market are fundamentally flawed in one way or another.

At the most foundational level, gun proponents cite the argument of self-defense, or the idea that possessing a gun is a basic right because it makes its owner safer. However, this idea is based more on intuition than fact. Studies consistently show that a person who possesses a gun is far more likely to shoot themselves by accident than ever use it for defense. Incidentally, this is also one of the reasons why so many scientists and statisticians oppose the proliferation of nuclear weapons; owning them automatically puts the possessor in greater mortal danger than they would be otherwise.

It is also worth noting that the self-defense argument takes so many variables for granted that the argument itself appears absurd once these variables are discerned. First of all, it assumes that the owner is likely to encounter a situation in which their lives are in mortal danger and that this danger can be successfully quelled with violent force, which is highly improbable for the majority of Americans. Secondly, it assumes that the gun is with the person at that exact time and, equally important, is able to be accessed before they are killed. Having a gun will not help you if while reaching for it the bad guy grows alarmed and decides to press his own trigger. And lastly, it assumes that the threatened person will be able to successfully resist the threat while under intense pressure and other environmental influences.

When one factors in these variables (and we certainly have not considered all of them) the viability of a gun as a useful means of self-defense for the average American appears far less sanguine. Simply put, the self-defense argument, like so many of its companions, is ultimately based on a convenient set of hypothetical ideas that disintegrate when transposed to the real world.

Another popular argument cited by the NRA and other gun devotees is that possessing a firearm is a guaranteed right enshrined in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

In full, the Second Amendment reads as follows: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

Unless the first half of the Amendment is excised, this second argument appears highly questionable. At the very least, it seems somewhat disingenuous to say that this Amendment was designed to guarantee individual gun-ownership on its own. And let’s remember that since the Bill of Rights was created the United States has become the world’s preeminent military power, founded a permanent “well regulated militia” in the form of the National Guard, and currently faces no appreciable external enemy. Consequently, to say that individual gun-ownership is necessary for the maintenance of a national militia is a bit redundant, and – if we are honest – a bit farcical.

Then why are gun “rights” touted as sacrosanct? The short answer is that the Gun Lobby has cowed legislators into glossing over the issue of gun violence, and, as a result, has managed to cling to these old and threadbare arguments. It simply does not pay to pursue gun-control legislation when, one, most people do not see it as a big priority, and, two, when whenever a policymaker chooses to pursue stricter legislation they are bound to have the Gun Lobby breathing down their back.

In other words, it is an issue that just does not pay dividends for an elected representative. It is not a ‘make or break it’ issue for most voters and, among those who do care, the Gun Lobby has deeper pockets and greater influence. And yes, the Gun Lobby is real, as is its political gout. It is not without reason that, “Firearms are the only consumer product not regulated by a federal agency for health and safety” (from the Violence Policy Center, my italics).

Having addressed the pervasiveness of gun violence in America as well as the forces impeding its address, it is now time to frame this within the context of “national security,” which I see as its true place.

The Clackamas and Newtown shootings have implications for two interconnected but distinct themes concerning U.S. national security policy.

First, is the fact that if the issue of “national security” is to be seriously it must address the issue of gun-control. The effects of gun-control resonate far more widely than the alleged specter of “international terrorism,” which rarely arises, and, when it does, is generally connected to past policy blunders abroad. As the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars have shown, foreign policy that is carried out at the end of a gun generally creates more problems than it solves. Simple but prudent measures created for use within the U.S. are far more likely to save American lives, and certainly more feasible than campaigns that literally entail looking for terrorists under rocks 1000s of miles away.  

If the U.S. is willing to spend several trillion dollars to prosecute multiple fruitless wars abroad in the name of “national security” then surely it should be willing to make guns a little bit less accessible at home for the sake of “national security.” And if the U.S. is affected with a King Lear-like preoccupation over the threat of foreign terrorists – a threat which is several times less likely to materialize for the average American than being struck by lightning – than it surely should be concerned with the danger of loose guns at home – a problem whose effects are not only tangible, but immediately so.

The second theme that must be addressed is the fact that “national security,” thus far, has not really been concerned about the security of the average American. Indeed, thousands of our brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters have been cruelly sent to die in foreign lands one this false pretense.

A clear-eyed appraisal of the Iraq War and the ongoing war in Afghanistan would notice that the chief advocates and those who have profited from these wars are the elites connected to the nation’s military-industrial complex. Certainly the NRA’s corporate patrons profit from its activities, but this profit is miniscule compared to that reaped by war-industry giants like Lockheed Martin; Kellogg, Brown and Root (now KBR Inc.); Boeing; and others. They have literally taken in trillions for substandard services and the manufacture of weapons whose effects have been the disintegration of entire societies and the lost innocence of our youth.

It has become a trend for over 70% of retiring Generals to take up lucrative consulting jobs in these and other private firms after they cease to officially work for the government. During the Bush years alone, Vice-President Richard Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle (just to name a few) all had intimate ties with the oil and defense industry. Some, like Perle, even continued to hold stock in these companies while working to grant them government contracts.

The disturbing truth is that “national security” has become little more than a euphemism used to sale for public consumption the incestuously-crafted and self-aggrandizing policies of a very real elite. Their perception of what constitutes the “national interest” is grossly skewed, and most definitely does not mesh with the basic interests of the average American. For them, corporate profits, financial markets, and their own portfolios take preeminence; the average soldier is simply expendable material for securing these ends.

Some Conclusions

To say that those who air questions of public policy in the wake of these tragic shootings are being unnecessarily “political” is not only wrong, but, in some cases, downright immoral. If we are not to discuss the question of gun-control or the prevalence of violence in the media (which the American Psychological Association and over 2,000 studies have unequivocally found to encourage violent behavior) when will we – after the next shooting?

Those who have lost family and friends to these shootings are not going to become scarred or embittered by attempts to prevent more violence, but, if anything, welcome them. I am sure they would be the first to cry out, “Yes, do anything you can to prevent more suffering and tragedy!” They, above all, know how important this is. And if we look more closely we would find that those who are most ardently saying that these shooting should not be “politicized” are in fact those with the greatest political stake in the issue: the Gun Lobby and its corporate patrons!

The same goes for those who say “stand behind our troops, do not criticize the war!” Sending off troops to foreign lands to die and unnecessary death is not to support them and, in fact, there are many troops who themselves oppose these wars. What these arguments amount to is this: “let the soldiers continue to die. Why even think about their wellbeing?”

So let us speak clearly and with conviction: something must be done.

Lastly, this issue must be understood from a national security standpoint to be fully appreciated. The manner in which it has been framed thus far betrays a serious contradiction in the government’s rhetoric and action. “National security” has up till know proven to be little more than a treasure trove for war-profiteers and venal politicians, willing to be deceived by their own dissembling narratives in order to fill their own pockets. No one, and I mean no one, has become any safer as a result of these terrible wars and lack of real political leadership. If you do not believe me, then all I can do is wholeheartedly plead you to study these matters for yourself.  

If we are to seriously work for a safer, kinder, and more just world then we must first realize that the greatest threat to our physical and spiritual safety comes not from outside, but within. This is inordinately difficult but cannot be shrugged unless we are to continue deluding ourselves with the comforting idea that the problem is never ourselves, but those people over there.

When eleven-year olds attempt to rob women at gun-point on the streets of Portland; when our children are left limbless and scarred by a war they do not understand; when kids fear going to school because of the tales that its walls never allow them forget – how then can we ignore reality?

The writing is on the wall.