It's not about the fear of what one motivated maniac can do in a crowded place, but about the precariousness of social control that the killing sprees imply. [More]Do you think a few could control the many without relying primarily on the power of illusions?
[Via WRSA]
"An armed society spends more time stopping evil than contemplating it. It is the disarmed society that is always contemplating it as a thing beyond its control. Helpless people must find something to think about while waiting for their lords to do something about the killing. Instead of doing something about it themselves, they blame the agency of the killer in being free to kill, rather than their own lack of agency for being unable to stop him."
ReplyDeleteA very good piece.
ReplyDeleteI happened to have grown up in a place where murderers, etc., WERE next door, just like in Rwanda. In fact my home town was noted on the national news earlier this year when a pack of teenagers, including one teen mom, beat a severely disabled woman in her own house, and video'ed it then uploaded it to the internet. This happened a block from my former home of 25 years, and after about 1968 it was increasingly, then always, like that.
"But this isn't really about stopping shootings; it's about controlling when they happen."
Yes. And to whom.
Because over and over with Columbine, Aurora, Clackamas, Sandy Hook--I have heard and read people saying, "Well, I cannot believe it happened HERE!" This implicitly means that it was OK for us to live with it in our neighborhoods.
In fact our neighborhoods--75-100 percent black--were targeted for gun control. Which meant that the law-abiding were placed under the power of the lawless, and could not fight back without becoming lawless ourselves. And as lawlessness took over? You either got out if you could (I could, and did), or you stayed as an enabler of the violence because the laws left you not choice.
But now that this sort of social disorder is flowing into "nice" neighborhoods, the cry is for more gun control, not more ability for victims to fight back.
I was reading some comments on a mainstream media story about Adam Lanza's mother being from New Hampshire. Can't recall which outlet, and anyway at some level they're all pretty much the same. Someone commented on how she had a family member in NH and couldn't believe that he and his entire family and neighbors carried concealed at all times. What were they afraid of, for they lived in a town that had a very low rate of crime!
Someone replied to that commenter saying, yeah, and the low rate of crime was due to, um, er, well, I guess, the drinking water supply.
I don't believe in "evil," just in people who are sociopathic and should have been removed from the gene pool long ago. But I do agree with the Sultan that "The clamor for gun control is the cry of sheltered utopians." And I do agree with him that the real tragedy is that these people have so much power, are so well organized, and do not want to relinquish their addiction to the idea that life is fair, just, safe, and full of rainbow-grunting unicorns. When I was young, "liberal" meant you championed the rights of the individual. This is why I no longer call myself a liberal.
Thank you for listening.