Let’s be honest.
We all know that nothing is going to change regarding our nation’s gun laws because of the tragedy in Las Vegas.
We also know the reason why. Republicans in Congress will make sure of it, just as they did in 2012 after 20 children and 6 adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
That said it all…not even mass shootings have sufficient moral persuasion to get Republicans to do what is right.
Yet the core issue we face in this country is not lax gun laws per se, or even mass shootings, as horrific as they are.
The fundamental issue mass shootings like Las Vegas expose is the culture of violence prevalent here in America.
We ignore this culture of violence as if it is the invention of liberals who want to take people’s guns away from them.
But the evidence is indisputable. We are the most violent society among Western nations and we are the only one with no serious gun laws.
To deny the connection is to suggest that individual Americans are just more deranged than people in other countries, that our problem is not guns, but having more than our share of crazy people who do bad things with guns before good people with guns can stop them.
Apparently that is what Republicans and the voters who support them believe about our country.
I suggest, on the other hand, that the more sane assessment of our nation is that we are a culture of violence that is rooted in the unregulated buying and selling of guns.
At the very least it is a serious possibility, but most conservatives refuse to consider it. Or perhaps they simply believe that the possible connection between guns and violence is the price we have to pay to protect the right to gun ownership.
Even conservatives on the Supreme Court don’t want to connect the dots between a nation with millions of guns and a nation that has more gun shootings than any civilized country in the world.
I believe at the heart of our refusal to connect those dots is our penchant as a nation for myth making.
We have created national myths that have convinced us we are different (better?) from people in other countries, that we are the greatest nation on earth, the last best hope for humankind, the envy of the world, the most advanced, second to none in anything.
It’s as if we are convinced that when we believe myths they are transformed into truth, and anyone who doesn’t believe them is unpatriotic or nothing more than a liberal critic who always blames America first.
During the Viet Nam War the myths about our country were so powerful that when four college students were shot and killed by the National Guard at Kent State University, 58% of Americans blamed the students for their own deaths.
Those myths also led to uncritical support for our government to persist in that useless and tragic war until it took 58,318 lives of young American soldiers, most of whom were draftees, and left thousands more wounded physically and emotionally.
Learning nothing from our past mistakes, the American people gave wholehearted support to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, both built on the myth that we would be welcomed as liberators.
Fifteen years later we are still fighting those wars, proving the lie that myth really was.
As a nation we seem to have turned myth making into a fine art, which is why I think something a Canadian lawyer said about us I quoted months ago bears repeating here.
“Americans,” he said, “have a long way to go to become the people many of them think they already are.”
That is the myth of all national myths, and in the end is why even after Las Vegas, nothing will be different, nothing will change, nothing will be done, to confront the culture of violence that is who we truly are.
And the NRA is behind all of this, helping gun manufacturers sell more guns and buying politicians.
Absolutely, Bob.
Congress, may, read MAY, produce a restriction on bump stocks, an item I would imagine the vast majority of people have never heard of. That would be something at least, I suppose.
But in the main, Jan, I think you are right, sadly and frustratingly.
Cheerz!
Gene
Thanks, Gene.
Some years ago, when business people were reading Sun Tzu, they were trying to learn how to be cutthroats, nobody noticed, “A long war benefits no one.”. What’s good for the military industrial complex is killing the rest of us.
Yes, and in their infinite wisdom, Republicans keep giving the military more and more money to build more and more weapons we don’t need or cannot use.
Absolutely agree Jan. We are a very sick nation but most people are too busy talking about how great we are to see it. As to the NRA, that it would take the deaths of over 50 people, most likely NRA members, before they would consider a restrictions disgusts me. How many more will die before other sensible restrictions become law?
Wilbur, the latest move of the NRA is nothing more than playing politics with people’s lives, endorsing a ban on something that is a symptom of the problem they refuse to believe exists. Again, I hate, I mean hate, the NRA.
It was the 18th Century statesman Edmund Burke, who opined that “Freedom has to be limited in order that it can be possessed”.
So sad it was that as a member of the British House of Commons, he was arguably the best founding father of the US constitution that the United States never had. With his wisdom there might never have been a second amendment – at least in the way it was drafted.
Nigel, too many Americans believe freedom is protected by guns, not quality of life. The absence of common sense in our country is never more evident than people’s attitude about the Second Amendment. We prefer the “shoot ’em up” days of the old frontier west than being sensible, and certainly being limited in any way.
One other comment, Nigel. Apparently George Washington was aware of Burke’s comment because he said something similar to the effect that it was difficult to distinguish between what should be possessed and what should be let go.
Your words make me sad and angry, a both/and situation. Truth will do that to you. Some days it feels like it’s just not worth chewing through the straps that bind us. Other days I’m encouraged. I just do what I can. Thanks for your insights.
Rollie, how you feel is how I feel as well. At least you’re not alone.
Does anyone want to bet on what will happen in Congress as a result of Vegas? Experience has taught me to bet on the side of NOTHING. Meanwhile Jeff Flake, one of our AZ Senators, proposes to tie a DACA fix to funding for the border wall. Have our politicians gone nuts? I have a clue as to the answer.
Wally, Flake is typical of Republicans in general, and he is supposed to be one of the moderate ones. That says all we need to know about Republican politics these days.
I recently read a Fr. Richard Rohr commentary in which he discussed evil showing itself in 3 forms, according to the Catholic Church. They are: structural, flesh (the individual) and the Devil. What I found most interesting was his expansion on “structural” evil; that which is perpetrated by groups/corporations/nations. Due to the intrinsic nature of any formal group to elevate and protect itself those within such a group do not recognize, as members, when their policies/activities turn against the well being of its own members and if not checked/stopped early they permeate the whole of that structure; making it evil. Unfortunately, such is the case with our country as our authenticity and credibility erodes worldwide through our corrupt and duplicitous policies and actions. All to say this supports your point. And, all the more reason for the “few within” who see the evil to constantly raise our voices and shed light. I sense in your words your frustration. Blessings moving forward.
Not only my frustration, Bob, but my deep discouragement over the state of our nation. I just don’t see a way forward at the moment. The culture of violence is itself symptomatic of deeper issues we refuse to face.
Sorry, I don’t listen to Anti-Gun Lectures from people who think it’s OK to KILL Babies
Your reply is precisely the kind of simple minded self-righteousness that closes the minds of others to what you have to say. To believe a woman has the responsibility for deciding what she will do when faced with an unwanted or medically troubled pregnancy rather than allowing you to decide for her is not the same thing as believing it is okay to kill babies. Since babies die in war, and my guess is, you have supported America’s wars, I could say the same thing about you. But I won’t because it would be a foolish conclusion to reach. Too bad you cannot understand that, preferring as you do to call people names.
[…] Father Jeff talks about a faithful response to the gun violence in church in the light of a message about what it looks like to be faithful in this world. He qutoes from an October 5th, 2017 post by former Disciples of Christ minister Jan Linn “Oh, The National Myths We Tell Ourselves“ […]
The quote is something I wish more people would think about when they say “people don’t kill people, guns do. Thank you for cite it. Also, I am still a Disciples minister. I just write full time now.