MANSFIELD: A Call for More Mass Shootings

By Mansfield Frazier

“The NRA gods routinely demand human sacrifices.” — Anonymous

You’ve heard the term “less is more,”… but I’m suggesting that “more may mean less.” The problem in America is not that we have too many mass shootings… it’s that we don’t have enough of them — or, more accurately — we don’t have enough of them in a compressed period of time.

By now everyone in the country should realize that, absent something dramatic happening, mass killings via firearms will continue to occur in America with a regularity only surpassed by Old Faithful. There were 17 days between the killing spree in Colorado and the rampage in Wisconsin.

But the problem (at least for those who want sane gun laws in the country) is that usually more time elapses between killing sprees… perhaps too much time. The random cycle of gun violence is spread out over months and sometimes years, a frequency that doesn’t shake us out of our collective ennui. We’re allowed time to lick our national wounds, heal our hearts a bit, and begin praying all over again that it won’t happen again… knowing all the while of the inevitability of it happening again, and again, and again.

Isn’t that one of the classic measures of insanity — doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result or outcome? Do we really believe there won’t be another killing spree, probably between now and the end of the year?

Psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey, an expert on mental illness, and the author of Insanity Offense: How America’s Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens, states in his book that by his estimate, on any given day there are approximately 4,000 dangerously mentally ill individuals roaming the streets of America, their severe conditions going untreated. And many of them have access to guns due to our very lax firearms laws. And sooner, rather than later, one of them is going to kill up a bunch of people.

So we have to know with a deadly certainly other mass killings await us in the not-too-distant future, and we also know that we have little chance of preventing them absent some changes (some tightening) of our national gun laws. But what we really, really know is that our current crop of political leaders are far too weak-in-the-knees to stand up to the gun lobby in America and call for commonsense changes. How about something as simple as requiring insurance policies on guns?

What if the killing of six in Wisconsin, the slaughtering of 12 in Colorado, the butchering of six others in Arizona, the shooting of 13 in Texas, the slaying of 11 in New York, and the massacring of 32 in Virginia had all occurred over a six-week — instead of six-year — period… would that many deadly rampages in a truncated period of time be enough to spur the nation into action?

What if all of the mass murders in waiting — murders that we know are going to happen in America over the next six years — occur between now and Labor Day? Just as many people would be dead in the end, but would that body count — in so short a period of time — outrage us enough so that we force our so-called leaders to strap their nuts on and begin a serious crusade for changes to our insane gun laws?

No? What if the body count was twice — even three times — as high? Such a number might even cause legendary gun nut Charlton Heston to spin in his grave. How long are the citizens of this country going to allow themselves to remain hostages of the NRA?

Westlake Theater Incident

The lawyer for the man recently arrested for carrying guns into the movie theater in Westlake almost came up with a plausible defense strategy. The attorney said his client (many in the media are refusing to use the names of these individuals in an attempt to deprive them of the thrill of seeing their names in print, and I agree), who took a gun and some knives into the showing of Dark Knight, had them with him for his own protection.

But what the lawyer should have said was: “My client views himself as a protector of the people in the finest tradition of the NRA, which believes that everyone should be armed to the teeth at all times. He had those weapons with him just in case some maniac went berserk and started shooting people during the screening of the film. Brave man that he is, he would have been able respond instantly with his own weapon and save an untold number of lives. Therefore he should be treated and feted as a potential hero… rather than as a suspect.”

What? You’re not buying it? If indeed he had a concealed carry permit and an NRA membership card in his wallet you have little choice but to buy such a tall tale. Prosecutors, who also are deathly afraid of the gun lobby, would by now have been cowered into dropping all charges against the man if the NRA had his back.

The only problem with the “hero-in-waiting” line of reasoning — which the NRA and other assorted gun nuts have been attempting to foist on the public for years now — is that it’s pure and simple fantasy. We have no way of knowing how many people in the theater in Colorado were armed the night violence broke out (seeing as how Colorado is one of the top three or four states in the Union with the most heavily armed citizenry, you would think at least one or two people were probably armed). But one thing we do know is that no one pulled out their trusty six-shooter and took out the madman… who, by the way, was encased in body armor.

To make the assumption that simply because some citizens are walking around armed they’re going to have the courage (and skill) to use their weapons to confront a deranged shooter and take them out is dangerously faulty (and fantastic) thinking. No matter how much some gun nuts like to think of themselves as the reincarnation of John Wayne, Dirty Harry and Wyatt Earp all rolled into one, most people — and yes, even those who are armed — are going to run for cover as fast as their little feet will carry them the moment gunfire breaks out. Pray tell, what would you do? (Please, try to be honest in your response.)

Hypocrisy

Guns, under the wrong conditions, are a vice. Similar to sex and drugs, under appropriate conditions, with legal safeguards in place and with proper use instead of abuse they are not.

Sex between consenting adults is fine, but when forced, or when a minor is involved it’s illegal; drugs, under prescription, are fine… but street drugs are illegal. Stay with me here, I’m going some place with this.

There’s been recent outcries (again) about sexual slavery involving minors and illicit drug usage… especially among college students. Some people are even saying — can I have a drum roll here — that perhaps we should focus on the demand side of the equation! Wow, what a concept! How long did it take some researcher to come up with that bit of brilliance?

Just so we got this revelation straight, what I’m now hearing are proposals to arrest the purchasers of illicit sex and drugs as a way of reducing harm to society. All I can say is “Duhhh.”

But there’s always a catch, and here’s why it won’t work in America: Too many white folks would get caught up in the vice dragnets. So, of course, law enforcement will cite “manpower” problems when it comes to policing these vices. In other words, similar to policing guns, it just won’t be done… not if it impinges on whites’ sense of privilege and entitlement. We truly are a nation of hypocrites.

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://www.neighborhoodsolutionsinc.com.