Every mass shooting has three elements: the killer, the weapon and the cultural climate. As soon as the shooting stops, partisans immediately pick their preferred root cause with corresponding pet panacea. Names are hurled, scapegoats paraded, prejudices vented. The argument goes nowhere.
Let’s be serious:
1. The weapon
Within hours of last week’s Newtown, Conn., massacre, the focus was the weapon and the demand was for new gun laws. Several prominent pro-gun Democrats remorsefully professed new openness to gun control. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is introducing a new assault weapons ban. And the president emphasized guns and ammo above all else in announcing the creation of a new task force.
I have no problem in principle with gun control. Congress enacted (and I supported) an assault weapons ban in 1994. The problem was: It didn’t work. (So concluded a University of Pennsylvania study commissioned by the Justice Department.) The reason is simple. Unless you are prepared to confiscate all existing firearms, disarm the citizenry and repeal the Second Amendment, it’s almost impossible to craft a law that will be effective.
Feinstein’s law, for example, would exempt 900 weapons. And that’s the least of the loopholes. Even the guns that are banned can be made legal with simple, minor modifications.
Most fatal, however, is the grandfathering of existing weapons and magazines. That’s one of the reasons the ’94 law failed. At the time, there were 1.5 million assault weapons in circulation and 25 million large-capacity (i.e., more than 10 bullets) magazines. A reservoir that immense can take 100 years to draw down.
2. The killer
Monsters shall always be with us, but in earlier days they did not roam free. As a psychiatrist in Massachusetts in the 1970s, I committed people — often right out of the emergency room — as a danger to themselves or to others. I never did so lightly, but I labored under none of the crushing bureaucratic and legal constraints that make involuntary commitment infinitely more difficult today.
Why do you think we have so many homeless? Destitution? Poverty has declined since the 1950s. The majority of those sleeping on grates are mentally ill. In the name of civil liberties, we let them die with their rights on.
A tiny percentage of the mentally ill become mass killers. Just about everyone around Tucson shooter Jared Loughner sensed he was mentally ill and dangerous. But in effect, he had to kill before he could be put away — and (forcibly) treated.
Random mass killings were three times more common in the 2000s than in the 1980s, when gun laws were actually weaker. Yet a 2011 University of California at Berkeley study found that states with strong civil commitment laws have about a one-third lower homicide rate.
3. The culture
We live in an entertainment culture soaked in graphic, often sadistic, violence. Older folks find themselves stunned by what a desensitized youth finds routine, often amusing. It’s not just movies. Young men sit for hours pulling video-game triggers, mowing down human beings en masse without pain or consequence. And we profess shock when a small cadre of unstable, deeply deranged, dangerously isolated young men go out and enact the overlearned narrative.
If we’re serious about curtailing future Columbines and Newtowns, everything — guns, commitment, culture — must be on the table. It’s not hard for President Barack Obama to call out the NRA. But will he call out the ACLU? And will he call out his Hollywood friends?
The irony is that over the last 30 years, the U.S. homicide rate has declined by 50 percent. Gun murders as well. We’re living not through an epidemic of gun violence but through a historic decline.
Except for these unfathomable mass murders. But these are infinitely more difficult to prevent. While law deters the rational, it has far less effect on the psychotic. The best we can do is to try to detain them, disarm them and discourage “entertainment” that can intensify already murderous impulses.
But there’s a cost. Gun control impinges upon the Second Amendment; involuntary commitment impinges upon the liberty clause of the Fifth Amendment; curbing “entertainment” violence impinges upon First Amendment free speech.
That’s a lot of impingement, a lot of amendments. But there’s no free lunch. Increasing public safety almost always means restricting liberties.
We made that trade after 9/11. We make it every time the TSA invades your body at an airport. How much are we prepared to trade away after Newtown?
Charles Krauthammer is a columnist for The Washington Post. Readers may contact him at letters@charleskrauthammer.com.
This is probably the only Krauthammer column I have Ever agreed with!
I’m with you. Though not in complete agreement, this is a pretty reasonable piece from Kraut.
100%. Especially point # 2
Krauthammer makes some points I agree with, some I don’t care for. I submit the following address as indicated for further reading as men much more learned than I have made profound and obvious observations as to the human condition. They can be found here. I did however , find no mention about distinguishing one weapon from another but a lot about mental health and theism. If you do not wish to have any preconceived ideas vanquished, do not follow this lead. The focus is on history NOT popular culture. It is not a short editorial but rather a written thought process. It is well substantiated with references.
http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism_and_Mass_Murder
“conservapedia ” is that sort of like the orange juice lady rewriting the BIBLE to the rights liking? AKA brain washing.
Do you understand there is a reason the right criticizes many other “sources” like MSM and doesn’t want you reading, hearing or watching them They don’t believe in your having any free thought . They don’t believe in your ability to compare and contrast info and deciding for your self what makes sense . They don’t want you doing any independent research or being exposed to other ideas.. They want to keep you isolated with your own kind, censoring what you read and watch and hear. It makes it so much easier to brain wash and control you, then.
So how does one explain the culture of Genghis Khan, which was before the tv video, internet, why was hitler so violent, and other leaders and all the serial killers in the 70’s 80’s, the world has always been and always will be a violent place and the history has proved it.
He covered those people in #2, The Killer. Remember the part about mentally ill? While I agree with him that #3, which you rail against, is responsible for some of the violence, I do not think he is suggesting that it is responsible for ALL of the violence.
the most recent one’s i guess we could ‘attribute’ to mental illness. , but what about columbine?? And what will happen when one of these guys is just determined to be a run of the mill “angry white man” ? I think we all can assume anyone who does this type of things is just plain nuts. The act itself will ensure someone is declared mentally ill, whether they had any prior history or not, right? .
The mentally ill are more susceptible and vulnerable to suggestion ( like by conspiracy theorist and themes of violence by video games and entertainers by nature.
The NYT is running an article today about the financial and marketing links between the gun industry and the gaming industry. The gaming industry is FUNDING the NRA and marketing for gun manufacturers with direct links to their products websites. .It looks like a partnership that is Ideal for inncubating mass murderers, as well as profits.
Gun manufacturers were successfully sued after one mass murder Their response was to go to Congress and get them to place limits on their culpability and personal responsibility.AND congress let them. IF you are actively peddling your product to gamers and helping people to cross the line between fantasy and reality, aren’t they personally and financially culpable? Some soul searching on the part of the NRA, gun manufacturers and the gaming industry would be welcomed.
Good point …. why were we so willing to “give up” some of our liberties after 911? Some times collective safety and saying no to violence and violence makers trumps freedom and liberties !!!
The Root of Mass murder is MAN, not their weapon of choice
This column is spot on and illustrates the magnitude of the problem and the difficulties in dealing with it.
Balancing the “liberty” of people to collect an arsenal of military weapons vs. the lives of dozens of victims of past, present, and future mass murders…. this seems like a quandary only to people who value the profits of gun manufacturers over children’s lives.
And in the NYT today is an article about the financial and marketing partnership that has been developed between the sellers /manufactureres of guns and video games.It looks like they have partnered to create the perfect incubaotor for creating MASS murderers.