The LAX Shooting, Domestic Terrorism, and the NRA

[marmar]

from truthdig:


The LAX Shooting, Domestic Terrorism, and the NRA

Posted on Nov 8, 2013
By Sonali Kolhatkar


Each time a horrific shooting takes place, the nation pauses, politicians pay lip service and the country’s biggest gun lobby—the National Rifle Association—remains silent. After a suitable period has passed and public rage has receded, the NRA makes cynical pronouncements about activists abusing the memory of victims of the violence by calling for gun control. Americans, replete with lethal weaponry, move on without making any connections between the the cold metal in their holsters and the dead.

We tend to see gun violence not as a pattern that needs a strong and immediate response, but as a series of disconnected incidents that simply cannot be helped. But perhaps it is a matter of perspective.

Paul Ciancia, the 23-year-old accused of killing Gerardo Hernandez and wounding three others at the Los Angeles International Airport on Nov. 1, was immediately described as a “lone shooter,” a category that enables us to dismiss such incidents as aberrations rather than part of a larger spectrum.

Political commentator Rose Aguilar, in an interview with me about the LAX shooting, lamented, “I fear we’re becoming so numb to these events which are now happening on a regular basis. In fact, I was telling friends, ‘Oh, there was a shooting at LAX,’ and hardly anyone responded because it’s happening so regularly.”

But what if the killer had been brown skinned or Muslim? What if he had used a small homemade bomb rather than an assault rifle, killing and wounding just as many people? Would he have been described as a “lone shooter” or as “terrorist”? Would his actions have resulted in near-silence from politicians, or warranted a deep examination and systemic response? ..........................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_lax_shooting_domestic_terrorism_and_the_nra_20131108

[Scuba]

1. At what point do ten or twenty thousand "lone shooters" become a terrorist organization?

[pipoman]

3. When they communicate with each other and conspire...not until..

[pipoman]

2. Of coarse complete disregard

for the fact that the gun control lobby comes out making the exact same impossible demands with complete abandon for thinking of or advocating actual ideas which are not impossible. There is big money on both sides of the issue to maintain status quo.

[aikoaiko]

4. Gun violence is serious but naming it something it is not only makes a joke of it.

Most gun deaths are suicides.

Most other gun deaths are obvious crimes.

Some are terroristic, but not many.

[rrneck]

5. Aye, there's the rub...

Incredibly, the union that represents TSA workers has responded to the LAX shooting by calling for its agents to be armed.

Every time there is a shooting, there are tons of people who think, "We need to get rid of the guns" while at the same time there are just as many people who think "I better get a gun to defend myself". This business of trying to control weapons, while not entirely useless, can only be a partial solution. More importantly, those conflicting impulses provide fertile ground for ideological profit taking on both sides of the aisle.

A fine example of the problem is found here:

But perhaps it is a matter of perspective.

The author would like us to see mass shootings from a partisan political perspective and cites sources from a partisan political think tank on a partisan political website using allusions to ideological differences between segments of the population to make her point. That political perspective spreads to other partisan political websites like this one. If she didn't get paid in actual money, she is certainly getting compensated in exposure. Perhaps her Arbitron numbers will get a boost. But all she is doing is telling people what they want to hear since politically conservative voters are not likely to read TruthDig for inspiration.

She has taken a single individual, linked him to a political movement, and linked that movement to opposition to the ideological desires of another group that comprises her broadcast demographic. It is a cocktail of partisan attitudes and fears masquerading as causation. Some guy shot up LAX, that guy had "ties" to the patriot movement, the patriot movement is a (far right) anti government militia, militias obsess about (big) government and hoard (evil) guns, therefore if we get rid of guns we will control our (scary) ideological opposites.

...the attack on LAX should be considered within the spectrum of Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City, Scott Roeder’s 2009 murder of abortion doctor George Tiller and Joseph Stack’s 2010 attack on an IRS building in Texas.

She then makes the incoherent leap from control of weapons on aircraft in response to terrorism to control of weapons in society in general and alludes to the deaths of millions of people, none of whom died as a result of a terrorist attack. Unless of course we alter our "perspective" consider the mentally unstable, impoverished, uneducated, desperate, and our ideological opposites as terrorists.

The ubiquitous presence of TSA officials is the result of a few terrorist actions and attempted actions at airports and in airplanes. In response to these crimes, we have given authorities the mandate to keep weapons out of the sky. Why then, when gun violence in the U.S. has claimed more than a million lives over the past 50 years, does our society not put in place a similar mandate on the ground?

The "ubiquitous presence" of TSA officials has caused an uproar of indignation from airline travelers and raised serious questions about violations of their civil rights while at the same time offering no real evidence that their "ubiquitous presence" had made airline travel any safer. Given the problems evidenced by enhanced security at airports, access to which can be rigidly controlled, any attempt to expand whatever efficacy such "ubiquitous presence" might offer to society in general is wishful thinking at best and despotic at worst.

But let's assume the author gets her wish and we give the government the "mandate" to keep weapons off the ground as well as out of the sky. The fears of all of her and her audience's ideological opposites will have been proven justified. We would be telling them that we are afraid of them and we are going to disarm them. They will be able to mobilize legions of dispossessed young men to their now justified cause and start a real fight with real guns they already posses.

Of course that's not likely to happen, because we will have exactly what we have now, voters balkanized along culture war lines that keep them from uniting against the people who prey on them every day telling them what they want to hear, what to think, and what to fear.

Paul Ciancia just wanted to fix motorcycles for a living. He fell prey to people willing to blame the "government" for his troubles. Now he's in the hospital and if he survives he will spend the rest of his life in jail. The ideologues that helped seal his fate will be done with him, but other ideologues are ready and willing to feed off the carcass of his tragic life. The talking heads like the author will make money, web sites will make money, broadband distributors will make money, think tanks will make money, corporations will make money, and politicians will make money. And the people who actually suffer from these inane culture wars will be left to their fate because those who are supposed to help them are busy selling them self love and hate for others not unlike them.