United States: No End to Mass Shootings

At least 10 people died and another seven were injured in the latest indiscriminate attack, this time at Umpqua Community College near Roseburg, Oregon.

Down to the last detail, the tragic episode follows the old script played out with terrifying frequency in towns across America: A disenchanted individual with no significant criminal history decides to murder as many people as he can, chooses a school or workplace, empties one or even several weapons into the people assembled there, and then either commits suicide or is shot down by law enforcement officers.

President Barack Obama in his statement suggested that Americans had become desensitized to these mass shootings, and he demonstrated evident exasperation at the impossibility of persuading Congress to introduce measures to regulate the possession of firearms. He admitted that nothing could be done to prevent similar acts of carnage from occurring again and again in the weeks and months ahead.

Legislation allowing the government a minimal amount of control over the sale of firearms would clearly be a step in the right direction, but it would fail to prevent firearms from falling into the hands of murderers, just as similar legislation has failed to do so in other countries.

The problem seems to lie at a more fundamental level in a nation whose history features the glorification of violence and death as legitimate methods of action. The six convicts on death row in jails across America scheduled for execution over the course of the coming week are a prime example. United States air strikes on far-off Syria under the pretext of safeguarding the security of U.S. citizens are a further indication of this misguided ethic, while the facts seem to indicate that Americans face a far graver and more real threat at home from these mentally unbalanced individuals who, one fine day, take it into their heads to put an end to dozens of lives, arm themselves to the teeth, head for a place where people congregate — even their own school or workplace —and carry out a mass shooting, as occurred yesterday in Roseburg, Oregon.

Nor should we overlook the fact that governments set an example for their respective societies by their behavior. The United States government has always sought to demonstrate that problematic issues can be resolved through destruction, death and armed violence. This despite the fact that Washington’s aggressions have only served to complicate the problems it purports to resolve, as in the Middle East, where the United States’ devastating incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq created the perfect climate for the growth of the al-Qaida terrorist network, followed by the rise of the Islamic State.

Regrettably, until there is a profound transformation of public power and social and political ethics in the United States, massacres like yesterday’s Umpqua Community College shooting will continue to be inevitable.