Mass Killings in US History: In the Risk Zone

Not long ago the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, an American nongovernmental organization, took a certain tally. For overseas audiences, this tally did not result in the most attractive figure. It’s high, but one shouldn’t be proud of it. This tally concerns mass killings — that is, violent crimes in which at least two people are killed. It turns out that in the United States, a mass killing occurs every six days.

This essentially means that a person living in the United States has a chance of encountering a bullet once a week. If you live in Chicago, New Orleans or Kansas City, your risk increases ten-fold; these are the cities where such mass killings occur most often.

The really big slaughters, in which more than 10 people are killed, have occurred 82 times in recent U.S. history — starting from 1958. And this number has a tendency to rise. Last year alone, 13 people were murdered at the premiere of “The Dark Knight Rises.” Then, in December, a young, autistic man opened fire at the Sandy Hook School. A total of 26 people were killed.

On March 30 shots were fired in a shopping mall in Pennsylvania. Only three people were killed. But there is one very foul aspect of this circumstance — the shooter successfully escaped. In the history of mass murders, this is a rarity. And it’s understood that this “successful one” will go out and kill someone else.

Freedom To Bear Arms

Mass shootings are one of the most painful problems in American society. But what to do about this problem — not a single person knows. Some have proposed banning the possession of firearms.

But here’s a message from April 2: Officials in the town of Nelson are planning to give out weapons to residents. Furthermore, at the end of March the former mayor of Tucson, Ariz. opened a company to provide free guns to residents. This is no political propaganda. The idea is already supported with money from businesses. It looks as if, in any event, the well-meaning residents of Tucson will all get barrels. All of this is happening in juxtaposition to President Obama’s call to limit the distribution of weapons.

So let’s imagine, for a moment, a mayor — Cherepovets or Novokuznetsk, whose towns both share approximately the same population as Tucson — who is calling residents to bear arms. What would happen to such a “responsible” figure here, in Russia? But in the United States, it’s about freedom, so they come out from the stands.

What is this? Irresponsibility? Insanity? Of course not. Americans are too rational a people to joke about such things, especially against the background of mass killings. This can only mean one thing — America has been burned. Joking aside, the situation in Tucson demonstrates that peaceful people have come to rely only on themselves. Police will never be able to fully eradicate crime; people will remain without weapons — and they’ll get torn to pieces by thugs. On the other hand, there’s the risk of falling prey to one shot. It turns out that Americans fear the second scenario less than the first.

What Kind of Despair Will This Come To? How Much Fear Must We Live In?

Americans are afraid of each other. There is too much social and racial stratification. Michael Moore’s documentary film “Bowling for Columbine” came to this conclusion back in 2002. Mass shootings existed back then as well, but in 10 years the problem hasn’t disappeared. In fact, the number of occurrences has more than doubled. Shootings in populated places are happening more and more frequently. As for a solution? There wasn’t one then, and there isn’t one now.

Precedents in Russia

Russians don’t have anything to be proud about either. After all, our own Officer Evsyukov killed shoppers in a supermarket. In our country the raging counsel orders cubicle rats to a bloodbath. We too have “mass shootings.” But luckily, they don’t occur on an American scale.

Why? Probably because we aren’t as afraid of each other as Americans are. We are more often able to come to an agreement among ourselves without guns. We have a humane system of education (with all of its disadvantages). In American schools, lessons are crueler. Gai Germanika [Russian filmmaker] shows us that what goes on among girls in American schools is considered to be simply inoffensive frivolities by the general public. In America, 13 million schoolchildren are confronted with violence each day. This figure comes from a 2009 study conducted by the Associated Press and MTV.

What else can influence the potential for mass killing? Aggressive music? Violence on TV? Computer games?

Of course. But all of this exists in Russia as well. However, in Russia we don’t yet see mass shootings occurring every six days.

Factors of Violence

Is it possible that there is a factor particular to America that has led to this wave of violence? Something that exists in America that doesn’t exist in Russia?

The author of this piece puzzled out something that is particularly America. Baseball? Maple syrup? Native Americans on Thanksgiving Day? No, no and no. But unexpectedly the missing piece snaps into place: Maybe it’s the comic books — or rather, comic book culture — something exceptionally American; comic books aren’t widely published here.

Comic books are unpretentious, with minimal text and a lot of pictures. It’s not necessary to read graphic novels. They don’t strain the brain. Thumbing through the pages doesn’t work your imagination. After all, everything is already thought up, and everything is drawn out.

In comic books, everything is always clear. Here — the grotesque, disgusting evil. And there — good. Furthermore, the good is usually a superman who personally punishes the “bad guys.”

The spiritual experiences of the comic book hero are often contradictory. For example, there is a comic book modeled after the novel “Crime and Punishment.” In that comic, it’s simple — a hero with an axe just kills old people. And you know what else? There is a “funny” comic book about the Holocaust.

Maybe American children don’t read books. Why bother? Books can be confusing. And it’s necessary to think.

The comic book culture is wildly popular in America. In graphic “novels” it’s rare to see the hero’s problems solved without violence. And the hero must be alone.

I am not inclined to blame books with pictures for all of society’s ills. But let’s look it straight in the eyes — many Americans grew up with these books. And they are still growing up with them. They look at the world in black and white. “White” is them themselves. “Black” is everything else. But of course, it also depends on the level of an individual’s sociopathic tendencies. And for a person bearing arms, sociopathic tendencies are always over the top.

One last word on the topic. We certainly sympathize with the girl who started shooting on the metro using non-lethal weapons. Undoubtedly the fire was white and fluffy. And the faces of the victims were not the titular nationality.

Pity the girl. But by sympathizing with her, we separate the world into “black” and “white” against our own wills. But things are not so easy, nor so primitive and cruel. And weapons are not the only method for solving life’s difficulties.