The Left kicked God out of the classroom and public square and then they wonder why people commit evil acts.
4
"Gun control proposals don’t seriously impinge freedom; on the other hand, there’s not much evidence that they would prevent many attacks."....Garbage. Laws set social standards. People, even crazy people, are influenced by the standards and norms of the society in which they live. If society agrees that it is ok for members of the public to own assault rifles with extended magazines, they are essence saying that there are some circumstances in which members of the public have a need to use the weapon for the purpose it was designed - to kill a lot of people quickly. What kind of message does that send to a crazy person? Well guess what -
37
"Gun control proposals don’t seriously impinge freedom; on the other hand, there’s not much evidence that they would prevent many attacks."
One word: Australia. Look it up. In the New York Times.
47
What did the Founders have in mind when they added the 2nd amendment? Peering behind the 'well regulated militia' rationale, my hunch is that, what with the notion that 'the state has a monopoly on violence' concept, promulgated by...Machiavelli? Clausewitz?> Weber? the founders felt that the populace should share in that monopoly and have some violence of its own, so to speak. Or, since you might say that the people ARE the state (government of, by and for the people" that the people have every right to be violent
1
One maybe follow the money? One can not ignore the amount of money given by the NRA to buy Congress.
8
Why would the NRA spend money when the mere threat of spending money is sufficient to force Republican candidates to toe the line?
And the fact that more Americans support gun rights because it is a proxy for self-determination and a resistance against the perceived domination of the liberal elite ... where did this idea come from? Could it be the NRA?
Excusing the NRA in any way is absolutely ridiculous. It's the equivalent of ignoring the room-sized elephant in the room.
19
Living in a small red state I can tell you the NRA does control the legislature. Good people vote for truly bad laws out of fear of crossing thr NRA and their very vocal and threatening memebers. David needs to spend some time this winter in small western state capitols, he will get a true education.
23
Good to see liberals have given up protesting free speech with violence and made it to the 2nd amendment in the constitution, which is a total banning of guns.
Sure, you can have my guns, but it's is about an 80 grand collection, so I'll gladly take some NYC's tax money to purchase them back.
2
Since our votes don’t matter to congress, and they insist on allowing the NRA to control who gets a gun, and years of writing these types of letters to congressional representatives has had zero effect, I am left with no alternative but to promote the idea that the United States of America is not a safe place to live or visit. I believe we need to send a message via the only messenger that matters to congress, MONEY. People of the world, don’t spend your money here until congress passes sensible gun control legislation. Stay away! You are not safe here! We are not safe here! We kill over 33 thousand people a year with guns. Pick a country that doesn’t allow guns to be mounted in the rear window of every pickup in rural America. Pick a place to visit with your children that doesn’t allow guns to be worn like a badge of honor while they eat a burger at your favorite burger joint. Visit a country that doesn’t allow the mentally ill to walk into a gun show and purchase a gun without a background check. If you do get shot here, we have no universal healthcare. It would cost you tens of thousands of dollars to get the medical attention you would need. Please pray for us, we have spiraled down into the abyss of money matters and nothing else.
34
There are not enough people for whom guns are not symbols of their freedom, their manhood, their very identity to override these so-called populists? There must be!! Ordinary people DO want real gun control. We need to wake up and act. Tell Congress we want serious gun control. VOTE. Trump did not win by a majority; there are sane people everywhere. How else did Obama win two terms?
10
Kinder eggs and Camembert cheese are more regulated than guns are in the US. Absurd?
21
People everywhere have an inherent right to self defense. The 2nd amendment doesn't create this right, it merely acknowledges it. Guns in the hands of a properly trained law abiding user are the best tool for that job. You have no reason to fear us...concealed carry permit holders have one of the lowest rates of felony convictions of any societal group. Stop trying to totally disarm us and we can find some common ground. Don't equate us with this monster. and don't keep saying his name and showing his picture...deny these creeps their posthumous infamy... it's part of what inspires them.
3
I love reading Times comments. It makes me appreciate how deliciously simple things are.
3
Please, David, you're the one who wants to make this into an elite vs. common man issue. You and all the conservative talking heads who share that in common as a strategy.
Guns are not about "individualism," they are about erasing someone else's individualism. They are, in the hands and minds of militia types, a threat against perceived ideological and ethnic enemies - more than a threat, these groups have an intention to launch a campaign of violence and intimidation against people whose individuality does not accord with their standards of conformity. Guns in the context our divided polity are symbol of violence and disproportionate force. They have nothing to do with civil order, well-regulated or otherwise. They are, purely and simply, instruments of brutality.
The only question for me is whether things are going to get so far out of control that, like Abraham Lincoln, I'll feel that although I would be otherwise disposed I'm going to have to arm up.
2
Guns represent the frontier image we love so much about America. Without the heart-pounding thrill of being able to deliver instantaneous death, a lot of Americans would experience themselves trapped in a sterile, boring existence.
While we're at it let's look at the genormous array of military killing-machines paid for with our taxes. If we regarded children with the same ardor as we do our death machines, the world would be a different place, a better place, a more respectful place for both humans and beasts. Aggressive civilizations like ours wouldn't so predictably die such slow, ghastly deaths.
4
Ditch sociology.
We need:
Learner's permit, training, pass license test, picture license ID card, insure and register each weapon, periodic license renewal, fines and/or loss of license and gun forfeiture depending on violation severity, just like cars. The infrastructure already exists in every state for all motor vehicles, just add the necessary gun categories to the list. Need to tax guns, ammunition, and accessories to pay for the monetary damage caused by them to cover the economic toll on the nation's resources: ambulances, hospitals, doctors, calls to police and other public resources like every 911 call that involves a gun, every metal detector bought by a school. When a gun is traded, gifted or sold, a proper title transaction should ensue (as with a car). If you have a firearm in your possession you had best have the title along with it. A background check should be a routine part of the title transfer process. If private gun sales and gun shows cannot be conducted within the law, then establish state stores to handle all private gun sales. People who feel a need to collect and shoot high-powered weaponry of any kind are mentally unfit to own those guns.
Top ten list of senate and house politicians (all republican) who are bought, along with their vacuous thoughts and pointless prayers (no one hears) messages:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/04/opinion/thoughts-prayers-...
16
First Russ Douthat and now David Brooks have made the compelling case that America's epidemic of gun violence is the fault of liberals.
Gosh, and to think I had it backwards the whole time.
All we need to do is amend the U.S. Constitution and change our national culture to make things peaceable again.
But I have an even easier solution:
Liberals should try to outdo the right in support of gun rights.
This would force conservatives to rethink and ultimately reverse their position, because nothing is worse than being on the same side as the left.
Presto! Law and order will return to the land.
9
Insightful. Well reasoned. Does contain a few points that I would consider... optimistic. For example, the claim that "the populist revolt is about halfway through taking over the Republican Party". Over a year ago the revolt owned the party. The previous leadership decided that rather than resist (as the French did when fascists recently approached leadership there) they would all support Trump. Today, the question asked in Alabama and elsewhere, is whether Trump is too establishment, too civil, and much too respectful of norms of behavior for his base.
5
The second amendment states "A well regulated militia being necessary for the security of the state...". This clause was simply erased by the origionalists on the supreme court essentially defying their strict adherence to the words of the constitution.
The court in this manner fanned the flames of the culture wars.
Note the words "well regulated militia". This does not mean a vigilante or citizen cops or any other loosely organized citizen group. The national guard is probably the closest to a well regulated militia.
8
Mr. Brooks, I fully agree and hereby nominate Jeff Bezos for this job of bringing our national gulf together. What amazed me, a Los Angeles progressive, is when I visit my little hometown in Kansas to see my mother, the busiest counter on Main Street is the haberdashery that let's you drop off your Amazon return. AMAZING. What Amazon has accomplished, the all-inclusive avenue and value it has created. Walmart sits looming on the edge of town, a big wasteland of a latter day. Bezos found the marketing soul of America, all America, and nurtured it into a jaggernaut, deservedly so. I think he is the man we go to for lessons on the new narrative for America we desperately need.
3
The NRA spends as much money as necessary to achieve its aims. What's misleading is your citation of their comparatively small donations to imply that their power is not as great as it seems. The NRA's ratings are very important. In rural America, the NRA has a huge amount of influence. If the organization accomplishes its aims via relatively small sums, why spend more?
It's been said that people rush to purchase firearms after mass shootings not because they're afraid legislation will outlaw them, but because they're simply afraid (i.e., they're doing it to protect themselves). But in my experience, this is mostly untrue. I have personally known people who've purchased guns after mass shootings and, when asked why they felt it necessary to buy them at this time, they've said, "because they'll be illegal soon."
When liberals debate gun control, conservatives hear: "They're coming for my guns -- and my guns protect my values." But why do conservatives think this way? Largely, it's due to propaganda. I'm convinced a majority of Americans would like to live in a country where they didn't "need" to protect themselves from other people with guns by buying guns themselves. Perhaps there should be places people could go to fire assault weapons for the thrill of it, if they wish. I don't want to live in an America that's flooded with AR-15s and handguns. I can tolerate people owning hunting weapons, nothing else.
7
This would be laughable nonsense, except covering up for the NRA is not laughable.
America is hardly the only country grappling with "postindustrial" "culture wars," but it is the only advanced democratic country placing almost no effective restriction on almost anyone acquiring military type weapons designed for mass killing, and its rates of gun violence are off the charts higher.
7
Does gun ownership make us powerful as people? To many gun owners the answer to this is an obvious yes and justifies them, but this runs counter to the philosophy of jesus who they venerate. Dr. Martin Luther King and Gandhi fought bravely to show that true value is found in compassion and bringing people together in a belief that human beings are inherently valuable as our Declaration of Independence asserts. A gun does not make the man no more than the size of the car one drives. Our choice must be in choosing the value of life over the possessions such as guns that seem to rule our lives.
3
It isn't an issue of gun control, it is an issue of the massive number of guns. We are similar to those parts of the world that are awash in AKs whether dumped in by the Russians, Chinese and Iranians into conflict areas.
When you look at the massive number of deaths inflicted by fire arms in this country America is a conflict area.
How many have been killed in Syria? How many killed by guns in America in the last 40 years?
And what is the human and monetary costs of gun deaths? A quarter of a TRILLION dollars each year. Do the NRA and gun owners pay for the costs of their carnage?
Vietnam Veteran
7
I don't subscribe to Tali Sharot's ideas; another study could indicate evidence to the contrary. Her cynical approach just further justifies why some folks would rather give up than forge onward with serious debate, particularly with respect to gun control in this country.
1
Brooks has a sharp eye and expand the current hot-button social issue to the American minds, souls, and past history. I am first quite shocked at lawmakers' decision of loosening gun control measures despite the massive shooting. Grown up in a country that prohibits gun, I've never think of what gun means. For me, I consider it merely as a protection. But, Brooks thinks deeper. Gun represents "freedom, self-reliance and the ability to control your own destiny".
One of the most powerful pieces of evidence that suggests there will be no grand synthesis as Brooks suggests, his data related to the responses of Red States v Blue States in gun legislation as a response to mass murders. That data tells a story; not just of a deep cultural divide but of a behavioral divide. It is a story of how conservatives address danger in form of gun violence, versus how progressives address danger in the form of gun violence. This is not just 'cultural'; it is behavioral. I see little opportunity to change that behavior. Unless the conservatives of this country can re-frame their basic behavioral responses (as documented by legislative behaviors), the desire for more and more guns will exist in approximately 50% of our population. It is easy to name an issue cultural. It is much harder to change the behaviors of a named 'culture'.
1
Sorry for reminding you about a widespread belief outside U.S. That U.S. is still a nation of cowboys. Let's remember the "glory" surrounding those icons like John Wayne. It was like everything could and should be solved with a gun in the hands. Furthermore there's that reality, unfathomed for outsiders, of the logic of amassing 23 high level guns with special devises to transform them into deadly automatic machine guns in a hotel room. That Las Vegas guy even have 19 other lethal weapons at his home... and still 9 other in another location. Even the John Wayne's heroes alike would be shocked.
1
Actually, David, the facts overwhelmingly support the gun control side but Americans choose to ignore them, to their own detriment. The U.S. has the most guns and the most gun deaths per capita of any country in the world. This includes suicides and accidental shootings. It's insanity on a mass scale.
4
“Gun rights are about living in a country where families are tough enough and responsible enough to stand up for themselves in a dangerous world.“ efore Trunp it would have been easy for me to point out that the world is not more dangerous and that using a gun to stop an intruder is about as common as winning the lottery. But hey, Brooks, you and the rest of the conservative world have convinced me that the world is a dangerous place, so I’m off to start my arsenal.
1
Sure, when you ask if we should have "gun control", you get one distribution of answers. When you ask about universal background checks, preventing gun ownership by the mentally ill, and other pointed common sense questions, you get big majorities in favor. Simple fact is, Congress hasn't voted with public opinion on many issues, for quite some time.
This divide thing is nonsense, at least in my house. This liberal owns two 9mm handguns with laser sights, as I live in a rough neighborhood that, despite being in the city, is actually unincorporated (so calls to one police dept or another often get a reply of "call the other department"). I also have technical airsoft gun that I use to shush barking dogs. My very liberal sister in law has a 20 gauge for home defense. No one in my mostly liberal family wants to be denied ownership.
But, universal background check? Limits on how much ammo we can hold? Can't use a silencer? No drum magazines? No problem. It's ridiculous for people to claim they need unfettered access to all things gun-wise to defend themselves.
7
"But it is also an identity marker. It stands for freedom, self-reliance and the ability to control your own destiny."
Maybe they should get a tattoo and not an item that exists only to kill.
3
If 4 in 10 households in America own guns, that means 6 in 10 do not. The sixty percent of us who do not own guns need to make our voices heard that we would like reasonable gun control for our safety.
7
Brooks is absolutely correct. I have had debates with highly intelligent gun owners and they don't care what the facts are because they have the control of language and critical thinking skills that help them rationalize ownership. In addition, he is correct about the impact of the culture war that has accelerated over the past decade.
Why do people find comfort in firearms in today's world? The really serious things that are wrong will not be solved by shooting someone. We are in a post manufacturing economy in which a high school education is not enough to secure what is commonly seen as a middle class life. Shooting someone won't fix that. Families are torn apart by economic insecurity. Shooting someone won't fix that either. We are being preyed upon by people who want to divide us and distract us from the fact that they've used our economic and governmental institutions to preserve and protect their interests and not the interests of the vast majority of the American people. Shooting someone won't solve that either.
5
I'm 36 years old and I recently accepted that my generation is doomed to suffer through mass shootings for the rest of our lives. With the aid of the NRA's lobbyists, conservatives successfully flooded American communities with firearms. By many estimates, there are as many firearms in America as there are people. So, even if we could somehow manage to ban the production of guns beginning tomorrow, there would still be enough guns floating around that we would remain powerless to effectively control them enough to stop the killings that happen every single day in this country.
The ship has sailed: mass shootings and dozens of gun deaths every day are a part of American life in the 21st Century.
10
"Gunning" (what other stupid term for it?) is pretty stupid: going out and shooting some gun. That is a stupid pleasure, but millions love to do it. Then there is ownership and socializing with other "gunnies" (what else would you call them?) It's all stupid, but what does it mean?
Well, obviously, there is nothing else in that life to displace guns in that life. What does THAT mean. Well, use your imagination, but one observation would be that if someone is caressing a gun, they are not caressing anything else.
4
Once again a conservative claims that direct campaign contributions are "miniscule" thereby implying that the impact of the NRA money spent in our politics couldn't possibly have an effect. The direct campaign contributions to particular politicians campaign coffers may be miniscule, but not the amounts they spend on lobbying and advertising. As we know, propaganda has an effect.
7
Brooks underestimates the extent of the problem. We are in a post-fact world. It is not that facts have lost their power to persuade, its that there are no such things as "facts" in the sense he uses the term, nor is there any objective audience to evaluate the meaning of proffered facts. Not only does the act of collecting facts require assumptions that are subject to question, but "facts" are simply symbols that require interpretation to give them meaning. We lack the necessary shared experience to come to similar conclusions from this interpretive process, thus "facts" cannot compel assent; they cannot persuade anyone of anything they don't want to believe. We have to abandon the quest for objectivity. To move forward we have to embrace interpersonal dialogue as opposed to deploying coercive "factual" arguments.
7
The old argument that by making guns harder to get, or assault rifles illegal, that only criminals will have guns is a false argument. We have laws against murder and robbery. We don't repeal those laws because people still murder and rob. We make arrests. If certain guns were illegal they could be confiscated and the owners could be prosecuted. It would reduce the number of guns eventually. People would still get guns legally and others would get them illegally and commit murders, use them in armed robberies, but maybe it would be less prevalent. Some people feel safer with lots of open carry guns around. I don't. If there's a mass shooting how do you tell the good guys with guns from the bad ones? And given that even trained shooters often miss, I don't want to be in the midst of a bunch of good guys trying to "save" me by shooting up the room or the venue. If I learn someone is a gun lover with lots of guns and ammo, I avoid that person.
13
Moving the analysis from the power of the gun lobby (great as that is--more than Brooks gives credit for) to how gun advocacy is part of the current, enormous cultural battleground contributes a lot to understanding this conflict. Before, I had just been flummoxed at what seems to me the irrationality of refusing to enact laws to control this carnage. However, I do dispute the idea that gun control laws do not have much effect. The Australian example of quick enactment of gun control legislation after a 1996 mass shooting is very powerful: No mass shootings since that time, plus dramatic drops in homicides and suicides by gun.
https://globalnews.ca/news/3784603/australia-gun-control-ban/
9
The problem is what to do. Everybody claims to have a solution. For me, I apply the Rubic's Cube test. That is a puzzle that I can not solve. The test is to face the fact that I can't solve it. So I'll side with the blue people here. But not strongly because I. Can't. Solve. It. I do not know what to do: that is my fundamental position. Siding with blue is tentative and provisional. It's my go-to response when I have to participate. I suspect though that demonizing red people is not part of the solution.
That's my $2. Inflation you know.
I think that there has to be more discussion surrpunding the morality of gun collecting, and gun culture. We have the biggest military in the world, and police forces that put armies in smaller countries to shame. Why are military style weapons available for individuals to stockpile? Who are these collectors afraid of?
7
Had Brooks explored what gun violence says about America's soul, this piece might have been word the time it took to read it.
This is a terrible piece in two respects.
First, the title is misleading. Nowhere (else) in the piece does the word "soul" even appear.
Second, the point, that our gun fetish is a function of post-industrialization, is ridiculous. Post-industrialization isn't uniquely American. The level of gun violence we endure is.
Our soul is very sick, not because of post-inustrialization (or because of industrialization, or pre-industrialation) but due to fear and anger and shame springing from the deep discrepancies and contradictions that exist--and are nurtured--between what we like to think America stands for, on the one hand, and what actually goes on, on a regular basis, on the other.
We think gun rights are about freedom. In fact, they're about violence. If not for the Yeehaw joy of violence (for violence's sake), nobody would be opposed to controlling gun ownership and use in ways like we control automobile ownership and use.
Until Americans engage in soul-searching of the sort, for example, that Germans engaged in post WW2, our national soul will be sick.
We ignore this at our and the world's peril.
13
There's a curious contradiction in the mass-murder saga. You'll hunt far and wide to find a single person who advocates fast mass murder. And yet America is full of people who bristle at the idea of limits on the distribution of firearms that make that act easy.
13
David, our impasse on guns may reflect some cultural and social divides, but our worldwide record of killing is nothing more than an essential element of American exceptionalism. Mass killings can be limited by legislation only, that is restricting weapons with no other purpose than mass killing. Our day to day gun violence, be it domestic, gang, accidental and suicide have cultural levers--we know what they are. Males raised differently. Whites questioning their fear of the alien other.
5
How about putting your money where your mouth is. Why has the government refused to even INVESTIGATE the issue? If the gun fetishists really believed their case that the facts would bear them out that gun control will not solve the problem of mass gun violence, then let's have a non-partisan special investigation into the facts. No, the gun lobbyists won't allow it because they know FULLY well that they do not have a leg to stand on.
10
"Progress on guns will be possible when the culture war subsides, but not before."
Maybe so. But I think that there is a number. A certain number of dead Americans are required. We have not reached that number yet. 58 died - and more than 40 are in critical condition. This is horrifying. But the fact is, not enough people have been murdered...These murders are OK to the majority of America as long as it's not their child, mother, father, brother or sister. It is fine to us. And until it isn't, there will be more guns and more slaughter. The world is watching us kill each other. And there is a certain irony to this-we have a president who fanatically fights to install a Muslim Ban - while Americans shoot other Americans down like ducks in a carnival gallery.
And based on the actions of our country, it's OK. Lord help us.
9
Brooks would have us to believe that the NRA has no influence on gun laws. That's a myth as the NRA is behind most of the preemption laws that have passed in many states. These laws forbid municipalities from passing stricter gun legislation and prevents public dollars from being used to defend a local public servant, e.g. a mayor, who may challenge the law. A good example is the mayor of Tallahasee, FL. Mayor Gillum is a leading example for other mayors to follow. In addition, I would strongly suggest that citizens begin to file class action law suits against states that pass these types of laws. We can't continue to sit back and do nothing. We can't expect the federal government to step in because it won't. Obama had the opportunity to renew the ban on the assault rifle and he refused to even make an attempt, citing NRA influence as an excuse.
https://www.prwatch.org/news/2017/01/13196/tallahassee-mayor-defends-loc...
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/02/tallahassee-mayor-andrew-gillum-w...
6
I doubt that most physicians in the US didn't go to medical school to end up in a war zone operating on gun shot victims but many of our ER's are now facing this daily. Gun violence is mostly a male perpetrator. Maybe the men in America need to reevaluate why they need so many guns.
6
The arguments for gun control legislation are weakest when applied to mass killings. Mass killings are perpetrated by very determined individuals. Even France's severe gun control laws could not prevent the Paris night club massacre of 89 persons. Furthermore, guns are not the optimal means to achieve mass killings. Homemade bombs are much more effective. And perpetrators usually escape the scene of their bombings. Often perpetrators are never able to be identified and therefore are never even apprehended. Whereas most perpetrators do not survive their mass killings when they use guns.
Whatever merits there are for gun control legislation, they do not apply to mass killings. Use of mass killings by gun control advocates is simply a tactic of deception.
5
From The Atlantic (July 23, 2012):"To get a gun in Japan, first, you have to attend an all-day class and pass a written test, which are held only once per month. You also must take and pass a shooting range class. Then, head to a hospital for a mental test and drug test (Japan is unusual in that potential gun owners must affirmatively prove their mental fitness), which you’ll file with the police. Finally, pass a rigorous background check for any criminal record or association with criminal or extremist groups, and you will be the proud new owner of your shotgun or air rifle. Just don’t forget to provide police with documentation on the specific location of the gun in your home, as well as the ammo, both of which must be locked and stored separately. And remember to have the police inspect the gun once per year and to re-take the class and exam every three years." In 2008, the U.S. had over 12,000 firearm-related homicides. All of Japan experienced only 11. Gun control laws make a difference.
16
Yes, "the gun rights people are winning the hearts and minds of America." And this is why our media is able to report over and over that the Vegas shooter gave no "warning signs" of what he planned to do. In fact, he sent very loud warning signs. The man bought dozens and dozens of assault weapons over a time period of less than a year. In any other civilized society, that would be considered a big fat warning sign. Only in America is this considered to be normal, rather than a sign of impending mayhem.
14
Brooks may have a point here about guns being a proxy. One could speculate even further about what it's a proxy for, But, why, when post industrialization affects many countries, it this one so aberrant?
5
We have a tyranny of the minority entrenched in this country. The 1% has most of the income and the wealth. The 4% below them has lots and lots of it. Everyone else has to scramble for a share, and many among us are destitute. Our country is governed by a minority far more conservative than the "most" of us-- IE two senators from North Dakota and the same for California. Twice in 16 years dems have won the presidential election and yet lost it, due to an undemocratic EC. The ceiling on the number of house members (which is supposed to be representative a body) has not been raised since 1918, in spite of enormous population growth. If 4 out of 10 Americans own guns, that means 6 of us do not. That's a majority. But we seemingly, do no count. Our kids and our friends have to get murdered in schools and churches and at concerts. Where is the democracy in this?
8
Karen:
The Constitution's Bill of Rights is to protect every individual FROM democracy. That is what it means to be free. Freedom is utterly meaningless if everyone only does what the majority wants them to do.
I wonder how you would respond if the majority were to decide that everyone must worship the same religion (a different one than yours), or if the majority were to decide that there should be no freedom of speech (we are moving in that direction due to the imposition of political correctness to the point of censorship on college campuses).
1
"The smarter a person is, the greater his or her ability to rationalize and reinterpret discordant information, and the greater the polarizing boomerang effect is likely to be". It's time to redefine 'smarter'! The ability to distract & delude ourselves around realities that lie before us is maladaptive; our inability to recognize it even more so. Whether in denial of climate, vaccination, or evolution science, or violence & death resulting from access to lethal means (guns), our willful ignorance of reality may be our undoing as a species. What we take into our hands, we take into our hearts, but the converse is also true. What we take into our hearts, we take into our hands: guns. I agree that guns are a proxy for 'larger issues', but the deaths of thousands of people every year in our nation is a large enough issue to stand on its own. Many Christian believers have come to recognize that possessing personal firearms for protection is a form of idolatry, an affront to God's sovereignty, an act of worshipping the illusion of control. It's also disconnected from a consistent ethic for holding all life sacred: if one opposes abortion, one must also oppose capital punishment and all taking of human life, even including self-protection with firearms. The Gospel of Jesus is radically other-centered & self-sacrificing; it calls us to acknowledge the only strength and protection we need: God's. I'm hoping we recognize our hypocrisy.
2
I guess I agree, but what is this synthesis, and how do we get there? Please note that Kasich is Ohio's governor and he wants to be president and he's presided over a steady stream of ridiculous gun laws, like the ones Mr. Brooks cites in this article.
1
Occurs to me that when 2nd Amendment was written there was little to no knowledge of scope of mental illness. The argument that population should have muskets for militia does not take this into account.
5
So, why don't the many other post-industrial societies fervently embrace guns? This doesn't make sense.
8
David Brooks writes today, regarding gun control proposals, that "... there's not much evidence that they would prevent many attacks." However, the "Big Read" in today's Financial Times provides data that establish a link between the widespread ownership of guns and deaths caused by guns. The data cited in the FT indicate higher death rates from guns in those US states that have high rates of gun ownership, compared with states with low ownership -- and also much higher death rates from guns in the US than other countries when gun ownership levels are taken into account.
7
Decades before lawmakers brought new regulations and lawsuits against the Tobacco Industry, a majority of Americans had come to the conclusion that smoking was a very risky behavior that should be avoided. Smoking was already in serous decline by the time lawmakers decided to "take on Big Tobacco."
Currently we have a similar situation with guns in our country. I don’t expect Congress to do anything anytime soon. The good news is that gun culture is already in decline. In the late 70s nearly 48 percent of Americans had a gun in the home. Today that number is at 31 percent. Individuals and their personal decisions will solve the problem of gun violence in America. While we have too many guns in America, gun owners are an aging demographic. Most gun owners in America are over 50 and the largest percentage of gun owners are in the 65 and older demographic. The majority of gun owners in America are old, white, and they live in rural communities. Younger people, below age 50, are overwhelming moving away from guns. The people are making personal decisions and like smoking, gun culture is clearly on the decline in America.The NRA represents a declining minority of gun owners. We can expect that lawmakers will eventually pass some common sense laws like background checks in the next decade or two. By then the NRA and the gun manufacturers will probably follow the Tobacco industry overseas in the search of higher profits.
3
Have written several comments regarding Professor Sharma's criticisms of the US which I regard as incorrect and unfair, but EB has censured every one, which leads me to think that certain commenters as well as some columnists are out of bounds when it comes to submitting their opinions to Cartesian analysis. Prof. Sharma decries the violence of "white racists" who adhere to the NRA, yet hails from le Raj, so violent and rife with ethnic rivalries that Mountbatten had no choice but to decide that partition in 1948 was the least worst solution, Even Ghandhi was accused of giving the complicitious wink of the eye, assent to some of the excesses of Hindu extremists. V. Krishna Menon , rep.from India in the 1950's, was relentless in his condemnation of US imperialism while being a firm supporter of the sclerotic and unfair social system in his "pays natal!" Why is this not relevant and worthy of publication?Be broadminded. Alexander Harrison is unfailingly fair in his observations, and comments are always informative. Thank you!
david brooks elevates "the hipsters" to a whole new level of importance. turns out, they're the ones causing downtrodden gun-nuts to shoot down random gatherings of human beings. and i thought they simply were promoters of obnoxious hairstyles.
2
This is encouraging reading; thoughtful comments and good points on all sides. Good work, David. This is probably too simplistic for most, but my understanding of the 2nd Amendment and its reason for being is based less on hunting and personal protection than on defiance. So many weapons in the hands of so many citizens can have a sobering affect on an oppressive, tyrannical overlord; 18th century monarchy or otherwise. Its odd so many people do not recognize this, or believe our government would never turn on us. But I remember Kent State. Yes, horrible things happen with guns that shouldn't. Too many of us know this personally. But maybe this is the price we pay for keeping the oppressors from coming over the walls and relieving from us our lives, freedoms, and hope. Everything, really.
1
Among about 325 million American citizens and other residences of the US something more than 300 million guns of various types ranging from dainty little-lady hand guns to semi-automatic rifles upgraded to automatic action in some cases. Gun poisoning you might say. Thirty thousand deaths yearly to gun shot wounds point to the problem. More victims fail to die of bullet wounds.
There's no use in arguing that there could be any law that will quickly solve our problem. Slowing the absorption of the poison is probably the best we can do. Maybe starting with prohibiting bump stocks and silencers will show some gun law opponents that laws can be passed and enforced that don't lead immediately to a dictatorship of moderation and self-restraint.
1
"The real reason the gun rights side is winning is postindustrialization."
Postindustrialization? What about the willingness of leadership - Republican leadership for the most part - to buy into and promote what Brooks himself acknowledges are lies about guns?
That's not restricted to politicians pandering to constituents. Have conservative publications and writers (ahem) discussed these matters honestly? I don't think so, and I don't recall hearing right-wing talkers doing much but following the NRA line.
Once again, Brooks avoids looking in places where he might not like what he sees.
3
Mr. Brooks, your last 6 paragraphs are excellent! Our Representatives should read them and use their positions, power and intelligence to come up with those new ideas to bring us back together so no one feels left out and ignored.
The NRA is more than a lobbying group Mr. Brooks. It is an industry's voice and it speaks to the people as much as it speaks to Congress. Like the coal, oil, gas, auto, mining industries, they fund and coordinate with popular associations that support them and help them keep government regulations at bay. They have only one interest, and that is to sell more and more of their products, at higher and higher prices, hence gun shows, propaganda about crime, spreading fear and the myth that 'the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
Old guns may be nice to hang on the wall, but new guns are better. Ones that fire faster and have more deadly bullets. Semi-automatic guns are fun but machine guns are more fun. One gun in the bedroom is good, but a few downstairs is better. It is never enough, because the bad guys buy them as well. If you can't buy them in your state go to another State.
The NRA lie about more guns mean less crime has been their mantra for years. Fear sells, and fear has been the best marketing strategy for the gun industry. Values? Self-reliance? Forget about it. Fear's the thing. Fear trumps values any day. People who carry semi-automatic guns in their pants in the streets of open carry States are afraid of everyone. Even with a weapon at the ready, they are full of fear, and anxious to buy a bigger gun.
3
For what its worth, Nobel Laureate Douglass North has written convincingly on how formal and informal cultural norms interact with organizations, and vice-versa. I recommend his book, "Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance".
2
I don't normally agree with most of what David Brooks writes. And I've made many a negative comment on many of his columns over the years.
But here, I think he's come up with a very cogent insight; guns ARE much more than simply firearms to many conservative voters. In their minds, gun ownership "confirms" control, independence, power, self-reliance and an objection to the perceived Powers That Be. Owning a gun to these folks is a way of saying, "I'm my own man and I'm not going to let anyone else take control of me and my life!"
Now, I personally disagree with these people, but I think it's imperative for those of us who are appalled at the proliferation of guns throughout the country to take the time to understand the views of many gun owners. The only hope of things getting better is to try and "bridge" the divide between us and find a way of seeking at least a "truce" and ultimately an end, to this terrible cultural war that has divided us for so many decades.
2
I come from Scotland where thugs used knives, broken bottles and bicycle chains to inflict damage on people back in the 1950s and 1960s. Being struck by these was in no way fun and quite a few people died. However, they do not compare to the unabated assault on fellow citizens by crazy nuts with guns. This 2nd amendment rite has caused untold harm across this nation for decades. Is it a social thing? According to Mr. Brooks, it well could be. But that reasoning still does not excuse it. Until we stop electing naysayers, nothing will change. Political will is required. For a country whose politicians constantly bray about America's stance on human rights, contradiction is rampant. Time has come to rethink much about what this country supposedly stands for and to recognize the harm we do to our fellow citizens.
6
I don't want to waste any more time on this issue. It is a losing issue. NO Democrat has a chance to be elected in my state, if they fail to support the NRA and free access to arms, yet one Senator and our Guv is a Democrat. Nothing will change, even nationally, for decades.. Let's return to health care for all, and a budget that doesn't punish the poor. We can move people on those issues. Gun control is a dead end.
3
Supporting the NRA and supporting free access to reasonable arms are different issues. Many policemen and military people have responded with responsible posts here and elsewhere. The NRA is a giant marketing vehicle, and it has used fear to promote gun sales.
Please let's not equate the NRA, which is an extremist for-profit vehicle, and responsible gun owners. Those making a run on stores for a cheap piece of plastic or scouring the internet for ways to make guns that shoot many bullets per second, are not promoting "free access to arms" but free access to vehicles for multiple murder.
"How the NRA Uses Fear to Sell Guns": https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-the-n-r-a-uses-fear-to-sell...
3
"there’s not much evidence that they (gun control) would prevent many attacks."
Of course there's no evidence, because meaningful gun control has never been enacted here! On the other hand, consider Australia, where a severe reduction in guns has been accompanied for a drastic reduction in gun deaths. But that "doesn't count"--Australia is one of those "other countries" and any country foolish enough not to be the US (we're #1!) isn't a real country.
"Today, people in agricultural and industrial America legitimately feel that their way of life is being threatened by postindustrial society."
I agree with this assessment 100%--people in agricultural and industrial America ARE threatened. Sadly, owning a gun(s) is not a meaningful response--will do absolutely nothing to impact their situation. Their overlords are probably pleased as punch that instead of a serious critique of the system that has left them disempowered, Americans answer to their quandary is to stockpile weapons.
6
As a citizen having earned a B.A. in political science and a Ph.D. in experimental psychology, with 10 years' experience in mental health work, it seems crystal-clear why guns are so popular with Americans. They make the powerless feel powerful, and the truly powerful offer them--like religion--to the powerless to make them feel better while they're being economically enslaved. Modern slavery isn't physical, it's economic. The rich don't fear guns in the hands of the poor because the rich have gated communities, hired security guards, the city police, the county police, the state police, the National Guard, and the courts to protect them. This seems obvious, yet no politician will own it because the First Rule of Fight Club is that you don't talk about Fight Club.
8
"Gun control proposals don’t seriously impinge freedom; on the other hand, there’s not much evidence that they would prevent many attacks." This is such nonsense, when you examine the experience in other countries. Exhibit A: Australia, which instituted strict gun laws after the Port Arthur massacre. The rate of gun violence and lives lost to it per capita in the US is over a factor of 2 greater than any "rich" country.
Strict gun laws work. World experience proves that. We won't do it in this country because of our culture, if you can dignify it with that word. The same cultural phenomenon -- people being left behind by technological progress and the realization that we are killing our only planet -- produced Donald Trump and prevents action on guns. Of course, in both cases, the results flowed from profound ignorance (they bought Trump's snake oil and they don't know what the world's experience with gun laws is) as well as selfishness ("I don't care about the rest of the world. You'll have to pry my cold dead fingers ....").
4
Spot on, David. But what sort of 'grand synthesis' might be possible? 'Post industrial' is not an adequate term. It does not capture the unstoppable nature of the human drive to invent better mousetraps, which leads to higher and higher rates of displacement (i.e. human obsolescence) as we have moved from industrial to automated. How exactly can we achieve a society that offers satisfying existence to large numbers of people whose occupations and closely held beliefs are being challenged and rendered obsolete? Is it possible (and I hate saying this) that guns are the best grand synthesis (i.e. pacifier) available? We better figure something out, because continued acceleration of human obsolescence is inevitable. I would prefer a mass attack of wisdom and rational moderation, but I'm afraid tribalism, guns and video games are the kinds of market-driven answers currently available.
"when you present people with evidence that goes against their deeply held beliefs, the evidence doesn’t sway them. Instead, they invent more reasons their prior position was actually correct."
That's the conservative mind for you.
4
Agree with others that Brooks is underplaying the role the NRA has had in influencing policy. The contours and tone of the gun debate was framed by the NRA some time ago as a cultural or identify issue as they successfully weaved gun rights into the larger postindustrial angst that Brooks identifies. I agree with Brooks that we need a new synthesis, but I don't think we will get that until we break up the dysfunctional political duopoly in this country. If the supreme court rules that Wisconsin's gerrymandering was unconstitutional, that would be the first step in the right direction in that manner.
1
Elsewhere in this paper is a list of NRA contributions, which are not petty. But it is correct to say their influence and marketing far exceed their financial contributions. What's a few millions here and there.
But people who think they can repeal or revise the 2nd Amendment, or restore it to its original meaning, haven't been paying attention. Even the slightest restriction brings the opposition out in droves, and also sends them to stores to stock up (more), in fears of having their rights taken away tomorrow. How crazy is that?
The right to cause death is more important to them than the lives of others. They think they are immune. And to a certain extent they are. A well armed minority can easily subdue their peaceable neighbors. The subtext of Trump's core support includes a lot of public threats of "second amendment remedies" for people if they don't "win".
That's a huge defeat, I think.
4
Machines that make it easy to kill someone at a distance are enablers of murder and maiming. Don't pretend they aren't. There are good reasons why some people want or need guns, and I have no problem with them if a procedure for vetting them to make sure they are not inclined to fire in anger or in a hurry when someone crosses them. Hunting is another good reason, and I like other kinds of target practice, so I guess I'm OK with that.
But the intentional harm of other people is never OK, and providing tools to do that is a problem for everyone. Life is more important than machines that are capable of helping people destroy or damage life.
And there is no excuse whatsoever for rapid-fire guns of any kind being in the hands of anyone but highly qualified professionals, such as the police and the military.
Armor piercing bullets are inexcusable in the public domain. Silencers are equally problematic.
In all these mass shootings, stories of a defender being armed and able to stop the mayhem are few and far between. In general, armed members of the public are likely to make the carnage worse.
Carnage ... that's all about it.
4
The Progressives of the Progressive Era owed more to Jefferson than to Hamilton, and at that, there was a big difference between a Theodore Roosevelt and a Woodrow Wilson.
Dualistic (separate/divided) Minds perceive dualistically, projecting onto the "other" that which is denied and unconscious within the projector, himself/herself/itself.
The "grand synthesis" that is needed is the recognition/realization of the Non-Dual nature of the underlying Non-Dual Reality that we are and that we share.
We are One.
E Pluribus Unum needs to be translated/transformed to E Unum Pluribus -- from out of the many One, to out of the One many.
This is a vision, however, that need not only be limited to nationalistic beliefs but to universal knowledge/experience and what would be the re-orientation, re-structuring and re-organization of all systems, structures, and lives whether individually and collectively. It is the only way in which might salvage our lives and our planet. Otherwise, we are doomed, or more aptly we doom our selves in and by our ignorance and arrogance.
"God" -- or whatever term is chosen (if at all) for a universal Creator -- help us help our Selves (and each other) to this greater recognition/realization.
You are talking to white noise.
1
Last night, I was debating gun control vs. the 2nd amendment with a friend of mine, a Euro-American male who identifies as a Christian Conservative. He doesn't own a gun, and is anti-guns in general. We both agreed that although owning a gun was declared a right under the constitution, it was to protect the American people from a specific threat at a specific time in history. However, whereas, many liberals argue for a unilateral amendment to the 2nd amendment, my friend aptly pointed out that whereas the amendment was drafted mostly in response to the autocratic rule of the British, any gun control law or amendment should include constitutional assurances to those expected to lay down their guns that no other government, especially that of the United States, will ever be able to infringe on the individual rights that the amendment was written to protect in the first place. And, as we have seen since the last election, government, even a democratically elected one, can go rogue quickly and unexpectedly.
I'm for the individual rights of the shootee - aka life itself - over the "individual rights" of the shooter - aka the person who shoots to harm or kill. There needs to be a reason, and all too often it is anger or disrespect for the lives of others.
1
Mr. Brooks:
I normally agree with you, but I can't on this issue. By your logic, if the identity of disenfranchised red-state middle Americans were manifested by witch-burnings, the only solution would be to wait for some socio-polical meeting of the minds, or as you put it, a new synthesis or consensus. This makes no sense. The time is now. This problem can be regulated within the terms of the Second Amendment.
5
Yeah, but work on some incremental change as part of moving toward grander synthesis. The two are not mutually exclusive.
A war on guns would be about as successful as the war on drugs, turning otherwise law-abiding citizens into de facto criminals, and, most likely, would not have much of an effect on white gun owners, rich and poor. Nevertheless, banning the sale and possession of killing machines like the AR-15 and AK-47 is the only sane thing to do. While they are not the weapon of choice in most murders, they are the most lethal. We need to couple gun laws with information campaigns like the one against smoking. While cigarettes remain legal, fewer and fewer people smoke. Kids who once routinely smoked their parents' brand, never picked up the habit. So it should be with guns. Most likely people who own guns had parents who owned guns. Reach out to kids before they get the habit and you can start to break the cycle.
2
OK - a few wild and crazy thoughts:
The US military could also buy and stock up a great deal of that military ammo for use for their own weapons (there were actually reports or rumors a few years ago they were doing just that) to keep it off the market. After all, an unloaded weapon is of little use except as an expensive way to club someone. Maybe that's the way to do this: cause a shortage in ammo. Do you need a gun license to just buy a box of ammo? If not, everyone could buy it and cause a shortage of ammo and also drive the price of it off the charts. And yes, unfortunately, the bullet makers would profit in the short term but it would cost them money in the long term. It's admittedly a wild and crazy idea but would people buy these high powered weapons if the ammo is very hard to come by or very expensive due to shortages? Clearly the Republican majority Congress isn't going to do anything to change any gun laws anytime soon.
Guns are a proxy for something else all right. Sure, own a gun for hunting, or to protect your home if you feel you need one and are trained to use it. But semi automatic weapons that are made to kill many people quickly are in truth masturbatory tools. Let's call them what they are; sex toys. Maybe then we'll show a little modesty about flaunting them, embarrassment instead of pride in ownership.
5
Brooks has it wrong. Read this for a far more rational and scientific analysis of the reasons. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-the-majority-keeps-losing-on.... Brooks is relying too much on his pseudo sociological rural americans under assault mindset. This is an example of hugely excessive influence of a minority, not what "Americans" as a whole want.
3
We need to repeal the second amendment. It is obsolete, there's nothing more to say.
3
Guns, God, and Puritans. Its origin goes back further than 1791, or 1620, or even 1492—it goes all the way back to 26 ACE and the transformation of Jesus the carpenter into Jesus the Christ, when his ministry of evangelistic monotheism was first born. Monotheism projects its shadow behaviors into the world rather than owning them in the psyche, and then makes those shadows into evils that must be feared and defended against—with guns. The bigger the better. Monotheism is a simplistic form of psychology where there is only one right way to be in the world—like Jesus; otherwise you are Satan. Whereas paganism is an advanced form of psychology where there are many ways of being in the world, all equally valid, forming a vast social web of psychological diversity. There is a reason we say the “kingdom of heaven” and not the “democracy of heaven.” Where there is One there will always be Other, but where the are Many there can only be More. The problem for paganism is the same as for democracy: it requires a mature psyche the way a democracy requires a mature citizenry in order to work responsibly. Without psychological maturity, paganism dissolves into hedonism, chaos, and barbarity—just as without civic maturity democracy dissolves into venality, hypocrisy, and incompetence. In other words:
Trumpism.
Guns have neither soul or values, period.
2
Sounds like you're trying to say people are scared, and cling to symbolic values that might make them feel better.
Very well. But only some people choose guns as the magical agents. The collective result of these individual decisions is that we are now awash in killing machines. It would be alright if they left these guns on the altar. But they seems to spring free with ease. Mass killings account for a small portion of the total. But it's unlikely these disaffected loners would have been able to attain their arsenals with such ease and make their plans in privacy if we did not have such a high tolerance of guns.
Help them figure out some other totems that succor their internal demons without killing the rest of us. Not to mention their own families and loved ones, a toll the gun ownership advocates never quite get around to addressing.
2
The movies people watch are a big reason why Americans are so infatuated with guns. Problems are solved by killing people.
2
Our love of guns is one of the most blaring self imposed sources of damage to our country, not only in human lives but at the expense of our standing as a leader in the world. Our refusal to address Gun Control head on, challenges our ability to speak with integrity, our role and the positions we take when we impose ourselves on the world stage. I would like to reference an opinion piece in the WP that offers an overall perspective of our countries current political situation with a satirical eye from the rest of the world. It says volumes regarding who we are and how easy it is to perceive American society and it's leadership as ignorant, self serving and hypocritical. Perhaps if we were able to start looking at ourselves outside of our own self centered view, we might be better prepared to change. Take a look and call me out if you disagree. I am open to debate. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/10/06/what-i...
1
One mistake made by those trying to understand gun ownership is the failure to note that there are two broad groups of gun owners. Rural people have for generations owned the guns they need to use in their lives. That primarily involves protecting family and livestock from feral animals, being able to end suffering of wounded or sick animals, and hunting for food. Before anyone jumps into defending wolves, it is more likely to be rattlesnakes, porcupines, and skunks that are a threat, plus rabid animals. So people like myself own guns because they are tool we need from time to time. That is an entire world away from the gun fanatics that have developed over the last 30 years or so. Those are people who have turned Ruby Ridge into a rallying cry to defend themselves from the federal government. Hence the large increase in gun sellers, gun ranges, and militias. And that has grown into a movement that includes survivalists and white supremacists. And of course, others have armed themselves to protect against that group. But it would be really helpful if people who crunch numbers could be a bit discerning, as all gun owners are far from alike, and it would be useful to know how many Americans are stockpiling weapons toward a violent future instead of lumping everyone who owns a gun together. The NRA sells fear to the fanatics, not to rural people who only rarely need to get a new weapon.
1
The "grand synthesis" that the progressives, populists and Roosevelt created at the turn of the century was effective because it was built, in part, on white supremacy including the exclusion of people of color from public life, ramped up fears of immigrants and violent oppression of African Americans. The examples of this are numerous: lynchings, Jim Crow and KKK membership rose, immigration was restricted by national origin, Federal government employment was segregated. Even the intended benevolence of organizations such as the settlement houses was motivated by intentions to strip immigrants of their ethnic identities and "teach them how to be Americans." Rather than an example of how we might overcome our current great divide, the changes at the beginning of the 20th century should be viewed as warnings of the dangerously wrong direction we could head down again.
The embrace of corporate interests and priorities by the Supreme Court vis a vis Citizens United is the elephant in the room.
2
There have been quite a few comments suggesting a requirement to buy liability insurance if you own a firearm. This is on the right track, at least to help fix part of the problems with our gun fetish, but not exactly right.
As Stephens pointed out in his column yesterday, more often than not guns seized in criminal investigations are not in the possession of their legal owners. Requiring insurance doesn't do much with this, but mandating that a gun owner is legally liable for crimes committed with a gun they own would. If that were the case, firearm liability insurance would "jump off the shelf," and we would see a drastic reduction in both "mystery" guns that wind up used in criminal activity, as well as accidents caused by slack or incompetent owners that don't use common sense storage and safety methods.
For example, premiums for the policies would be cheaper for a gun owner that has a quality gun safe, and that uses it. This would also go a long way to closing the "gun show loophole" (i.e. P to P gun sale) because a person would have to be pretty dumb to sell a gun registered to them "off the books," with no record of the sale to remove their liability risk.
2
We may not be able to limit the number of guns per individual but we certainly can limit (not eliminate) the amount of harm a single gun can cause when fired by a crazed individual. The idea that banning semi-automatic weapons would make no difference in gun violence is ridiculous. We don't allow individuals to carry around rocket launched grenades, bazookas, or nuclear weapons? Obviously, reducing gun violence in society is much more complex, but for now, practical steps can be taken to lessen the harm that one crazed individual can cause. Isn't saving even one life worth it?
. . .and what can help end this culture war is education in all its' various forms: history, science, the arts, study of all religious thought, philosophy. . . once people know and are exposed to other ways of perceiving the world around them they can make common cause.
Education. Education. Education. Broad spectrum.
The current October, 2017 issue of Scientific American has an article entitled "Journey to Gunland" which provides statistic evidence that having more firearms in our society does not keep people safe nor reduce crime.
The old mantra of "Don't confuse me with facts. My mind is made up" seems to apply. Or, as a stanza from an old Paul Simon song stated, "People believe what they want to believe and disregard the rest".
I've known a number of people who kept a loaded gun in their homes "for protection". Three of those people were murdered by a family member in the heat of a family dispute where the firearm was used to end an argument. The firearms didn't protect the victim from losing a dispute....
There are lots of responsible gun owners, but few of them have had any training in how to react to a stressful or dangerous situation. Too many (a minority or majority, I don't know) seem to have a "John Wayne" or "Marshall Dillon" fantasy that their firearms will keep them safe and help them prevent crime. I can count at least three dead people among them.
David I think you're thinking on this issue is too vague, too diffuse and too defeatist. I know you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it dance the tango, but are Americans as insusceptible to persuasion and resistant to reform as you suggest I wonder.
Let's focus on some key "facts". Firstly as I understand it only about 33% of Americans own a gun. So the US is 66% of the way to completely eradicating its gun problem already. No guns, no gun deaths. However nobody including me wants to ban all Americans from owning any guns, that's not right or fair, so what else can be done?
Well secondly as I also understand it 3% of Americans own 50% of the guns. This is highly suggestive to me that many individuals of this group have a highly fetishised regard for the 2nd Amendment, if not more severe psychological problems. No-one ought to be able to collect an arsenal. Could these people be subjected to greater attention from law enforcement and mental health authorities? And could they be limited to say a maximum of five guns? Are gun owners and how many guns they own registered? That could happen if it doesn't already.
Thirdly automatic weapons are banned so the 2nd amendment right to "bear arms" is already not absolute. That leaves scope for banning semi-automatic weapons, perhaps even handguns too. At least in and by some states. There are still other guns people could own for legitimate purposes allowing them to still "bear arms" according their 2nd amendment right.
2
Maybe 4 in 10 households own guns.
I'm quite sure 4 in 10 households don't have 47 guns.
1
Brooks says "The research doesn’t overwhelmingly support either side... on the other hand, there’s not much evidence that they would prevent many attacks." Maybe the research doesn't, but empirical evidence does. Australia passed strict gun ownership laws after shootings got out of hand, Now, deaths and injuries from guns are significantly down there. Stricter laws work in Europe, as well. He's right about American cultural norms, as was Obama, when he said people cling to their guns and religion in times of political uncertainty. But the argument that gun control laws don't save lives is unsupportable.
2
There was a piece on the NPR affiliate here in Arizona yesterday about the enormous influence the NRA exerts on elections, and how extensive and effective are their lobbyists. One example was a woman lobbyist in Florida who has gotten conservative representatives who support gun rights replaced with an even more tow- the- line person because the former objected to a small part of some pro-gun legislation because it would be hard to defend in a law suit. Florida has apparently some of the most lax laws on guns and is making their "stand your ground" bill even more supportive of people's right to shoot and kill others. This idea that "the NRA is not that big of an issue" astounds me. Have you seriously looked at the way they influence,and even write legislation? Or is the information we get in the NYT and other legitimate media not correct ?
I think there is plenty of evidence that other countries who regulate firearms, in particular Australia, that would indicate that stricter gun control laws do make a difference. Doctors and law enforcement also favor gun control and they certainly know much more about guns and their aftermath then the average American citizen.
Also the Supreme Court decision to extend to individuals what would have normally been a right exercised in community (a well-order militia) has also contributed to the problem. I am familiar with two colonial-era established towns that still utilize a militia based on the the original concepts. Let's just say that the, mostly men, knew/know each other in these militias and would have been able to spot someone who was unbalanced. The shooter in the Las Vegas from what I've read was not someone who participated in community in any meaningful way -- unless you consider the corner of the casino away from the smokers and playing one-arm bandit as a form of community.
As with our political parties, we need a third option. Group one believes in responsilble ownership of non-assault weapons. For hunting, for self-defense, for recreation.
Group two believes that having a gun is more dangerous than not having one. To each his own.
Group three includes the NRA and people who honestly believe the founding fathers would want them to have unlimited numbers of assault weapons and ammunition. They believe their right to this trumps anyone else's right to life itself. All sane people need to unite against this group, especially law enforcement, who are most at risk from being outgunned.
2
Brooks ignores the fact that many of the same trends affecting the US "culture wars" are also taking place in other countries around the world, and those same countries have sensible gun laws and almost no mass shootings whatsoever. Now, maybe you want to say that American culture is intrinsically more violent than these other cultures, and that may be true. But if so, then replacing guns in America with knives or fists will greatly reduce the death toll from that violent culture.
2
The NRA is as much a lobby for angry, hard-right, and white America as it is a lobby for firearm manufacturers. One need only look at the content they generate to arrive at this conclusion. They have been wildly successful in making guns a "last-stand" symbol of power for white populations in economic and moral decline. Hence the irrationality of their stance on the most basic and common-sense gun control measures. Without their guns, they feel themselves to be even more lost and powerless in the face of racial, social and demographic changes they simply can't control. To be clear, there are of course plenty of highly rational, non-racist gun owners but to have a conversation about gun control in America without talking about race is naive and silly.
1
"The smarter a person is, the greater his or her ability to rationalize and reinterpret discordant information". You have it exactly backwards - smart people almost by definition can modify their views to incorporate new information. You are, unsurprisingly, confusing smarts with glibness.
3
So, are we goinmg to un-gun the U.S.? Isn't that one of the real "fears" gun owners face? Obama, Hillary, Nancy, Chuck, whoever are going to "take our guns away!" How to reduce the fear-mongering, racial divisions, and class animosity are one way. That will take decades and a change (or two) in generations.
Brooks, John McCain received over $7 million in contributions from the NRA over the years. Numbers for other Senators are similarly shocking. Senator Burr has received nearly $7 million.
Minuscule?
2
The reason that mass shootings result in laws expanding gun ownership is because progressives immediately call for taking away those rights as a means of preventing such things from happening. When politicians stop this knee jerk reaction to limit gun right and focus on implementing law that make sense, perhaps these events will be fewer and farther between. The proof that many of these laws are ineffective is born out by statistics on violent cities like Chicago and NOLA who have prohibitive gun control laws and yet they have done nothing to stop the carnage.
I think Brooks just gave a shout out to Franklin Roosevelt...."Meanwhile, the progressives cleaned up elite corruption and nurtured a square deal for those being left behind by technological change." I must be in an alternative universe.
We needed a Roosevelt...we got a Trump.
3
Why do many want to own guns? Sometimes it is for self-defense, despite the dubious belief that possessing a gun does confer self-defense, a fascination for and a connection with a (mythological) American past, a fear for one's safety, it defies outside/external authority, a sense of superiority or potential domination or control over one or more others.
What is the fascination with guns that possesses some Americans? The sense of power, a heightened sense of assertive or aggressive capability, for sport as in target shooting, for hunting.
Guns serve lots of purposes, and there are many reasons many Americans own one or more of them. Reasons are predominantly psychological and sometimes real or logical.
Are guns, their possession and ownership, and their use, a part of Americans genetic makeup? Perhaps, or yes for some.
Is it possible to control gun ownership, use, possession, and murderous potential? No, not substantially.
Get use to it America, events such as Las Vegas, Orlando, San Bernardino, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Colorado, Columbine High School, and on and on and on are the results of the choices we have made allowing (and encouraging) the possession, ownership, and use of guns of all kinds. Whether it is days, weeks, or months from now, other mass shootings will take place. Unless we decide that we no longer want to be thought of as a culture and a society that glorifies guns and that which is associated with guns; nourishes the glorification and American-ness of guns.
22
I'm never going to get used to, the vast majority of other Americans who don't own guns aren't going to get used to it; international students, tourists and business people aren't going to get used to. And this was not the norm during three quarters of the twentieth century. Also, no one outside the military used to have the high power weapons seen today back in the 1940s, 1950, 1960s or even 1970s. Most police officers including the NYPD only carried revolvers prior to the 1990s and Chicago police didn't start routinely wearing body armor prior to the 2000s.
For those who want to take their country back, who elected politicians to do that implying they long for the US as it was post-War in the late 1940s, the 1950s, I've got some news for them: there was not gun violence everywhere or high power weaponry to buy back then. High power weaponry was unavailable to the general public. If you lived in a big city, getting robbed or burglarized by someone with revolver is what you had to fear the most. No one worried about anything happening to them at a concert or a sports stadium (no security checks back then), or in airports (no security checks in airports prior to the 1970s after some hijackings). People still left their doors and cars unlocked well into the 1970s in many places except cities like NYC. For anyone born before 1980, they grew up in a relatively safe US and didn't worry about being a victim of gun violence. This still wasn't normal in the 1980s or early '90s.
There have been 273 mass shooting so far this year:
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-many-mass-shootings-in-america-las-ve...
We are on day 278 of the calendar year.
This is not normal.
What happened to the idea that your your right to swing your arms freely ends at the tip of my nose?
What about the rights of the nearly 600 people who were shot in Las Vegas Sunday night in 10 minutes?
Shouldn't the rights of nearly 600 Americans have some consideration?
5
I know, it's a twisted joke, but we need guns like we need another hole in our head. The gatherer hunter group say they need guns to survive, the sportsman needs guns, well, just for the heck of it. And then there's those who have an extreme obsession when it comes to guns. That alone should make one a bit squeamish. A love of guns? Really? Well, who are the rest of us Americans to argue with that logic, huh? Obviously no one is going to convince them one darn bit to do anything about giving up their guns. Heck, these folks thought President Obama and Hillary were coming to everyone of their houses to take their guns away from them. Good grief.
DD
Manhattan
3
The problems we face with the gun control, or not issue - is we lump all our societal ills into the arguments. Plus we allow the extremists on both sides to run the theater.
Add that both sides are rife with their straw man tactics, a rational discussion never has a chance. After a thing like Vegas, someone says, "no one should be able to buy a semi-auto gun." The gun advocate then immediately says, "oh you want to lump all gun owners into being like this nut!"
The anti side makes a statement, that begs answering. Why? That the pro side avoids by making it an all gun owner sanity case. And then it spirals out of control.
We need, we must discuss the rationality and need for assualt style guns, the actual sporting uses of the other gun types, the actual work related uses, and those types (law enforcement, ranching, farming, etc).
Then approach the criminal issues, the accident issues, the domestic abuse issues, the suicide issues, etc.
None of which can be fixed in one fell swoop, the end result of which is usually looser laws, totally ineffective legislation, or nothing at all.
But nuanced discussion and debate escapes most Americans, and seems to have no hold whatsoever in Washington, and certainly not in this White House.
We must demand some rationality be infused into the discussions, as well as take the rhetoric control away from the extremists on both sides.
1
A good article to read, because it looks at NRA contributions over a Congress member's career--a better measure of influence than just looking at annual contributions: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/04/opinion/thoughts-prayers-...
The staggering reality is many people are shunning the US for vacation for fear of everday gun violence but also because of the high cost of increasing premiums for medical insurance. if you are not prepared, each are capable of suddenly changing family fun forever.
2
I would be surprised if we are not on most countries “travel warnings” lists.
2
Social media, actual fake news, or maybe better termed as false rumors, that led to Trump being elected, led to loosening gun laws. Too many Americans believe what they see on facebook, from who knows who, is more trustworthy than CNN, NBC or NYT.
2
Who knows? There are two types of people who write news; those who write news with bias, and liars. Since most news sources that claim to be purely objective (i.e CNN) are usually left-leaning, why should somebody that would want to vote for trump only listen to them? Fake news is something else, because simply claiming that somebody is saying "fake news" I shouldn't, as a reasonable person, simply take your word for it.
I think that one of the more notable differences between news sources and social media sources is that social media sources aren't out to make money, and raw footage (unedited) tends to have a clearer line between what happened, and what didn't happen, which basically removes the possibility of "cherry picking" or the concept that you can only show select parts to convince them of something that didn't happen by using select sources. Aka a red herring.
1
Politicians have fanned the flames of fear and loathing for their own personal gain since the beginning of our democracy. The result is violence and hatred. How we raise the level of our political discourse is the real issue.
I need to fix a typo in the title:
Guns and the Soul of America ===> Guns Are the Soul of America
2
I agree with Brooks, Many pro-gun people get extreme because this is their identity, They very well know the dangers of Gun, but this is like being naked like, without Gun, they can't breath, They knew very well more gun equal more deaths and they accept cost.
The problem is almost 50% of population repulsed by this cost which is our lives. But we are obliged to live under tyranny of NRA and its ideology in this country.
Gun is an ideology , not and issue anymore.
1
I don't own a gun. I support the right of others to own a gun ... or guns. Determining how that right is applied will be, I believe, an ongoing exercise in democracy.
While I agree with premise of Mr. Brook's article - that the gun debate is more a culture war - I question the subtle, benign, almost sanguine equivalency at work.
No, both sides of this debate - or "war," if you like - are not equal. They do not possess equally valid points of view and deserve equal consideration. No.
I thought the slaughter of children at Sandy Hook might be enough to shatter the myth of equivalent points of view. It wasn't. In the matter of gun violence and mass killings in America, there is no urbane, intellectually probing discussion to be had. One point of view seeks to protect lives by controlling means used to kill them. The other point of view accepts slaughter as the cost of citizenship. I find this wicked.
There are not enough Marlboro Man, Dirty Harry and John McClain tropes and types to justify laws tolerating machine guns mowing down children in schools and concert-goers enjoying the night sky.
Cambodia had a culture war, once. One side wanted to live their lives. The other side slaughtered in the service of a pure agenda. Skulls were stacked. There was no equivalency to be teased out between life and agenda. Nothing quite so subtle as that.
There is no subtlety here.
2
David, the "grand synthesis" already exists. It is called "liberalism." Theodore Roosevelt was a progressive. Leftists in the progressive movement called BOTH Roosevelts "liberals" because they were capitalist reformers, not "leftists." Liberalism is market capitalism that is regulated and provides enough social programs to maintain human dignity and opportunity. The grand synthesis, which held during the era when American was "great," was destroyed by the conservative revolution you joined in the 1980s. Help us build that synthesis again. Stop attacking liberals for standing for policies you now acknowledge have been needed all along.
1
So why is the solution (in your opinion) to look at what David has to say, and then keep pushing for what you want without room for compromise? A synthesis is a combination; not what you want, not what I want, but rather what everybody wants if we expect to get things done. In the same amount of time it took you to argue that Roosevelt brought about a "great" time and wee need more liberalism, somebody else can argue that Reagan was the best president and we need more conservatives.
TL;DR If we want to get things done, then why should we go along with what one side wants; completely disregarding the other? To get things done, we need to reach out to moderates and include what both sides want, in lieu of looking to the far ends of the spectrum and trying to get what they want.
There will be no grand synthesis. That would require intellectual and emotional honesty, as well as a vast reduction in "magical thinking", as one commentator observed. No, change will come when young people and people of color vote in overwhelming numbers. This will take many years to unfold. Meanwhile, my boomer generation will melt into the ground.This will mean less religiosity, less demonization, less hypocrisy, less racism, less sexism. The only solution possible is the generational turnover that is now in process. We just have to prevent Sinclair "News" from brainwashing the tender new shoots sprouting in the hinterlands before they find out how pleasant life could be with a European-style safety net.
2
Gun ownership has become the ultimate personal liberty without the burden of civic responsibility. In the states where community support of issues for the common good is the weakest (i.e., I've got mine, yours is your problem), not surprisingly, interest in requiring responsible gun ownership is low as well.
Before we can operate another technology with the potential to kill many people (automobiles), we're required to have supervised learning, written tests and demonstrations of safe competence before we can legally drive. It won't guarantee that some people will not drive illegally or irresponsibly, but we still expect such certification of competence to be honored.
No such requirement for safe competence exists for firearms. Yes, in some states you need to go through a gun safety course, but there is no pass/fail other than showing up and staying awake. I think we should require more in that regard, including safe use and basic first aid, as a realization of the "well-regulated militia" clause.
However, that could eat into gun sales - so not much chance of that idea progressing.
1
Growing up in the 1950's, guns were prominent in my home...for hunting season. Amazing how the worshipping of guns has become such a large part of our lives.
1
"Gun control proposals...there’s not much evidence that they would prevent many attacks."
You might want to ask the people of Australia about that.
4
Except those are gun **control** proposals. Australia has gun **confiscation**. Control limits; Confiscation takes away.
Let me point out that (mechanical) watches and (mechanical) guns are the two most sophisticated inventions of mankind. This should also be kept in mind while discussing the gun problems the founding fathers of our US of A unintentionally created.
It would be helpful if the discussion about guns be specific.
Few people believe that the ownership of semi-automatic weapons should NOT be controlled through legislation.
Most sane Americans agree with the idea that just as their are limits to free speech and a free press, there are limits to gun use, and that such limits can be legislated.
Why, in light of these observable facts, cannot Congress fashion legislation that bans the sale to untrained legions of people of weapons meant to kill, maim or wound on a battlefield? Why is it that reasonable public officials can't decide for themselves that people ought not to be able to buy tons of bullets? Who in their right mind thinks it is a good idea to allow people who are mentally ill, or are listed on a do not fly terrorist lists, to purchase guns?
Finally, who among Americans believe that there should be no objective, scientific research on guns and violence? Who among us apparently believe that no one should be prevented from purchasing weapons at unregulated gun shows or online?
The answer . . . the indisputable answer . . . is today's Republican Party.
1
Except these "republicans" you mention surely cannot be the same republicans that tried to vote in a bill that would give the government the ability to block people on the terrorist watch list from buying guns?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/20/the-senate-wil... #3
Can I see your evidence as to where people buy illegal guns through guns shows? Clinton's "40%" claim came from a study in 1994 that surveyed a measly ~260 people (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/10/16/clintons-... I'm all in favor of scientific research as you are, except we should prioritize what is accurate first; not what holds up to our standards. While not necessarily training; here in Ohio, you are required to go through 8 hours of training before you can have a concealed carry permit, which I would not go as far as to claim "untrained"
God forbid someone be slightly inconvenienced when they buy guns or ammo capable of killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds more. Taking a test, or having a license, or registering their guns would be way too much of a burden. After all, we don't do that when it comes to driving. Oh wait, yes we do.
3
Innocent people die in wars. They are acceptable losses in service of the principles over which the war is being waged. The current culture war is no exception.
Please read the Geneva Conventions. The international community does not consider it acceptable to target civilians.
2
Same folks who are saying , like the CBS lawyer who enunciated that slain country music lovers, since they were no doubt Republicans, well it was good enough for them,and the MSNBC news reader who expressed the same lack of compassion for Steve Scalise, victim, now recovered, from an assassination attempt by a Dem. party precinct captain, r now blaming Paddock's action on the G0P and the NRA? Don't believe shooter had any affiliation to either NRA or a political party.Is this not a "faux fuyant," a red herring, and that the real issue in the country is the ever widening gap between haves and have nots, hatred of left for anyone who disagrees with its agenda.?Urge EB to run my comments on his column which are laudatory but also enlightening for your readers in that I put the actions of Mr.Paddock in the context of other atrocities in the world, existential, far worse if that is possible.
Guns for many Americans are "an identity marker. It stands for freedom, self-reliance and the ability to control your own destiny."
Well how come hundreds of millions of citizens in dozens of other countries don't think carrying guns stands for freedom and self reliance? Why haven't they fallen for this propaganda, but instead support gun safety laws that allow them to walk around without fear of being shot?
This American warped view has been encouraged by a US public relations campaign by the gun lobby and politicians who's careers the lobby subsidizes. They've accomplished the portryal of easy access to weapons of murder as a positive thing. It's part of their demonization of govt itself as a tyrannical intrusion into private rights that the Gop uses to increase corporate profits.
The countries with strict gun laws that allow their citizens to live out their life spans don't turn their elections over to corporate donors. An obvious connection.
Mr. Brooks will write morally outraged columns continually, but steer clear of ever grappling with the underlying factor that makes the US gun death rate the world's highest among advanced nations. The same underlying $$$ factor that blocks the US from true universal health care, generations behind other nations.
1
I find the defenders of the NRA like the defenders of slavery: ignorant and arrogant.
Luckily, the NRA will be relegated to the dustbin of history, maybe not soon enough, but inevitably.
4
Mr. Brooks, you undervalue the importance of surveys showing that the great majority of Americans favor specific gun control measures. Many who say they do not favor additional restrictions are simply unaware that the reasonable restrictions they support are not already in place (or are not enforced): https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violen...
As for the amount spent by the NRA and friends to buy Congressional support: It is not miniscule. It is a huge amount of money--and it is disingenuous to compare the total spent on this single issue to larger campaign contribution sources which tend to aim at multiple issues.
5
This morning I googled polls on gun control - they seem to contradict your summary of the Pew poll of 2016. See, http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/20/politics/cnn-gun-poll/index.html, http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/02/politics/gun-control-polling-las-vegas-sho..., http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/data-watch/sd-me-vegas-shooting..., for examples.
I agree that as a nation we need to come together, hippie and redneck, around something clean and profound. I strongly support a nationwide effort to address climate change, involving hiring people, redneck, hippie, white, nonwhite, to insulate buildings, clean up and recycle plastic debris, and other scalable technologies that can actually make a difference. We are all in this together.
3
As I was reading your article (very incisive, by the way), an advertisement appeared on the right side of the column selling life-like replicas of actual semi-automatic rifles.
I would say the gigantic, insidious, and pervasive marketing industry we have now has something to do with the explosion of guns in this country, too.
4
One of the myths I hear expressed often in these comments is that (us) gun owners are prepared to come to the rescue when another person is threatened by a person with a gun. That we'll go after a shooter, substituting for a LEO in a time of crisis. Not really. Most people carry for the protection of themselves and their family. They will run, duck and cover with everyone else and will not resort to using a gun unless it becomes necessary to save themselves. The safety of the public? Sorry, you're on your own. We're looking out for number one, and our family/friends. We don't consider ourselves to be the sheriff riding to your rescue.
3
"a well regulated Militia" indeed. To push sound bite proponents of the 2nd Amendment further, if a white advocate had dared brandish a weapon in defence, they would have immediately been a suspect, definitely arrested, and quite possibly killed regardless of their innocence. If they were black or middle eastern, just killed. Not surprised no one acted, they were really scared like people without guns in this situation.
3
The other thing is (as expressed by members of one gun toting music band in Las Vegas who left their weapons in their bus), they were afraid to pull them out for fear the police would mistake them for the shooter. Most police departs grappling with a live shooting event would more likely shoot at any civilian with an unholstered gun if they were aiming it, and ask questions later rather than assume they were helping out. If lots of armed people tried to help there would probably wind up being a lot of friendly fire casualties.
No-one, including the police, had a target to shoot at in this instance, hence no need to draw a gun.
I agree 100%. "Guns are a proxy for something larger".
It's been increasingly clear to the 6 out of 10 people who do NOT own guns, that the majority of Americans do not have any ability to try to get this country's gun laws changed to protect them. Just as the Republican Party in general is beholden to the oil and gas industry and mining industries and all these industry's rich supporters,who want to loosen all environmental regulations as well as reducing protection of protected lands, the same can be said of the companies that manufacture guns and ammunition - public safety be damned. The majority of people are also terrorized by the minority of people who open carry large semi-automatic military weapons they don't know if that person is going to suddenly start shooting.
In terms of being safe from becoming a victim of gun violence there are very few public places anyone can go anymore and not worry that some mad person might start shooting: only some government and office buildings with metal detectors, only areas in airports after you pass through security (but not baggage claim, as travelers at Fort Lauderdale Int'l airport learned), stadiums and colosseums with metal detectors,some amusement parks including Disney theme parks which now have security checks,and a few shopping centers with metal detectors. To be safe from gun violence, since Congress has repeatedly failed us, there is no option left but to move to Canada, anywhere in Europe, Iceland, Australia,New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, and other small island nations.
6
Gun advocates have made it clear they have no interest in gun control. We need to change the debate from controlling guns to who pays for the damage guns cause. Why should all Americans have to pay the costs of gun violence? Gun owners should be required to purchase annual no fault insurance that provides the pool of funds to pay for the medical costs of those injured by gun violence. Let the free market, and gun owners, figure out how to reduce their insurance costs.
5
Mr. Brooks completely misses that right after that survey in 2000 where only 67% of Americans wanted more gun control, we had 9/11. Pretty certain that's got more to do with the rise in fear that drives people to think guns will make us safer. Much more likely than anything like 'postindustrialization'. Osama bin Laden did quite a number on us.
4
"So why are lawmakers responding to mass killings by loosening gun laws? The wrong answer is that the N.R.A. is this maliciously powerful force that controls legislators through campaign dollars. "
Seriously David?
5
There is a grand synthesis already to the populism rising against elitism in this country and the ordinary people who right now vote red but who could be persuaded to vote differently if the saw something different: Bernie Sanders and the leftist populists. Brooks has dismissed them high-handedly a bunch of times, and they do not always show us numbers that add up. But they, as opposed to the reactionary populist in the White House, are democrats of the people, for the people, and not out to steal from the people.
4
My fellow Americans - please stop shooting each other. You are all simply too beautiful to lose this way.
1
Wow. Mr. Brooks has spent considerable time as of late denying GOP affiliation with recent negative political trends. It's not the Democrats that stand up at their conventions and hold that flintlock above their heads. Its not the Democrats that invites and include NRA sponsored planks in their party platform. Its not the Democrats that provide a NRA approved litmus test for their SCOTUS nominees. Just yesterday NRA donations donations broken out by party were released with $6M going to GOP and $100K going to democrats. No Mr. Brooks just like Trump, the NRA is your cross to bear. The deaths of over 30,000 people a year is on you.
7
Mr. Brooks contends that the NRA is but a drop in the bucket of overall campaign contributions but what matters is the buckets into which that money drops. State pols receive money too and a little can go a long way. NRA also helps states write legislation similar to what ALEC did. He lets the GOP congress off too easy. Legislation to restrict gun sales to the mentally ill, money to fund treatment for the mentally ill, restricting the sale of weaponry, such as silencers and certain types of ammo, often has general support among Americans. Yet, the GOP congress passes bills to makes guns more available and offers up healthcare legislation which would put millions of Americans off the healthcare rolls. I agree that the culture wars are really ramped up but they are not going away and Brooks does a disservice when he says that the gun issue can't be addressed because of the wars. It's an excuse along the lines of "it's too soon to talk about gun violence.." or, especially if it's a white man, "just a lone wolf, nothing we could have done...". There is more to gun violence than just mass shootings--child deaths in the home, suicide and murder-suicide, gang and domestic violence, weapons in the hands of criminals, etc.
5
Another column on guns that gets the core cultural idea correct but disingenuously downplays the role of the NRA. Why does nearly every conservative pundit feel the need to do this? If guns are the religion, then the NRA is the fire and brimstone preacher as well as the theological enforcer. The organization has dispatched plenty of politicians who chose not to do their bidding. And they appear to be leading many in America to our own, personal Jonestown massacres.
8
I live in a rural area where guns and gun rights are the main thing voters think of when they vote (and many of them don't even bother).They do this while they lose government subsidized child care so single mothers can work;while they are unable to afford health care;where the infrastructure around them is crumbling;where they can't afford even a junior college education while the public schools around them become insolvent.And yet when they are faced with healthcare emergencies or massive fires or the threat of floods,they come running to tax supported agencies to save them.They can't shoot at these problems.Most of the people I know who are obsessed with their gun rights are not at all "tough enough and responsible enough to stand up for themselves".In fact they are some of the least responsible people I know if being responsible for the welfare of your family is the measure.These poor souls are screwing themselves over while blaming "big government." As for the more affluent areas.....people are buying guns out of a fear perpetuated by the NRA...the idea that having guns can save their lives.This didn't work out too well in Las Vegas last weekend.It won't be to long before they'll be shooting at each other.The real problem is unreasonable fear not values David.
10
I think Im a good synthesis of the two sides. I own 10 guns, believe very strongly in the concept of American, I feel more connected to being American that I do to being white, live in rural area, own a 4x4, and my favorite hobby is gold prospecting.
Gold prospecting and Pony Play. Thats because Im also an MIT-educated pansexual polyamorous transgender woman. I am also a business owning consultant who works in the marijuana industry.
Haha, no wonder Im an independent. I see the liberals and the conservatives making a fool out of themselves. The conservatives have always been clowns, but nowadays the liberals look equally ridiculous. The PC culture has gone too far, and this is a queer transwoman saying this. Its like those transgender men trying to change the Wellesley poem to say "siblinghood" instead of "sisterhood." When I read that I was like come on. If you want to be a man, you shouldnt be at a womans college.
Thats what Im tired of, being labelled a victim in the minds of liberals. Transgender people are not all victims. I carry a gun, if someone wants to make a victim out of me he is likely to become victimized.
Freedom may has its price, but that is not saying that the American public is willing to pay for it with "any" price. The erudite Peter Jennings, after decades of successful journalism, had said that Americans have yet to outgrow this "us versus them" mentality. WWII may have catalyzed the European nations, perhaps for at least half a century, to see themselves as "us versus us," what lessons have Americans learned to move beyond that? The interesting aftermath of the Las Vegas is not so much the amount of arsenals at the behest of one lunatic loner, but it was that this guy is pretty like, at least on the surface, your average American Joe. It's a fascinating psychological Catch-22 for the white Americans. We value privacy and freedom and are not very good at questioning our inner psyche. This makes it hard for any redemption on matters of "us versus us." Yet we have a schizophrenic over-reliance on appearance, the "us versus them" part, and we "react" accordingly. Owning guns is a preparation to "react." Passing gun legislation is an "act." The later requires some honesty about who we are, the "us versus us." WWII was an outlier statistics of all statistics, and it did make the Europeans do a lot of soul searching. The German exchange students in my high school all knew at least 3-5 languages. America resisted against this. The liberation of women and the 60's did not make the "us versus them" less, but more. Our best hope to "act" is in the new generations of voters.
1
"Four in 10 American households own guns." If so, then Six in 10 American households do not own guns. 60% is "landslide" territory in electoral politics.
11
"Progress on guns will be possible when the culture war subsides, but not before."
This is a distortion of a circular problem in that liberalizing gun laws causes cultural division just as cultural division influences gun laws. While 52% of people may support more gun rights and 40% of households have guns, I do not believe 52% of people support the right to own a multiple automatic machine guns or grenade launchers nor do 40% of homes have them.
Most of our mass shooting are done by white men with multiple military-style firearms. The Second Amendment was never meant to to give frustrated males the right to kill random strangers or their spouse's/partner's co-workers.
5
Republicans have no interest in having the culture wars subside. They are allies with the Alex Jones types. They nurture the extremes. And as long as the money's good, they will continue to encourage extremism.
5
A logical extension of the philosphy of those in favor of gun ownership leads to an outrangeous conclusion. If, as gun owners and the Republicans say, owning a gun is not only a right but is essential for self defense, why not make it mandatory that everyone over the age of 15 own at least one gun and carry it, concealed or openly, at all times? If gun owners in Ohio may now carry a gun with them, even at an airport, I am at a grossly unfair disadvantage if one of those gun carriers attacks me. I must have a gun to defend against others.
1
Unlike abortion, where you run up against the hard knot of when life beigns, there is room for reasoned debate on the issue of regulation of guns, if only the left could tamp down its emotions and patiently reason with the irrational right.
I wish we could destroy every gun outside a military or police arsenal in these United States, but with a gun for every single person living in this nation, over 300 million, ain't gonna happen. Guns last for centuries.
My father was a life time member of the NRA and I was a good skeet shooter and am comfortable with guns.
But neither of us would have any problem with tighter controls on guns. In our house guns were already more tightly controlled than any law required.
Neither of us ever had the folly to claim guns protected our house or made us safer at home. The home invader has a more powerful weapon than any gun you could reach for: surprise.
We can stop home gun deaths, kids shooting each other at home but likely no law will protect us perfectly against the lunatic. Bump stocks should be illegal, but don't delude yourself about the efficacy of making them illegal.
3
Why don’t home owners and renters property insurance policies require information on guns kept in the home? They should be considered a liability issue. All gun owners should be required to hold liability insurance against gun theft, accidents, and intentional injury. Policies should be priced by the number of guns owned. That might discourage hoarding of excess numbers of guns by disturbed individuals considering eliminating as many people as possible in a shooting binge at a crowded gathering. As for collectors, if you have that much disposable income, build a secure museum for your collection - or, better yet, come up with a different hobby that contributes to your community. The Constitution does not guarantee an individual’s right to purchase an unlimited number of firearms in my reading, and there should be reasonable limits.
3
Guns have been a part of American culture to the point where in the '60s the Houston Colt .45s , (later the Astros) played Major League Baseball in Colt stadium named after the gun maker and the NBA team in Baltimore was named the Bullets later to become the Washington Wizards. These name were not politically incorrect at the time.
1
While Mr. Brooks’ comments are indeed correct about the country being in the midst of a culture war, I have two problems.
1. You can’t solve a culture war overnight. People leap for gun control legislation after a massacre like this because it could potentially stop the next one immediately. It could, but we don’t try it. So while gun rights are part of a much larger conversation, it might be easier in the aftermath to focus on the immediate problems. (I.e., the Ford Pinto is a dangerous car...let’s get it off the road, not start philosophizing over why someone would want to drive one in the first place.)
2. Mr. Brooks underestimates the power of the NRA. While the lobbying wing of the NRA only uses a fraction of its money to sway politicians, it dumps millions into directly influencing the hearts and minds of its members. Guns wouldn’t be so “hardwired into our DNA,” if we didn’t have the NRA constantly pushing campaigns that tell us to believe so. Just look at its publication “America’s 1st Freedom,” which is all about the government coming after your gun rights. When Obama was president, NRA VP Wayne LaPierre had a dedicated column about all the recent political attempts to take away your guns...that simply weren’t true. Fear works, and it’s been using it for years.
The NRA likes promoting itself as The Lone Ranger, constantly thwarting gun control efforts, and it wants every American to think guns are the only way to maintain American ideals. I say this from experience
3
Forget gun control. There should be no guns. Period. We can do it. Under a conservative Prime Minister in Australia after a massacre in 1996 (with yearly ones for the previous decade) they made guns illegal. All were turned in and melted down. They have had no massacres since and the murder rate has dropped by half. There is still hunting: you have to check out your gun and check it back in after use. We should also have a police force without guns, only special forces. All military and police personnel are to check their guns back in after their shift. Again, we can do it. Australia did. Then we have to work on our "violent culture". Americans are confronted with violent movies, video games, and more.
3
It's ironic that in most (all?) of these massacres, Americans did not use their guns to defend themselves.
5
How is it all of a sudden a surprise that guns are an identity marker?
I'm a cosmopolitan gay man who has lived in Europe most of his adult life. I speak four languages and live for jazz festivals.
And I also lettered in riflery in high school and have a few pieces at my parents' house that I am happy to own. My first lesson with a handgun was on my 10th birthday. I'm for rigid gun laws, but am not freaked out by a pickup truck with a gun rack.
It's a standard "joke" I've been making for years. Because most don't associate a more equivocal stance towards firearms with the socially liberal urbanite they generally know me as.
It usually gets a laugh because it plays on all the broadly internalised points about gun v gay identities.
And it's getting old.. so tell me again, why is it a revelation that everyone uses guns as an identity marker?
1
Time for a reframing. If some emerging disease were taking out thousands of people each year, would we not declare a public health emergency? Would not the CDC, skilled in dealing with the likes of yellow fever, dengue and chikungunya, rush to contain the outbreak here and abroad?
With the gun violence taking out thousands each year, we have a chronic public health emergency. Neither gun control measures nor arming the good guys seems to work very well. We still have the undercurrent of domestic violence and gang turf wars silently killing lots of people each year, while the lunatic mass killings every few months make for spectacular shows.
And we stay stuck with arguing about gun rights versus gun controls, identity politics, and battling on the postindustrialism/populism front, going nowhere.
We need to be treating gun violence as a public health emergency, something that transcends politics, identity or otherwise.
That is why stifling research on gun violence is a really bad idea. We need research to help us get to better policy in this matter.
3
You can't take guns from Americans. It is a cultural sensation, I argue. Think of taking the swords away from Saudis!!
As a foreigner living in this country, I can only see a partial ban on automatic and semi automatic weapons for ordinary citizens possible but nothing else.
1
Where does this---the experience of an Armed Black Son of the Confederacy--- fit into your American mythos, Mister Brooks?
From the oral family history of a black great-great-grandson of the Confederacy:
" My 17-year-old brother, who was older than me, had been given permission to work for pocket money in the field of a near-by white farmer. One day, my brother came running back to our house. He yelled to our father that white men with shotguns were after him because someone accused him of hitting a white man.
My father, who always kept a revolver handy, stepped out into the yard. My mother and older brothers covered him with shotguns from inside the house.
When the truck showed up with 15 white men demanding he hand over my brother, my father calmly said," Before you kill me , 6 of you are going to die. Do you know which of you it will be? As for me, I believe today is a good day to die."
The white men thought about it for a few minutes, and then turned around and left."
"Progress on guns will be possible when the culture war subsides, but not before."
The sad fact is that the "culture war" makes good business sense and thus is not likely to go away any time soon. The left and the right are making money hand over fist. Why would they declare a truce? "Rednecks" and "hipsters" are at best fighting a proxy war for much larger moneyed interests.
All this talk about guns and freedom. Well nothing puts a more thorough damper on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness than a bullet through the head.
4
Nice article, though sometimes David likes to dive deep. in this case perhaps a little too deep. A couple points. 1. The NRA, while their money may be but a very small portion of the corrupting funds sloshing about our state and national reps budgets, the influence in the form of fear is real as is their funding of think tank pieces and legislative proposals placed on the desks of their bought politicians. They are also good at keeping themselves and their view in the news with a very good PR machine. 2. The reality is that we live in a modern society that has real ills but is no longer the wild west/individuals taking care of their own etc etc. The old world was also never that way either. You (we all?) can be individuals but also need each other today as much as ever.
Brooks wrongly dismisses the power of the NRA by pointing to their "minuscule" campaign contributions. But they don't have to actually contribute a lot to Republicans to get them to obey completely and cravenly - the NRA just has to use their access to money and single-issue voters as a threat. "Vote my way and I'll pay you" has become "vote my way and I WON'T throw my considerable weight behind one of your opponents." Not coincidentally, the latter is way more cost-effective for them.
Masters of threat don't actually have to carry out their threats often to get what they want. That doesn't make their power any less. How much free speech is chilled and silenced at the barrel of a gun, even when the gun doesn't get used? And how long will we, the people facing the guns, have to tolerate that?
70
I was just about to write in making the same point as SK, but he or she ably made it for me. Some people call our campaign finance system "legalized bribery," meaning contributions to candidate is the equivalent of bribing them to vote a certain way. It's actually more like "legalized extortion."
2
I would like to see the Second Amendment revisited. It was never intended that every individual have a weapon. So when we say 'gun rights' what are we talking about. We need to read history to know the reason for the Amendment.
1
It is interesting that the increase in gun ownership and support for first amendment rights over the past 10 - 15 years has coincided with several other cultural phenomenon. The explosion of the internet. The invention of the smart phone and subsequent social media usage that has spread across our country like a raging wild fire. With all of this, data that shows increases in individual isolation, loneliness, depression and anxiety. It appears a large swath of our country is hiding in fear, on all sides of the political and social spectrum. If we are not hiding then we are out attacking with words that cut at the soul. We fear what we don't understand and what we don't understand is convoluted by sound bites and 140 character expressions of "twitter truth". Instead of seeking Truth, many of us are content sitting in front of our computers or smart phones pontificating on half truths about what we believe the "other side" is doing. If we could just get out and encounter one another at a face to face level that respects the human dignity innate to us all, maybe many of us would not feel the need to possess weapons out of fear.
Imagine if after every major drunk driving accident in which multiple victims are killed, state legislators raised the allowable blood alcohol limits or allowed people to have open bottles in their cars, to make it easier drink while one drives. Making it easier to buy deadly weapons and carry them in public, is irresponsible in the extreme and Republican leaders need to recognize the damage they have done by allowing the NRA to control our gun policies.
4
Maybe you are right. I am certain that there has been a change in how we perceive one another. However, this theory doesn't mean we can't act to impact gun violence. Other countries have done so, and statistics show there is improvement. Is the politics different in these places? Probably. But again, I think we can find common ground on some common sense regulations that may well work to impact this society more deeply than just in numbers of guns. Perhaps agreeing that there is something that could help just one someone just might. We need leaders to lead in this way.
Agree it is a cultural issue--that is why I spend more and more time living abroad, in more advanced civilized countries who view our gun culture as absurd.
6
Gun violence and its subsequent death count are part and parcel of the American experience and this has been evident throughout your history as a nation. First of all your country emerged as an entity via a very bloody revolution which was essentially not about freedom but money - i.e. no tax without representation. Subsequent to this you killed thousands of native "Americans" in your land grab to further your quest for a stable economy i.e the basis of which is money. All the while a large part of your country enslaved hundreds of thousands of Africans to bolster that economy killing them perhaps not with guns but by lynching, raping, and other means. Wanting more land you started the Spanish - American war killing thousands more and you are "exceptional" among the nations of the world to embark in such a short period of time on the Civil War which killed hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens. You have been led to believe that civil war was about the evils of slavery when in fact it was essentially about money - the industrialized north fighting the agrarian south
In more modern times you instigated countless wars in the name of freedom which were in reality about the fear that communism would take away all your money once again killing (mostly by gun) hundred of thousands of innocent civilians, and combatants on both sides. More recently you have started wars or been culpable of killing more people (also by gun) in the Middle East - again for the same reason.
5
I think your whole argument is over-simplified, Mr. Brooks, and, though I disagree with you on many issues, I regard you as a careful thinker.
One example of oversimplification: "...we need another grand synthesis that can move us beyond the current divide, a synthesis that is neither redneck nor hipster but draws from both worlds." I am neither a redneck nor a hipster. Most people don't fall easily into such general categories.
Column suggestion: Let's explore the cultural trend of guns as status and entertainment.
5
I have read numerous opinion pieces over the last few days that state something to the effect "we know gun laws don't stop shootings". Really? Based on what? The data that the CDC and law enforcement are forbidden from collecting?
If the people who state "gun laws don't work" were serious they would allow investigation of what DOES work to reduce death. Then we can have a real conversation.
14
Finally an insightful balanced column from David Brooks that doesn't veer off into fantasy-land at the end. It is interesting how his columns conceive of the world as nothing more than stories, how a "new story" makes the world a completely different place. This is true to a degree, obviously, but there are such things as facts - economics, technology, geography, demographics - that can be more important than a "story."
But I'll give you this one, David. If you're going to tell us about nothing more than stories, make sure your story is as coherent and logical as it was this week.
3
Mr. Brooks makes a good point then sort of dismisses it. Guns are an element of the culture war and the culture war will intensify over time. This is becasue the liberal elites in places like New York, California, and Massachusetts keep trying the ram what they call their "values" down the throats of Middle America, about 85% of American by land area. Middle America finds their licentious "values" intolerable. They will not leave us alone and when they step on us we bite back.
1
I agree with the premise of your article that we need a new social vision in order to make progress on gun control. However, I think you are wrong to downplay the influence of the NRA on legislative bodies. Gun legislation passed Republican controlled state legislatures, as well as the Republican controlled Congress, is either written by the NRA or strict guidelines are provided legislators for writing legislation.
To think that money provided by the NRA doesn't influence votes in legislative bodies is naïve. The two Senators from my state of North Carolina have directly received or have had spent on their campaigns by the NRA an astounding total of $11,404,632. Don't tell me they are not going to vote the way the NRA wants on any piece of legislation.
4
One of the most chilling comments I have heard from gun owners interviewed recently is the "thrill" they feel when shooting an animal or firing one of the many high-rate of fire weapons.
Many proponents of guns cite self-defense or "sport" shooting or target practice. But many then go on to mention the raw rush of adrenaline they feel. I fear that this second effect is actually the main underlying driver of gun usage.
We don't "bear arms" as provided for by the 2nd Amendment in case we are called up to join a militia in defense of our country. We buy and use them because we love the feel of their power, we are obsessed, addicted to that burst of gut-churning charge of the moment.
It is not just the clinically defined mental defectives that need controlling, it is all of us who take up guns in search of one more hit of our drug of choice.
7
Mr. Brooks, you write, "Cultural leaders introduced new institutions and community forms . . . that drew from both cultures and replaced them. Today we need another grand synthesis[.]" Agreed! Such synthesis is in the spirit of A.J. Heschel's brand of responsibility, where "in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible."
Do you see areas in the culture where new institutions and community forms are gestating? If so, I wonder what they are and would love to learn more about them in a follow-up piece.
Many thanks, sir.
Maybe the underlying issue has more to do with capitalism. The message behind capitalism: let the buyer beware, get yours while you can, hoard and compound wealth, increase profit margins for the individual, look out for oneself, don't trust, do your due diligence. Maybe if our economic system was more inclusive, open and fair, perhaps many would feel less inclined to hoard guns.
1
To an otherwise lovely piece of writing I would only add a poem by Ted Hughes
Crow's Theology
Crow realized God loved him-
Otherwise, he would have dropped dead.
So that was proved.
Crow reclined, marvelling, on his heart-beat.
And he realized that God spoke Crow-
Just existing was His revelation.
But what Loved the stones and spoke stone?
They seemed to exist too.
And what spoke that strange silence
After his clamour of caws faded?
And what loved the shot-pellets
That dribbled from those strung-up mummifying crows?
What spoke the silence of lead?
Crow realized there were two Gods-
One of them much bigger than the other
Loving his enemies
And having all the weapons.
2
In other words: The gun problem really isn't about guns at all; we're talking about values and identity. That's a pretty bold statement. Post industry and culture? I feel like David Brooks is part way through the Ken Burns documentary "The West." American gun ownership isn't some vast tapestry of the American narrative. I've witnessed first hand the customer decision process.
A friend or co-walker introduces the idea as a known hobby. Maybe takes the buyer out for a trial run. This is the inception of the potential gun ownership. The buyer then goes home and starts doing some research. Maybe talks it over with a spouse. After a few searches, ads start popping up on the buyer's Facebook or wherever. The thought becomes contagious. The buyer finds him or herself increasingly engaged in the thought of gun ownership. He or she will increasingly converse the topic with a friend and begin to sell the idea to the spouse. How does all this work? These are all the great reasons why. Eventually the impulse to buy becomes overwhelming and the consumer makes the transaction.
You might replace the gun with a tennis racket and the process is pretty much the same. Unlike a gun though, a killer buying a tennis racket probably won't do much damage. The problem really is about guns specifically. What we need are gun owners willing to argue for their own regulation as responsible individuals. We need gun advocates to lobby for a definitive end to mass shootings. I've only heard silence.
1
I own a car. By law I am required to register the car and be legally licensed as a valid driver. Also, by law, I am required to purchase an insurance policy in order to legally use my car.
So far, thankfully, I have never killed anyone with my car.
Comparing these auto policies to our current gun policies, why don't we see the sanity in adopting similar programs for both? That is, after we've sanely passed laws that outlaw military style weapons for civilians as well as silencers, multi ammo magazines and rocket launchers.
5
I was born and raised in South Dakota. It is a state which has abundant hunting opportunities for game birds and animals. I hunt both. I was taught at a very young age about the lethality of guns; and how to handle all guns safely. I am now approaching 70-years-old.
Except for target shooting, there is no reason to own or use a handgun-unless one wants to maim or kill. Handguns are certainly not effective as a means of protection. A shotgun in one's home is a much more efficient and safer alternative against any threat from outside. As for AR-15's? Give me a break. No sportsman in his right mind would ever consider taking that military weapon on a deer hunt or an elk hunt or a moose hunt--if one happens to live in Alaska or Maine. Th AR-15 and its bullets are designed to maim--to crush bone, eviscerate flesh and veins and arteries--before the round moves on to the next victim. There is no reason in the world for civilians to have access to such weaponry.
12
What is most telling in Brooks' column is the feeling of powerlessness it leaves the reader with... along with the writer. I recently watched several UK-based crime series on Netflix: Luther, Hinterland, Shetland. In none of the series did the detective carry a gun. Having gotten used to American crime stories, I felt a vicarious sense of vulnerability when the hero entered a dangerous situation, unarmed. It even seemed unrealistic to me. Of course, that's becaus I am used to American culture where unarmed means unable to resist whatever evil threatens. I'm sure UK audiences did not have the same feeling I did, as they don't expect their detectives to be armed. The point of course is that our entire society teaches us the necessity and value of guns for self-protection and we assume that is the natural way of things. But many other civilized countries do not share this mindset, which means that it is possible to learn to think differently. How to do that, means reshaping the American view of strength and heroism.
3
Between the accelerating expanding rights to own guns, smoke pot, and get hooked on both Doctors prescriptions and illegal junk obviously more people get killed each year than before - no Einstein needed and no end in sight. Whet happened in Nevada was just a bit extreme but very much fitting a permanent trend.
You and your party have for 40 years but a stake in America's soul.
How about the massive ads put out by NRA and if you don't think 7 million is an massive amount of money to give to the republican on the top of the list then you are more part of the 1% than thought.
1
Legislation to limit the general ownership of guns will not pass. True, firearm ownership is part of the culture and it is supported by powerful lobbies and industries.
However, we can insist on legislation that focuses on four major causes of gunshot deaths: Suicides (which account for two thirds of gun deaths in America), the murder of urban men 18-24 years old (a problem for data-driven police work), the murder of women during domestic violence, and the gunshot deaths of or by children in homes where firearms are not properly secured.
Oh, and if you want to roll back open-carry laws, just stage some angry and very tense public rallies involving black or Hispanic people openly carrying AR-15s and wearing Glocks on their hips, as the extreme rightwingers did in Charlottesville.
3
"Guns are a proxy for larger issues," you say. I had an expert marksman rating in the USAF for 20 years and I seldom qualified on the range without hearing the range safety officer make a sex joke about the weapon. Look it up in your Uncle Sigmund code book. This is a can of worms (if I may say so) that needs to be opened when we are analyzing the shooters.
2
I like the market solution of requiring licensing/registration and insurance for all guns, just like cars. Actuarial computation would determine who and what is most lethal, and insurance would be priced accordingly. If each gun cost its owner a recurring monthly charge, people would think twice about large arsenals. And if you prove to be an irresponsible gun owner by "losing" too many guns to "theft" then you lose the right to own one.
3
Mr. Brooks's argument has merit. As a social scientist whose views are more to the left of his, I concur that the gun loving issue is part of a larger social complex which includes religion, socioeconomic class membership and level of education. In the current polarization of our society, the congressional reaction of ignoring any type of reasonable gun controls is both repugnant and exacerbating. Several comments herein address those causes and today in the era of Trump, we can expect no relief.
2
Postindustrial? America's "democracy" was founded in White Christian-driven violence even as an agricultural society, and has reveled in violence, denial and hypocrisy throughout its history. Territory was wrested from native Americans, Mexicans and the Spanish by violence. (Ever wonder how we acquired Puerto Rico - that half-forgotten island "territory" in the Caribbean?) Africans were systematically abducted and enslaved. Native Americans were simply exterminated. All Japanese Americans were imprisoned in WWII and their private property seized. Americans - especially White Christian Americans - are indoctrinated from birth in a belief in their exceptionalism ("God Bless America"), and in their intrinsic right to exploit others by force and to take what they want. To maintain their dominance, America now boasts the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Some Americans, those known as "liberals", find our true legacy offensive. The rest don't even begin to question it. Conservatism is inherently dissembling and disingenuous - aka White Christian Americans celebrating "liberty, truth and justice for all" while condemning and exploiting non-White immigrants and victims of racist police brutality.
2
As I've heard time and time again from interviews of Europeans and Australians visiting Vegas, they simply cannot understand the fascination with guns in America. As an American I don't understand either. When I was growing up, my father had a couple rifles and shotgun for hunting, but he never desired to own an AR-15 or own guns with high capacity magazines or automatic capability. Those are not needed for traditional hunting. Something is seriously wrong with this deeply ingrained fanaticism with guns in America. Changing the laws won't solve the problem overnight, because there are just too many guns freely available now. It would take decades to titrate the gun levels down. The only answer to this problem was sadly only available by the founders and their big blunder to include a 2nd amendment.
1
The country is leaning to the right and no amount of blaming religion or bigotry or inbreeding or whatever is slowing the phenomenon, because the trend is not in response to outrageous beliefs as so many here have explained but to a fear of, as David says, postindustrial America. Gun owners make up a large part of this fearful group and they are not all nor even mostly crazed militiamen holed up in a mountain camp, they are people reacting to an array of fears. Trump voters and even post vote supporters are not all nor even mostly clansmen or nazis, they are mostly people who used to vote labor and see in Trump at least the lie of support while his strongest opponents offer nothing but insults about their defects. The Democrats own the slide to the right because they have slid to the wrong side of labor and they are paying for it in lost elections. Respond with complaints all they will about the deplorables and they will lose more elections, because the non-white collared workers of America are an endangered specie and Democrats are offering them nothing by way of alternatives, only the occasional advice that they should get over it. I don't understand why the idea of caring for the working class has become such a forgotten idea to what was once the party of labor.
1
All this talk and rationalization about guns becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, Mr. Brooks.
We need to talk more about getting along together if we want to get along together.
Try that for your next explanation column.
REPEAL and REPLACE the Second Amendment!
3
So typical. It's not the Republican Party's fault for being wholly owned by the NRA, for standing in the way of sensible gun control measures, for the flagrant misrepresentation of the second amendment or for the ginning up of a rabid anti-government base. No it's the fault of the democrats!!! Profoundly venal. Take responsibility for the party you have lock step supported until trump was a bridge too far. Hypocrisy thy name is Brooks.
1
That Pew Study link you cite is really interesting and worth exploring. Looking at the results by race, there is some tightening of opinion for whites during the Bush years, but the big switch happens in 2009, a year after Obama's election. In other words, when a black man was elected as President, millions of whites suddenly felt the need to get more guns. Yikes! You can draw your own conclusions as to what this says about the white population in our country, but I personally find it deeply disturbing. And I think the Republicans saw it as a golden opportunity to seize power...
5
Americans are the most insular of all the developed nations. Only a small percentage of young Americans travel far enough to challenge their own perceptions on life; perceptions that they have inherited from their parents. Once Americans reach middle-age, their perceptions are ingrained and will not be challenged by anything or anyone. The world is utterly gobsmacked by the ignorance displayed by average Americans; from religion, politics (which, in America, is also tantamount to a religion), guns (also a religion), to the dismissal of things like evolution - even among serving politicians!
Yes, America is still successful despite this ignorance of the world around it. But that is because it hasn't much changed it's business model since the Copper Kings; a select, fortunate few keep America competitive, while average Americans haven't advanced that much - rampant racism, for instance, is still a cancer in America in the 21st century! And is being deliberately kept to the fore by its very own president for gawd's sake!
What chance, pray tell, do more restrictive gun laws stand when a third of Americans deny dinosaurs ever existed, just because it ruins the first few pages of a 2000-year-old fantasy?
7
How can we discuss the "Soul of America" if neither the suppression of voting rights and the collusion of influence affected by our gun lobby, and by extension the contractor army with its power to suppress both abroad as well as at home, nor the majority of gun owners here at home who in fearing themselves the objects of marginalization are seemingly eager to suppress in response.
Is this not the true fight for "the Soul of America"?
1
Progress, period, will be possible when fox not news and right wing hate radio are once again forced to abide by some kind of Fairness doctrine. As long as right wing politicians and pundits get to make up their own facts and reality we will have this disconnect.
Before Reagan we had political divides but we also had compromise and the notion that the other party was American, even if they were wrong.
Now if a president or a candidate is a centrist leaning democrat they are tarred as being foreign, criminal, un American, communist, or ready to sell out the Nation to our enemies. Now these lies are believed by the supporters of a foreign criminal enterprise that really might be trying to sell out the Nation to our enemies.
4
I think we need serious gun control legislation to buy us time, not as a solution.
The core problem is with our society. We have evolved into a society that is Crude, Coarse and Violent. This is reflected in our TV, Music, Literature, our Games, our President. If we want to prevent future slaughters we have to change ourselves. It must become unthinkable to solve problems by violence. We have to change the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. Right now we say that we are Crude, Coarse & Violent; then are surprised when someone acts out the story.
There is so much good in our nation, but it never sees the light of day. Two days ago, sitting outside a coffee shop, I watched people playing with their children at a small park next to a local library. It wasn't just moms and children, there was a good number of dads pushing their kids on the swings. People, especially kids, were leaving the library excited because they found a favorite book. This is what our nation is about, but if you go to your local movie theater you would never know it.
We have to find a way for the goodness in our nation to shine through. To make Kindness, Empathy, Manners, Contributing To The Common Good, our core values. Values that are celebrated in our shows, literature, music, games and our President. That is the way to prevent future slaughters, because in such a society they would never even be though of.
1
Every time I see statistics about gun ownership and support in the US I a dramatic shift from 2000 to now. For me 9/11 changed the psyche of the country, making a large part of our society more afraid and conservative. Localized economic decline and social changes have been exacerbating it, but the gut fear of 9/11 and the failure of the government in the most poweful country of the world to stop it, in my view was a major culture shift in our society that we are still dealing with.
I like David Brooks. Assuming his analysis here is correct- it does not address the model of other countries- also facing post industrial "crisis," who do not have the urge to let lose machine guns on their communities. It ignores the moral question. It ignores the social science.
The question it really beckons is whether American society is worthy- or rather immoral and corrupt- filled with violence and hate. Cowards, who see their security in a gun- as their lives slip away. Fed lies by their churches, politicians and other sycophants. Gleefully marching to their own destruction. Yes- this sounds right to me.
1
I agree with Brooks that the gun issue and certain other issues are proxies for values and identity. It is also discouraging to understand that evidence has little or no effect on changing the beliefs of certain people. If there is a group of people who show an unwillingness to learn except in perhaps some as yet undiscovered amorphous way, then I don't know how to engage such a group. Evidence is the presentation of reasons why something is true or is a better approach. If you are unwilling to accept evidence of the truth or of the best option for doing something, then just how are we as a nation to move forward intelligently?
Suicide is the third leading cause of death in the US, and half of all suicides are by firearms. Assault by firearms is the 7th leading cause of death. Proliferation of guns is quite obviously a public health problem for families and the public at large. That is evidence of truth.
The gun lobby and owners support guns for hunting or collecting, hobbyist target shooting, self-protection, and defense against tyranny. The latter is frankly, absurd. I have yet to see compelling evidence of widespread self-protection; rarely read about this locally or nationally. Hobbyist shooting? OK. Hunting? I disagree with taking life for sport, but OK. So the justification that supposedly balances the major health risk of gun proliferation is a hobby and a sport that involves killing animals.
Not the kind of evidence for setting policy that makes sense to me.
1
"The Gun Issue" isn't a matter of our laws; it's a matter of our culture.
The words and images that one hears has a huge impact on the way that one interprets the world and acts in it, whether for good or for bad. (*That's why there's such a thing as Emotional Abuse.)
In the United States, our popular culture is saturated with images of heroes that do their good work in a rain of bullets (and almost never show the true results of a gunshot - from a realistic hit that doesn't throw the victim back several feet to the fatigue of firing a weapon repeatedly). This, while frank depiction of sexuality is a huge taboo.
In some cultures, it is the reverse - bodies and sexuality are portrayed frankly in TV and film, while guns and violence are the taboo. The end of Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac - a 5.5 hour dive through all varieties of human sexuality - features a 1 minute scene with a single gunshot at the the end of the film, OFFSCREEN, because it is more taboo than the movie's other 349 minutes.
If we were serious about reducing the impact of gun violence on our society, then we'd get serious about reducing the amount of positive media representation that it receives, as we have for tobacco and alcohol. Every onscreen depiction of the military is approved by the military, because they know what an effective tool it is for changing hearts and minds - it's not a stretch to think this tool can discourage people from The Way of the Gun instead of teaching them to embrace it.
1
This week in rural Washington state, a woman turned her pit bulls on a UPS employee delivering a package and then threatened to grab her gun and kill him and the responding fire marshall to the scene. The UPS employee was nearly eaten alive by her dogs and, fortunately, the heroic fire marshall was able to rescue him before she was able to retrieve her gun. This story epitomizes in so many ways what is wrong with this country. The fearful, low-education, paranoid gun holder attacking those that hold no legitimate threat against her. In turn, there's nothing more that I fear now than the rural-red state constituents. I don't "want my country back", I want a brand new one full of sensible-educated people that don't feel the need to be armed.
3
"Guns don't kill people, people kill people"
Under that premise, drugs, alcohol, vehicles, etc. don't kill/injure people, people using them might kill/injure others.
So I do not see why it is such a sin to regulate them. You pass at least a vision test and a road test to be able to drive a car. And a car in our society is more a need than a want, unless you are one of the few living in a city with decent public transportation.
So I want you to have as many guns as you want. But I want you to register them, like you register a car. I want you to take them to inspections to make sure that you didn't modify them. Kind of like the emission inspections of a car. I want yo to prove to me that each type of gun you buy, you are trained for it (like if you have a motorcycle, you need a different license than for the car). And there are guns you can not have, the same way a car has to be "street worthy". What, you did not know about that one? Well, inform yourself, that's what your smartphone is also useful for.
Will all this be a hassle? Yes. Will it stop ALL shootings? HELL, NO.
But imagine our roads full of teenagers without licenses, learning to drive while we want to go to work... I hoe you get the picture.
3
five years since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School “have seen one of the most intense bursts of gun legislation in U.S. history.” More than two dozen states have passed new gun laws. And in almost all cases these laws have made it easier to buy or carry guns.
So.....Why should gunlaws fair any better than Healthcare, climate, immigration, taxation, representation or education? For a nation that rules against its own self interest by supporting republican agendas despite their colossal failures in the past, it seems we as a nation have learned nothing. The more of a crisis we are in the more Republicans can pretend to exercise identity control until, like Putin, they can save us through 'Populism' and 'Nationalism' and to hell with common sense, statistics, logic or innovation. When you get the Boy Scouts calling to lock up your political rival... does anything else surprise you!
2
"The real reason the gun rights side is winning is post industrialization."
It's not confusing as to "why" we have this huge problem. There are 300 million Guns in the country, and people occasionally use them.
Tali Sharot. Here's an example of why that doesn't fit. 1960 about 42% of adults smoked. Today, 17%. Many of those people had deeply held beliefs, enjoyed smoking, and threat to health was not a big concern. Given the correct information, people figured it out. Has nothing to do with being a redneck or hipster.
"Gun clubs". More than there are McDonald's. How many McDonald's are there? 35,000. You can have a Gun club with a membership of one.
The problem is awareness and education and action by members of Congress. Smoking has been hammered at since many of us were kids 40 years ago. Smoking is bad for you, see/hear it all the time.
Allow government to tell Gun owners the truth about ownership. Bad for you, your health, uncool. THAT is the problem. One side of the aisle simply refuses to allow factual information to be advertised. Screw them. As their old base constituents are currently doing....
"Gun control proposals....not much evidence that they would prevent many attacks," is flip, unjustified by the information out there, and stupid. What attacks are you talking about? Spouses killing spouses? Kids killing kids? Gang members killing gang members? "Gun control" is a broad term. Your job here, especially here, should be to be specific.
2
Has David Brooks ever read any of the old columns from a guy named David Brooks? He'd be sad about how old Brooks was oddly wrong all the time, but proud of the way old Brooks could always find a "both sides" narrative to a story.
1
Inequality breeds powerlessness. People buy guns to feel powerful. Focus on economic inequality and you will begin to address the gun issue.
1
Perhaps many Americans secretly have a death wish.
The NRA and its enablers will fight for YOUR right to be shot.
They are fanatics, like ISIS.
1
It never ceases to amaze me how somehow as inquisitive as yourself seems so intent on looking smarter than everyone else that you miss the facts in front of you. No nowhere else in the world do they have they same problems with guns as we do. Nowhere. Not even close. And if you don't believe that it's not the NRA in concert with gun manufacturers intent on making business at the expense of people's life, you're not looking hard enough. We have to change the entire culture before we can stop innocent people from being randomly shot in public. It's not that hard, Brooksie -- and you know it. Shame on you for this. Disgusting.
3
The claims of dichotomy between rural American and urban Americans work only to a point. What is clear is that all those folks spouting off about Christianity (Roy Moore I'm looking at you.) anti-choice (Tim Murphy I'm looking at you.) and many other topics reveal vast reservoirs of hypocrisy. It's very very hard for me to discern values when what I see is hypocrisy that degrades those values almost daily.
3
It's all tied together ... this static, regressive, armed, pious, rural, insular, ignorant, racist, culture will erase the American experiment in democracy. It will be replaced by a kind of post-industrial fascism ... it's almost over already ...
The doves will fly away leaving the hawks to compete for the vermin.
3
Also I've been reading Ken Wilber's "Trump and a Post-Truth World" about a greater new synthesis. Peace, Duncan Newcomer
Those who oppose sensible gun control in congress and among the citizenry have blood on their hands. As evidence, I submit the following evidence: the names and birth dates of the sweet school people murdered at Sandy Hook. Only hardened, self-absorbed people can regard their deaths as normal workings of American society. Typical, yes. Normal, no! Are we this suicidal, this heartless, this numb? This doomed?
- Charlotte Bacon, 2/22/06, female
- Daniel Barden, 9/25/05, male
- Rachel Davino, 7/17/83, female.
- Olivia Engel, 7/18/06, female
- Josephine Gay, 12/11/05, female
- Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 04/04/06, female
- Dylan Hockley, 3/8/06, male
- Dawn Hochsprung, 06/28/65, female
- Madeleine F. Hsu, 7/10/06, female
- Catherine V. Hubbard, 6/08/06, female
- Chase Kowalski, 10/31/05, male
- Jesse Lewis, 6/30/06, male
- James Mattioli , 3/22/06, male
- Grace McDonnell, 12/04/05, female
- Anne Marie Murphy, 07/25/60, female
- Emilie Parker, 5/12/06, female
- Jack Pinto, 5/06/06, male
- Noah Pozner, 11/20/06, male
- Caroline Previdi, 9/07/06, female
- Jessica Rekos, 5/10/06, female
- Avielle Richman, 10/17/06, female
- Lauren Rousseau, 6/1982, female (full date of birth not specified)
- Mary Sherlach, 2/11/56, female
- Victoria Soto, 11/04/85, female
- Benjamin Wheeler, 9/12/06, male
- Allison N. Wyatt, 7/03/06, female
3
"...another grand synthesis," eh, David? Hmmmm. We watched the Republicans trying to form a grand synthesis last year.... the 16 Dwarves got together, called each other names, labored mightily, and came up with Trumpkin.
Now it's T-Rex against the world (and against Puerto Rico, too).... and the Grasping Old Perverts think that's just fine.... war with North Korea will be over in 15 minutes (and South Korea will be over, too, in the first 5 minutes)...
I'm not sure that we can come up with a grand synthesis that will save us. I wish Michelle Obama would throw her hat into the ring.... that would be a start.
3
Mr. Brooks, you supported the GOP for years. You are one of the people who contributed to their ascension to dominance. You wrote plenty of essays using straw man arguments to make the GOP appear more palatable to your readers. At the same time you overlooked the racism, bigotry, corruption, lack of compassion and integrity, and the duplicity of this same party. This is a party that can find every reason to cut a program that helps 99% of us while handing out welfare to the likes of the Koch Brothers, Walmart, and the rest of the economic elite.
The mass shootings are also a logical outcome in a country where the NRA, GOP and others state that violence is perfectly find method of getting one's way. The murders of an entire first grade class and 6 adults didn't push Congress to change or improve gun control laws. States have passed laws allowing open or concealed carrying of firearms. Nowhere does the second amendment state that endangering the public is allowed when it comes to guns. Yet this is how the second amendment is being used: to threaten the public. And you and the rest of your GOP friends are responsible for this state of affairs. Nothing you or anyone else in the GOP or NRA can say will change the fact that there are dead people and permanently injured people who should not have been either due to the idiocy this country has been forced to accept with regard to the second amendment.
8
We are never going to forget that the same Republicans who want to take away healthcare didn't give any real concern, took no real actions,matter the murders of all those grade school children and their teachers.
2
Three in ten Americans own guns. The decline in support for gun safety legislation did not occur organically; it was driven from the outside. The key acronym to remember here is not NRA, it's ALEC. Gun "rights" are just one small part of the rightward lurch orchestrated in recent years. Amplifying the impact of groups like ALEC, Fox News, Americans For Prosperity, etc., is the decrease in representative government. To put it simply, the majority of us are being held hostage by people in low-population states and districts.
Brooks is also wrong about the effectiveness of gun safety laws. Chicago's gun laws are ineffectual only because guns flow in from places like Indiana and suburban Illinois with lax gun laws (and Republican legislatures with blood on their hands). When comprehensive gun safety laws are enacted, they work. In European countries, for example. Here, the virtual ban on fully-automatic weapons has been highly effective for decades. In recent years, manufacturers began selling rapid-fire devices to get around the ban. It would be easy to fix. Given the demonstrated public safety threat posed by semi-automatic firearms, it is easy to make the case for extending the ban to include these weapons. In fact, a ban on the sale and possession of high-capacity magazines and firearms with detachable magazines would be extremely effective.
6
You are absolutely correct that Indiana is really the key culprit in the proliferation of gun sales tomChicago ghettos. Scandalous.
2
David appears to minimize the influence of the NRA.
But in fact, the NRA has tried to "normalize" guns in more and more venues. That is why the NRA wants guns allowed in daycare centers, in the possession of the average college students, in houses of worship. They want guns allowed inside every museum, every theatre, every nursing home.
NRA represents mainly manufacturers, not the 5 million card carrying members, NRA wants guns as popular as cars in American homes.
NRA doesn't want any " gun free" zones. (Although I don't see them winning that argument if they try to make guns permissible on airplanes or inside the walls of our nation Capitol Building.).
4
In other countries , with stronger gun laws, mass shootings and gun related crimes are far fewer than in the US. Americans seem blind to this. Puzzling !
2
And there are other countries awash with guns and crazies where this sort of things almost never happens. There is probably something deeply wrong with us - alienation, perpetual anxiety, loose or non-existent social fabric - but no one seems to want to address it. Taking guns away may seem the only solution of nothing else changes.
I seem to dimly remember a country song with the line "....don't bring your guns to town."
In the old days, the people who had the guns were living closer to threatening things. They needed the guns to hunt and for protection outside of towns where there might be a lawman or others to help.
Now the threat of violence is everywhere, at least that's what the non-stop media message is. Watch the news and you will feel like hiding behind the couch.
So, everybody is arming themselves to fight off the baddies coming to knock down the door and steal everything you own, burn down your house and rape all your womenfolk.
Everybody has brought their guns to town. We're just living out what we watched in the old Western movies when we were kids. A world that never actually existed the way John Wayne played it.
2
This is true in the US, but it is not the case if you live in the vast majority of foreign countries. The US is the anomaly. And the fact is Americans who could vote the politicians who support everyone having every weapon out of office - don't. And haven't repeatedly for more than a decade. In fact, 2/3 of country won't even bother voting for president and don't care which political party is in power - or they would vote just to keep the party that best protects their best interests (clean water and safe food, clean environment, affordable health care for everyone, repairing infrastructure, affordable colleges, low cost jobs training for high tech jobs, gun safety, etc). It's crazy - but really is only happening here in the US. The British, Aussies, New Zealanders, Canadians, Asians, Afrikaans, all Europeans, and even most Middle Easterners think what is happening with gun violence in the US is totally crazy. And it's starting to negatively affect foreign students and international tourism to the US (and not just because of travel bans or dislike of Trump, which are also big factors). For example, Brits living here are often asked if it's safe.
Even in countries like Mexico and some Central and some South American countries, where there is a lot of gun violence by drug cartels and gangs, most everyday citizens don't have guns,and don't worry they could be shot at an open air concerts, in shopping centers, offices, airports, schools, soccer stadiums. It just doesn't happen.
Well one thing that gun owners should know is that keeping a gun in your house increases your risk of suicide 3-fold. Please don't believe me because this might be "fake news," instead follow the link to the FOX News story below. Would they report this if it were not true? Two-thirds of the nearly 34,000 gun deaths each year are suicides. Please keep this in mind when you buy a gun and please keep your gun locked up when it is not under your direct control to prevent others in your household from accessing it. If you find yourself depressed or considering suicide, please get help immediately and give your guns to someone you trust for safe-keeping.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/01/21/gun-ownership-tied-to-three-fol...
4
What a creepy photo: a ring that looks like a small pistol, covering nearly the entire length of a woman's index finger. I would not want to sit at a dinner table and see that on someone's right hand, visible with every forkful of food. Every time she would hold a glass of wine, it would look like she was shooting sideways at someone.
2
Once again, the problem is treated as if the US was the only country in the world.
All theories on the infatuation with guns in America should take as its starting point the huge difference in the murder rates between the US and most European countries, which are comparable to the US in may ways.
In Denmark in a bad year we have one murder per week on average in a country with a population of something like 1/60 of that of the US. That would mean 3000 homicides a year in the US. But what is the reality? About 13,000 a year! In the beginning of the 90s, there were nearly 30,000!
It's not the number of guns - as the NRA correctly say. Americans are simply more prone to violence, it seems.
You probably can't change the number of guns, but you can start changing the mentality that creates so many murderers.
2
The 2nd amendment doesn't say anything about the cost or taxation on weapons, just that you have a right. How about a 1000% tax on weapons and ammunition. And an annual registration tax like we do for cars. In this country, we would be deficit-free in no time.
5
Wonderful idea - I really love it - but Republicans would probably never vote for it even if these type of massacres occurred every month. And gun rights advocates and the NRA would also prevent it happening. I just saw a horrifying statistic that showed more Americans have been killed by guns since 1968 than all the US soldiers killed in war counting from the Civil War including the Civil War, both World Wars, Korean War, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and everything else in between. Pretty sobering.
When David opines that gun control wouldn't prevent many attacks, one has to wonder what the heck he is talking about. More guns = more gun deaths. Period.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violen...
1
I have to disagree with this, "on the other hand, there’s not much evidence that they [gun control laws] would prevent many attacks."
Let's look at this in a "controlled" experiment.
Look at any country with strict gun control laws, and in some cases bans on personal use, and you find drastically less gun violence.
If you are strictly looking at gun control and its relationship to gun violence, with all other variables excluded, gun control works to prevent gun violence.
This should be the basis of any discussion about this subject.
You can then layer in the idiosyncrasies of each individual country, for example, the Second Amendment in the United States, and how crime statistics are impacted by the presence of guns or the absence of guns, etc.
But the idea that gun control does little reduce gun violence is bunk. Sorry.
1
Absolutely true. Just ask the Aussies after they implemented gun control.
Look at how little gun violence exists in all the European countries, or in Japan or South Korea both with their massive populations and huge cities filled with of millions of people.
A fine op-ed. Would just like to dispute: "In Democratic states, mass shootings have no significant effect on laws passed." -- After the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012, Connecticut, New York and Maryland enacted stricter gun-control measures in regard to assault-rifles, magazine capacities and background checks.
1
"The smarter a person is, the greater his or her ability to rationalize and reinterpret discordant information, and the greater the polarizing boomerang effect is likely to be."
This is oxymoronic, Mr. Brooks. A person who ignores evidence disproving their beliefs isn't "smarter," they're just the opposite. In fact, if that's not the definition of intentional stupidity, I'm not sure what is.
4
Your "Grand Synthesis" theory would be, well, grand, David, if the United States was the same sole global behemoth of Teddy Roosevelt's time. But with China soaring to eclipse our nation in virtually every important metric, the so-called populist revolt and/or culture wars is nearly irrelevant. America is killing America.
2
It's education.
The US is so rich and powerful that we can have a vast number of citizens that don't need to be educated to get by quite comfortably. Republicans and their super-rich backers have exploited this to their own advantage. Now we have large numbers of citizens who have been convinced that education is actually detrimental to the country - a remarkable phenomenon. This uneducated, basically stupid, swath of the citizenry does not have the mental equipment that is helpful to grasp much of the modern scientifically oriented society. Ordinarily they would be embarrassed and see a deficiency in their preparedness to succeed in a society. But they have been convinced otherwise. As Isaac Asimov said: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
But their is something deep inside them that says, you are inferior and this inferiority will allow the "elites" to rule over you and push you around. They deal with this by embracing magic in the form of religion and what they feel is an equalizing power tool in the form of a gun. They are afraid and are grasping for hope.
Widespread, compulsory and meaningful education, staring at a very young age such as would inspire intellectual cuiosity is our only salvation.
3
It's a good thing this is an opinion piece and doesn't have to be based on facts. Shame on you Brooks, but true to character.
What "soul of America"? We lost it after Sandy Hook, that was the killing blow.
3
It's true. If the brutal slaughter of classrooms of young kids and their teachers, followed by their distraught parents going to Washington and tearfully pleading with lawmakers to change gun laws didn't change anything, what would or could? The excuse always is that it is some lone gunman or a pair of them and therefore the shooting is treated like an anomaly. Excuses are made for them being an anomaly so changes in gun laws don't have to be implemented. And then the public hasn't turned against those lawmakers who would not vote for any gun restrictions as voted for their opponent who advocated gun control. Another fact is that almost all these high profile shootings result in a bonanza of gun store sales and stock prices rising for the gun manufacturers. Its happening again this week.
A friend of mine visited Las Vegas and stayed at the Mandalay last year and is now very shaken. Seven out of ten Americans don't even have guns. It's all very sick behavior and it's demoralizing to the rest of us powerless to change anything, and who feel less and less safe from becoming a random victim of gun violence.
The appropriate title should be: Guns and the Rotten Soul of America.
1
Since the US cannot interpret its tragic 2nd Amendment correctly and has mostly bought and paid for jellyfish in charge of the government, why not follow the lead of Australia? In 1996 they responded to a horrific shooting by swiftly passing strict gun laws that virtually eliminated the mass shootings.
Of course when your spineless Congress in in the payroll of the NRA, easier said than done. The 'right' of some tattooed imbecile to own assault/military grade weaponry is far more important than public safety. Same old nonsense.
1
I am sitting here wondering how I, the first of my whole family to graduate from college, middle middle class, rural-living, church-going, Republican background, ended up being a "bleeding heart liberal. Part of it is that the "right" bears no resemblance to what I thought of as the "right" before; part of it is that I came of age in the era of Viet Nam and the Civil Rights Movement and Watergate which showed me in a way I could not ignore that there are things that are fundamentally in need of change. If I, with my background could come to this realization: that immigrants are not our enemy, that we all need to look out for each other, that every American should have the same rights as every other American - why haven't "they"?
1
What can you expect from a country and society that stares at a flag, jubilantly singing a song that celebrates the red glare of rockets and bombs bursting in the air ....
1
Guns have corrupted the soul of America. It is not only the wholesale destruction of lives and the unmitigated and divisive political acrimony that has become a national tragedy.... It is the massive export of violence to the world!
Moreover, it is the institutionalized warmongering that resulted in a million Iraqi deaths, destruction of Syria, European refugee crisis to name a few. The mindless intent to terminate Iran's nuclear deal and wipe a country off the face of the Earth is yet another display of a extremist, violent and warring mindset - the mindset of gun toting America.
America has a corrupted soul and it is armed to the teeth. America has become the most dangerous nation on Earth!
1
So depressing...
2
Ignorant, regressed, immature, repugnant, insane, crazy, criminal, ...evil. One need only read the comments in the NYT to feel that perhaps the paranoia of "those people" is not entirely misplaced. It is clear that if this readership were in charge, the government swooping down into people's home and confiscating firearms would be only the beginning. Lighten up people.
2
Violence in our society is a public health problem. It is also a constitutional problem. Our government is to protect the people of this country. These mass murders have a many faceted reason for existing. Our congress and the administration has not been doing their job. They are bending to the gun manufacturers' lobby called the NRA because of money and the threat of losing an election. We the people have spoken and the truthful statistics have said what the majority of people want in this country. We want the protections owed us by the constitution and we need to speak loud and clear to the media, the government and congress by voting these people out of office for failing to do their responsibility.
This article by David is way off base. It has to do with genuine leadership which is lacking by too many leaders in too many areas that are supposed to be recognizing that when our freedom to go to school, go to a concert, go to the store, go to church, go to an outdoor event is unsafe because of guns not being properly regulated and mentally ill people being allowed to own guns and gun shows being free to sell without regulations, and hate speech that attacks specific groups, and gun manufacturers being allowed to get around the laws and states that have good gun regulations are affected by those at their borders who allow anyone to buy guns, they have failed at protecting our democracy.
1
By the logic, we would still be arguing over slavery.
3
Thar "A lone lunatic" was, actually, a white domestic terrorist. We need sane gun control laws and gun violence research.
1
This keeps resonating event 9 years later: "And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." Barack Obama.
1
The American culture wars between the angry and brainless dispossessed have-nots and the intelligent haves in our very sick society will not subside. `A new social vision` isn`t in the cards, David Brooks. The populist revolt by the red M.A.G.A. golf-hat knuckle-draggers won`t be put down. Gun control legislation won`t make a whit of difference to the millions of murderous weapons owned by so many millions of Americans who believe in the obscene and obsolete Second Amendment of our Consitiution.
1
If you feel you need an assault rifle to protect yourself you need help.
2
Tax bullets like cigarettes
2
I don't say this to be mean, just to analyze a political reality:
There is, today, and historically, a 30%-ish demographic of "unsuccessful white men" whose frustration makes them highly politically motivated and who swayed our last election (and also were influential in 1930's Germany).
Statistically, there will always be some who are below average in personal success, and they tend to (a) be angrier (b) have more time on their hands to fret about politics (c) search for ways to feel more empowered (d) resent the accomplishments of other groups. They see that their success does not match that of their ancestors and feel as though their birthright has been stolen. They watch Jews and minorities succeed and their frustration leads to resentment and blame. Firing off a few rounds makes the unsuccessful man feel empowered, and harkens him back to his idyllic vision of his ancestors' great patriotic achievements.
Obviously there are other supporters of Trump and the NRA who do not fall into this category whatsoever, but this 30% that we all know and recognize exists and is a critical, balance-tipping statistical mass. The frustrations of these "unsuccessful white men" are the thread that links The Wall to Gun Rights to Trump to the KKK, to Nazi political party election successes (which incidentally, they won in the plurality-based voting system of 1932 Germany with 30% of the vote)
3
Brooks as usual is blowing in the wind with his latest fairy tale, i.e., "another grand synthesis." If you want to know what's really going on, read Peggy Noonan today in the WSJ. Elite opinions such as this merely paper over the cultural destruction they have created.
So now you give a pass to the NRA just as you did with that evil man Rush Limbaugh ("Just a good Republican who wants to win"). Want some evidence that reasonable controls work: go to Australia - sure not EVERY gun crime is eliminated, but why should that perfectionist standard be your litmus test. Even the great "movie western" tradition -- that disappointed old white males that won't get off their opioids to get a job that IS out
there -- has been falsified in what you rightly call their rationalization that gun laws down't work. In the westerns I saw as a kid, the good guys made the bad guys "check their guns at the edge of town" pretty regularly. Go see Rio Bravo again: what that tactic did was ISOLATE the bad guys so lawmen John Wayne and Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson could "git 'em"! PLEASE don't help these disappointed folks to rationalize their denial of facts by playing in to the canard that there is hardly any evidence that gun controls work - spend a pleasant day in Sydney without fear.
1
Well David, a couple of years ago up here in Canada, we had an unhinged young man who took it upon himself to attack Parliament Hill. The only thing is, he couldn't get his hands on a gun at the spur of the moment.
So he went up to his aunt's cottage and took her 'squirrel-hunting rifle'. It was the type of rifle Chuck Connors used in the TV show 'The Rifleman' which you might remember. So it was cock the handle, fire, cock the handle, fire. And the magazine held 7 bullets.
Sadly, he managed to kill a soldier standing on ceremonial guard at a monument, tried to kill the other soldier (shot and missed) and now, with only 5 shots remaining, dashed over to Parliament Hill where he entered the building and was immediately surrounded (and massively out-gunned) by the security service, shot and killed.
So what do you think if, in the hypothetical case, he had a 'modern' weapon with an extra large capacity magazine and maybe one of those 'bump-stock' things that turned his weapon into an automatic weapon?
So that is an example of what 'gun control' gets you.
And, oh yeah, so far as I can recall, in pretty much every mass shooting in the U.S. no one in the crowd has ever fired back. Those that do typically are police officers who have been trained to do so.
As for your 'no evidence that gun control works', I suspect that just means that even in states that have 'gun control', it is still pretty easy to buy a gun.
2
you mean, guns in souless America
1
Tali Sharot's note was more eloquently stated over a century ago by Upton Sinclair:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
The explosion of gun sales after each mass killing is of fear of regulation. Bump-stock sales sold out as soon as it became known Paddock had them. The 2 leading maker of them are back-logged with orders, all since Las Vegas. Just after New Town, I went into a venerable, now closed, general sporting goods store, and they were lined up at the counter to buy Bushmaster AR-15s, the firearm Adam Lanza used to massacre 6 & 7 year old children.
People have lost faith that Government and the police will protect them. First it was the "militia" types and Southern racists, boosted by Fox News harping on crime in "inner cities" (euphemism for "those people"--Black and Hispanic). The once-benign NRA became a rabid defender of all "gun rights" including penetration Teflon-coated "cop killer" & exploding bullets (one didn't explode inside Reagan).
As liberals regained power and tried to do something to stop the killings, the Right's paranoia grew, & so did gun buying. Then, Nov 8th happened & gun sales fell. But not in one surprising sector. Recognizing the violent threats & exploding incidents from triumphant alt-right, Liberals & minorities realized that they now needed "home-defense" too--against the newly resurgent KKK and nazis, as seen in Charlottesville.
A civil war may be coming.
Too much time.
Too much time thinking.
Not enough doing.
People are being gunned down on American streets.
People are on the streets protesting.
We've got a numbskull president.
The NRA rules the election.
Time to vote for change folks. Time is running out. Time to do.
1
"...there’s not much evidence that they would prevent many attacks."
What a big fat lie ! Go check the statistics from countries with Gun Control in place. You will see a huge difference between USA and those countries. This is how people like David Brooks and NY Times help propagate lies and falsehoods. Stuck deep down in the column is the biggest lie ever told to American Public. If there was a 5 year jail sentence for spewing such lies at such a large massive public scale, David Brooks will be more forthcoming. But since there is absolutely no checks and balances on News Media, this kind of falsehood is very common to find. What a shame.
The blame game begins immediately after these recurrent travesties. Both sides accuse the other of politicizing the event, which always devolves into the usual ranting and raving, except on the PBS Newshour. Brooks is right about who's motivated more to action: The gun lobby. They always fear someone will be coming for their assault weapons and how will they be able to protect themselves against the masses when it's Armageddon time? I have a better question: Who in their right mind wants to live in a country led by a certified moron comprised of uneducated citizens incapable of changing their fates out of irrational and unfounded fear? America gets what it deserves because they CHOOSE to live this way and be led by local, state and federal representatives who refuse to listen to their protestations.
Guns are in the DNA of this country. No guns, no USA. The US was blasted into existence by committing a mass ethnic cleansing of those here before us to steal their land. When we needed to break every treaty we made with the native Americans, guns were our go to to get it done. Guns are the heart and soul of the US.
1
'...the gun side .. is winning .... (due to) values and identity'. Absolutely.
More precisely, it's Freudian: guns symbolize potency, and limiting access is subconsciously (to many) equivalent to castration. Which is why the US will remain the most gun-ridden, violent nation on earth.
1
in jesus name, i pray that colin kaepernick and athletes who don't want to salute the flag have a zumba dance off with the little sisters of the poor. cause they all have taken to worshiping at the altar of their victimization. I cant get a gun..once i was commited to pysch ward. But i am fond of making fun of my faith by saying, "piece be with you".
Jesus would not approve of your "faith".
Please find some help in understanding our human complexity.
You may find some real peace.
Some good points, but Mr Brooks skirts the issue: guns are a proxy for masculinity and aggrieved white male entitlement.
All middle and working class people in the US are struggling against extreme inequality. This is not so much about postindustrialization as it is about declining real wages and the garnering of productivity gains by the one percenters. Wages must go up.
But not all Americans "fix" this problem by shooting other Americans en masse. This is disproportionately a "strategy" used by white males. They are 31% of the population, and yet they commit 54% of mass shootings.
The Las Vegas shooter was not struggling. By all accounts, he had quite a comfortable life and a nest egg. He was not a victim of postindustrialization. He was not a victim at all. He was a psychopath who thought it would be fun to kill a lot of people from a sniper nest before he killed himself. He was a monster, but a very ordinary type of American monster: the entitled, aggrieved, yet solidly middle class, white American male.
2
"Progress on guns will be possible when the culture war subsides, but not before." Um...no. You think America has a lock on culture wars? No other country has gone through a post-industrialization? No other population feels like they live in a dangerous world? Progress on guns will be possible when YOUR party listens to the majority of American people and shows leadership. Until then, rednecks and hipsters alike will be mowed down by angry white men who have unfettered access to killing machines. This is a shameful column which perpetuates the myth that this is a problem without any immediate or obvious solutions. You say "guns are a proxy for larger issues." No, arguments like this are a proxy for the unspoken truth that the GOP is culpable, cowardly and complicit and has the blood of 154,630 gun deaths that have occurred since Sandy Hook (as of 7 am this morning; so add a few just to be...safe).
1
Guess what? The populist revolt will remake the democratic party first because they are the ones on the outside. As it's modern techno-heroes come under fire - be they boy wonders, search monopolists, hollywood pederasts, semi-literate wide receivers or flaccid, dull, yester-year liberal lions - the animated, angry fringe will win the day as all messianic forces do...at first. The wipeout at the polls will make 2016 a harbinger, not a denouement. Third and fourth parties are coming; the emerging political landscape will make the Italian Parliament look like the House of Lords. When that happens you'll all wish you lived in red zip codes as the blue ones are going to be ungovernable. Don't say you weren't warned.
To the reader who asserts that gun ownership is based on a liberty principal and that liberals do not respect liberty:
The freedom of all of us to work, play, learn, worship, and live with the knowledge of a measure of safety from guns has been undermined by the belief that the right to own firearms is more important.
Liberty is about the freedom to choose whether or not to exercise a right, whether free speech or gun ownership or any other in the constitution. This does not mean we live in a lawless society. Our society is structured to balance the rights and freedoms of ALL Americans. Many Americans now seem to believe that their Second Amendment rights supersede all other rights, including that to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Civil society requires that rights be regulated by laws. If it were truly acceptable to pay for these rights in blood (on our own soil, not in the theater of war), it wouldn't be illegal to yell "fire" in a theater. Just imagine if we were dealing with stampedes where people were trampled to death because one person exercised his right to free speech. We've already decided that the First Amendment is subject to the rule of law. Time to accept that it is reasonable to regulate the rights granted in the Second Amendment as well.
2
David's worst habits on full display: always reaching for the broadest possible generalizations ("agrarian populists" of centuries past, "postindustrial society", yadda yadda) .... always lecturing from his high pulpit about soul-searching we've neglected to do... But the lurch I cannot accept here is "there's not much evidence that (gun control) would prevent many attacks." One word for you, Dave: AUSTRALIA.
4
I can't believe David Brooks has the audacity to make such disingenuous claims about gun control. After a mass shooting, state legislatures loosen gun restrictions? No, Republican state legislatures do that. A mass shooting increases firearms bills in state legislatures? No, again, this only happens in republican-controlled statehouses. He then goes on to say that people - one assumes he means the generic American voter - want these looser gun laws, and the amount of people who want gun control has decreased over time. Does Brooks seriously think that this is a normal occurrence with no antecedent cause, like the constant fear-mongering by the NRA and GOP? And sure, the gun issue may well be an epiphenomenon of a much larger issue - a conflict over values and identity; but who started that fight, Mr. Brooks? It surely wasn't the democratic party who warned people that gay marriage was going to destroy traditional marriage, or that environmental regulation was going to destroy jobs, or that coastal, liberal elites use public education to indoctrinate the youth. No, David; your party is the one using "values" to divide this nation, which, in turn, completely undermines the "synthesis" solution you absurdly posit as your conclusion.
Seriously, you and your party started this war. The GOP has actively pursued a policy of divisiveness in the US, FOX news has been your ultimate bully pulpit, and you, a respected conservative writer, carry water for these barbarians. Shame on you.
4
The culture war will subside when enough people learn to embrace love instead of fear as the guiding principle of their lives. This includes confronting the fear of dying, which every single one of us will do sooner or later, but which the fragile human ego strives to overcome with fantasies of power and freedom. The only true freedom is to be unafraid.
1
So we need a "grand synthesis" to solve the mass murder problem?
That's hilarious -- and so-called "conservatives" (who conserve nothing but paranid fnatasies and actively destroy at every opportunity, including protection from insane gun fetishists) accuse liberals of airy-fairy solutions to real problems.
This is another example of Mr. Brooks' weekly resort to abstraction in the face of reality.
2
Well since Las Vegas we have not heard much about the silencer/ armour piercing bullets bill in congress. I guess the deer are getting smarter and can detect where the gunfire is coming from so those poor hunters with old semi automatic rifles are giving away their positions and those new flack jackets are all the rage in the woods,especially the camouflage ones are really in demand
This country has really lost it when military armament can be purchased at your local sporting goods store. These paranoids think the government might come and take their guns, mobile homes, and pickup trucks and put hem in concentration camps.
4
Seeing this issue within the larger culture war of fear, threats, and desire is exactly right. While it is hard for people on the left to see, their values are a threat to the people on the right. It is working both ways, of course, so that neither side is willing to acknowledge how their values form a serious threat to the other. So America becomes increasingly shrill. Conservatives tried compassionate conservatism in G.Bush, and liberals bashed him as an idiot and a oil monger. Now conservatives made a deal with a bully, and we are reaping those consequences. What we received in Obama was a major shift to the left, and conservatives were unwilling to lose more ground under Clinton.
So were does all this end? I still have hope that people of good will will seek a grand compromise. Here is how the grand compromise could take place solving 4 issues: The left agrees to more abortion restrictions and greater religious protections in the public square. The right agrees to more gun laws and increased social support for the poor (rather than tax breaks). What remains extremley odd is that there is a worldview that believes in all four of those positions, and yet no platform represents it.
1
The Founding Fathers fashioned a Second Amendment right to bear arms in a rural farming hunting and gathering nation full of enslaved Africans and free Natives without any full time professional local police force or national military in order to defend the divine natural equal certain unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men like them who owned property.
That was and still is the armed soulful nature of America. Because the Africans in America are still perceived as a problem. And Mexicans, Muslims, Arabs and Asians have replaced Natives as the looming alien threat.
About 40% of the 2.3 million Americans in prison are black like Ben Carson and Barack Obama. Even though blacks are only 13% of Americans, they go prison for doing the same things whites do without any criminal justice consequences. And they are in prison aka slavery and involuntary servitude for non-violent drug and property crimes due to the carefully carved colored exception to the 13th Amendment's abolition. America has 25% of the world's prisoners are American when America has 5% of human beings on Earth.
The white American majority is aging and shrinking with a below replacement level birthrate and shortened life expectancy due to drug addiction, alcoholism, depression and suicide. Perhaps "dark loneliness and evil" fearfully marks and makes America's white majority armed soul more than we know, imagine and can accept.
5
The culture wars are a symptom of deindustrialization, but more fundementally they are a symptom of concentrated wealth becoming even more concentrated, less productive, and more malignant to the economy, our culture, and prospects for democracy.
Historically, a tiny (0.1%) idiot elite has been able to dominate society by dividing the majority. The beat goes on.
2
Perhaps the synthesis that is needed is that which might come from a
Truth and Reconciliation Commission like South Africa had to deal with racial injustice. Consider that the NRA supported the Mulford Act of California in 1967 after 30 Black Panthers demonstrated at the State Capital building with loaded guns. During a recent appearance on the comedy series, The Daily Show, Neal Brennan said that if Black NFL players would, instead of taking a knee during the National Anthem, hold an AR15 over their heads, we would have new gun control legislation by half-time.
1
For Mr. Brooks to suggest that a greater number of guns in the environment leads to a greater number of gun deaths is like suggesting that a greater number of cholera bacteria lead to......well, never mind. Anyway, Pat Robertson, the squinty eyed, grinning televangelist, has the answer. Disrespect for Trump has led to mass gun violence. I suggest that every household have a mini shrine to our Dear Leader. An orange with a little lemon pie filling on top should do it. Daily genuflection before your household mini-Trum demi-god will work a treat. And don't forget a contribution to Reverend Pat. Those Cadillacs don't pay for themselves.
2
Several interesting facts are presented here (e.g. mass shootings lead to RELAXED gun laws in Republican states) but the conclusion seems like a load of Brooksian hooey.
2
So we need "something" but Dave ain't saying what. Too bad, maybe he could save some lives. Seems that while Dave is waiting for his tectonic shift, us other people could at the very least slow down the rate of killing by eliminating rapid firing guns?
3
Geez, no mention of the constant drumbeat from the goobers about rising crime rates (which have been dropping since the 1980s) or the horrific toll that guns take on us every year.
Republicans tell us there is no way to stop the carnage, while the USA is the only advanced nation that has these repeated massacres.
Greetings from the USA, the Insane Asylum of the World!
When people who ought to be psychiatric patients are in charge of the asylum, don't expect much to change.
1
If 9-11 had been a broader attack on Capitol full, the 2nd Amendment and those that have advantaged it thru arming themselves, would've been most all that remained between stability and chaos. Or, a cyber attack on the power grids, etc..
With the US making enemies -- trying to muscle the world into a Western style hedonism; 'stand your ground'.
As the laws become more restrictive on women's anatomy,
they loosen on weapons.
Is that what you were trying to say?
4
Ban assault weapons immediately.
2
What a silly dance. Of course gun control legislation would end gun deaths. No guns, no shootings. No brainer. Just do it. Do I care about the white guys who want guns? Nope.
2
A lot can be learned at academia. Not always for credit.Or supported by oppressively large loans.Even at Harvard,where the “invisible gorilla” was first not perceived.By many.And which can help us to learn to both know,and understand-which are not the same- what is happening around us.Like the “miracle” that the NRA will support some controls on gun-gadgets,like bump-stocks.But not outlawing them.Surely, had there been enough armed festival-folk, they could have shot back at the broken window up above and “neutralized” this urban”terrorist.” A group of ordinary people, like you and me, are asked to watch six people-three in white shirts and three in black shirts-pass basketballs around. And to count, and report, the number of passes made by the people in white shirts. A “gorilla” enters, at some point.Thumps its chest. Leaves after nine seconds.Half the people, reporting diverse numbers of balls passed,didn’t see the gorilla.Selective inattention? Willful blindness?As we focus on bump-stocks,which many have bought this week,we have been “blinded” loosened laws for gun availability.Accessability. We become habituated to “graphic myopia.”Exemplified by today’s NYT comparing 58 deaths:by guns,1 shooter/day in Las Vegas;during 28 days in Chicago.Images and numbers ARE people.Conceptualizations don’t “see” the invisible gorillas.As our, violating WE-THEY culture is enabled by each of us.By harmful words and deeds.Needed helpful ones not being implemented.By each of US.Together.
Great job David. Thank you
I'm sorry, but I confess that I am sick to death of reading about Americans who feel left behind by nearly everything. Or who were mysteriously and apparently hooked against their will by opioids. Or about Americans like those described in the bestseller Janesville who refused to leave the city when their jobs disappeared. You were not left behind. You refused to do the hard, hard work of keeping up. You were not mysteriously hooked on opioids, You took them, then asked for more and more. You sat around dying towns and refused to move along as millions and millions of others have done in every previous American generation. You have allowed yourself to be captured by those who reap the rewards of victimizing others--the "helpful" counselor, psychologists, writers, many with at least some good intentions, but many who wish only to write a best seller and/or appear in O magazine. Yes, American is racist, misogynistic, selfish, greedy, shallow, cruel, and jaw-droppingly stupid, but, guess what? Thanks to million of Americans before you, America is less so now than ever before, but don't count on it staying that way. Opioids? Get help. No job? Take a job "no American will do." Scrub toilets at Arby's. Out of shape? Exercise--just walk. No fancy shoes or outfits required. Start where your great grandparents started. Start over with the proverbial one cow, then two. And most importantly, STOP WHINING. If you can read this, you are alive. That's where we all start.
3
David is right about this. Here in VT, guns are as sacred as milk and maple syrup. Because our economy is far more stable than the rest of the US, hipsters and rednecks manage to get along. Maybe it's because we don't get too rich because we'd rather ski than work. Maybe it's because we spend a lot of money on education and health care. Maybe it's because our Republicans are nice. America, keep your guns, but be Vermont.
1
~"A lone lunatic murders a mass of innocent people in some public location"~
And what do you call people who buy military weapons for street use? Sane? You are disparaging Paddock because he had a plan to eliminate Homo Sapiens. That happens daily all around the world and in the United States through the failure to regulate industries that kill people and then complain about the corporate tax rates. Paddocks plan was well conceived but illegal. What was wrong with that? You call him a lunatic. The so-called President calls him sick...but trump calls everyone sick.
Paddock may have been sociopathic but there was no "lunacy". He simply followed a meticulous plan with weapons he was lawfully allowed to purchase.
We have a President killing people in Puerto Rico because they are brown. That is the definition of lunacy.
1
By George, I think you’ve won me over...at the very least to consider what you write. Even if it does make me stupid. “The smarter a person is, the greater his or her ability to rationalize and reinterpret discordant information”.
If the majority of our artistic consumption is laced with hyper-violence we will inevitably lean toward more paranoid violent culture. On the other hand, if the majority of our artistic consumption has a more empathetic message, more graceful and kind we will inevitably lean toward a more gentle, caring, less paranoid culture. Take a look around at the movies that sell, the lead on the news, the video games played, the internet, the books that are read (if read at all). Murder, violence, revenge, control, sadism usually play a roll. Perhaps beyond the legislative role in controlling gun purchase, we may also need to take a look at what media sells and why? I don't want to sound like Tipper Gore, because I don't think censorship is the solution. But, could there be a conversation around shifting what we consume in media? Or what we are forced to glance at because it's everywhere? Perhaps that cultural shift could lead to behavior changes across the board: more acceptance of safe gun laws, more acceptance of universal healthcare, more acceptance of fair tax laws; these political issues should not be left or right issues, but analyzed by what does the most good for the most people. If our violent cultural residue leaves us slightly paranoid, looking over our shoulder, fists up in a dog-eat-dog world we will never evolve. Let's not promote an "I, me, mine" culture crouched in fear clutching our canned goods; but, instead, an "us, we, ours" culture looking to share.
2
The NRA does not control congress, it does not control the majority of American statehouses. It does not control the Presidency, and it did not refuse to confirm a Democratic appointment to the Supreme Court or even refuse it.
The Republican Party is who gave us the current gun laws for American, as well as it's suicidal take for society on interpreting the 2nd amendment. It is the Republican Party that has refused any attempt at gun control.
They could have done something, and they could do something at any point that they choose to. They have the power, but they refuse the responsibility. When Americans die in gun violence it is blood on their hands.
We have an America that makes a fetish of firearms. Of weak conservative men who so fear others, that they must have a replacement for the courage and manliness that they lack. Something that they can say, look at mine, it's Bigger.
It isn't about security or safety. It isn't about protection. The number of gun deaths show that. It is about the insecurity of men who need a pacifier that kills for their fragile egos.
It is men, in the vast majority of instances, who resort to gun violence, not in support of the US and its constitution but against it. It is not for a well regulated militia, but against it. The use of illegal use of firearms should be prosecuted as treason against America. It should be the primary offense against us all, and any who engage in it should face life in prison for even the threat.
3
David's "grand synthesis" won't be created by a modern day Teddy Roosevelt. Our dystopian synthesis is being created by that amorphous monster The Internet, and the millions of addicting fingers it touches and tickles us with - those tiny supercomputers, our phones. We are in something more than a postindustrial time; we are in a time that is moving too fast to even be categorized. Information "bubbles," first-person shooter games, powerful new addictions to "likes," the deteriorating meaning of "truth".... these are all forces without historical precedent. One has to ask, how will the new Grand Synthesis be found in this new jungle we did not evolve to handle?
1
Nice piece Mr. Brooks. Made me think and I think I'll keep thinking about it.
Keep up the good work.
I also like Mr. Rothstein's comments.
Mr Brooks, there is no way the NRA gets a free pass on this issue no way at all.
1
Now that, thanks to the media, the whole world knows about bump stocks, expect to see them everywhere and on any kind of gun. The basic principle of operation is easy to comprehend. And it takes nothing to make them in one's garage workshop. Now we need classes on how to duck properly.
2
Mr. Brooks got an awful close to quoting President Obama's November 2008 Pennsylvania speech where he pointed out that " [folks] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." The President wisely saw this divide in 2008 and he was unable to do much about it in his two terms. Mass shootings and Donald Trump are both the result of this divide, I am not sure it will be resolved with any grand synthesis. There is too much contempt on both sides. Just like there would never be a unity gov't with Obama and Trump, ultimately, one side will have to yield and decide what this country will become.
We need to better understand how the escalation and influence of violent gaming, movies, etc. has changed the American male's propensity for violence and disregard for real humans.
A decent way to understand that is looking again at Japan. Tons of violent video games and violent video game players....almost 0 Gun deaths yearly. Seems to me this is the answer to that question. It's not the games, it's the Guns.
The key moment for guns and many other destructive aspects of American life was the day marketers and advertisers realized that emotions trump reason when it comes to what we can be made to desire in our daily lives. Emotional appeals that support a person's fantasized view of who they are -- or who they should be -- triumphs over facts every time.
Owning a gun is just one of the ego-boosts that many folks depend on to maintain their carefully cultivated self-images. Everywhere you look in today's world, appeals are made to our fantasy-selves about items that will supposedly make us more powerful and satisfied.
And few things are more powerful than a gun. No matter how dangerous its use and function -- or unrealistic the expectation that the average person can use it safely. Owning a gun confers the illusion that you are protected -- even though it places you and your family in greater danger.
1
"Progress on guns"? What does that mean? Letting David Brooks abolish "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" (those words are actually in the U.S. Constitution, btw)?
I don't foresee that the culture war will subside until the irreversible change in the demographics of the country takes place. It will probably take a generation for this to happen.
In the meantime, just "fasten your seat belt and keep a gun under your seat!"
1
The NRA has our legislators in their pockets. John McCain received over seven million dollars from them. Need I say more?
4
If the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to arm the populace so that it can engage the Army, Marines, Navy, and Air Force in combat, then the NRA was correct to resist restrictions on the armament of the "well-regulated militia." In fact, they should be demanding that we have tanks, planes, submarines, heavy artillery, etc..
The fact that this notion is patently absurd shows that the 2nd Amendment became obsolete long ago.
2
“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.”
― D.H. Lawrence
It would be much easier to pass real gun control if we also controlled the ability of the powerful to harm the weak.
Every Wells Fargo and Equifax scandal that destroys the lives of millions of ordinary citizens while the perps get away with millions of dollars reinforces the point.
Every rich, fancy gay couple who threatens working class bakers with a lawsuit if they don't get exactly the cake they want reinforces the point -- some people are more equal than others.
Every young man who colleges like Lewis and Clark in Portland presumes guilty of rape because he looks like another man thousands of miles away and because her feelings are more important than the facts reinforces the point -- some people are privileged even as they denounce their victims for purported "privilege."
The 11 million people whose continued presence here violates Federal Law reinforces the point -- the powerful have protected pets.
When will the banksters and the "social justice" warriors have their "guns" (just as destructive as firearms) taken away?
Commenter Kevin Rothstein says, "Most of us are evangelical Protestants, and believe in an actual devil and that every word in the Bible is truthful."
While an appalling percentage of the populace believes in the claptrap depicted in that ludicrous creationist "museum" in Kentucky, they are a minority, albeit a noisy one, aggressively attempting to foist their confabulous version of reality on the rest of us. The cover story in the September issue of The Atlantic, "How America Went Haywire," covers the ground Mr Rothstein discusses.
We are taught to respect people's right to their religious beliefs, but when they pervert basic premises of the founding of our country to try to impose their Sharia, they must be brought to heel.
This article should be at least somewhat reassuring:
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/
4
It is the NRA. Money is not the only form of power or influence. Getting a low rating from the NRA is the kiss of death in a Republican primary, so every Republican dances like a puppet on the strings of the NRA. Try not to ignore reality in order to make a point
4
Well, David, when exactly does the culture war subside? How do you propose that this "grand synthesis" comes about? What institutions do you imagine that we can invent that the populist revolt of the Republican party will not see as another liberal elitist attempt by the self-righteous. Look around you. Quit blaming the ones looking for solutions. If we have a problem with climate change, the "populists" revolting in the republican party will label any institution invented to address the problem a creation of the self-righteous liberal elite. If we have a problem with health coverage for those with preexisting health conditions, the populists revolting in the republican party will label any institution invented to address the problem a creation of the self-righteous liberal elite. It is the same with the problem of too many guns in our society and not enough regulations of those guns.
For God's sake, David, you are labeled as one of those "self-righteous" liberal elites by the "populist" revolt of the republican party, for even suggesting that there might exist the possibility of a grand synthesis and those of us who might be more deserving of the label as "self-righteous" certainly do not want to own your appeasement of this "populist" revolt in the republican party that is fueling this "culture war" with racist overtones and appeals to authoritarian takeovers of our democratic institutions.
3
I was about to agree with this well written article until suddenly a popular NRA talking point appeared: "...the N.R.A. spends a minuscule amount on campaign contributions compared with the vast oceans of dough washing through our politics."
Perhaps this OCT. 4, 2017 article from the Post might shed a bit of light on the cynical depths of the NRA money machine as it continues buying our so called representatives accompanied with a list of exactly whom it has been bribing: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/04/opinion/thoughts-prayers-...
6
I fear we have a long backwards trajectory before our nation can move forward. I cannot help wondering how carefully planned trolling is creating a new American Civil War. A hostile power that would seize and exploit our internal conflicts? A country that would see benefit from a highly destabilized US, social and economic chaos, armed Americans killing each other so their armies don't have to. Is Putin hat clever and capable, are we that stupid, or am I another whack job conspiracy theorist?
Countries dont' have souls, people do.
1
.......yeah all that....,,
or....
Alternative explanation here.....
...the Republican Party is morally corrupt, selfish and intent on winning at all costs and has successfully exploited people's real economic anxiety as a way to turn against others.
Why do they feel they have to rely on themselves? Who has taught them that government is bad? Who has slashed budgets on social programs, schools and police budgets? Republicans both at state and federal government.
I like you, Brooks. I suspect there's a decency to you. Watching your verbal and mental gymnastics is a fascinating exercise in the self rationalization you write about.
To me it's a simple paradigm. I was brought up Catholic... (but in South America where the current Pope is from...,,it's a distinction believe me) I was taught that Jesús main driver was to help the disenfranchised. Jesús refuted labels and social mores. He treated all individuals with equal dignity. He cared about the least powerful.
Given that lens, the GOP fails across every metric. Their stance on guns is yet another piece of evidence.
7
The U.S.A. is too far gone for anything much to happen in respect to guns. Nothing will happen.
7
Mr. Brooks,
You are such a tortured thinker. I don't disagree that it is necessary for our country to achieve a synthesis of some sort that brings us common effort, but gun violence can easily be greatly reduced by laws that address access to the means of that violence.
8
Absolutely astounding how one lobby (NRA) has a stranglehold on one half of the two major political parties. But we the voters are not powerless. It's a no brainer than in order to effect change in gun legislation and end this horror show, we must vote out legislators who are too gutless to buck the NRA.
3
Postindustrial elites my auto-loader!
It's the constant propaganda from the right wing media and enablers like Brooks that has people convinced they need guns to protect themselves from the government. Propaganda that makes people fear all non-whites as drug dealers, rapists or terrorists. Propaganda that right wing opinions are better than elitist facts, that higher education is something to be shunned. Propaganda spread by personal insults and intimidation.
And the people behind this propaganda are the ones skimming the benefits from the postindustrial society. How convenient.
6
For sure guns are a proxy for a larger conflict in America. The diagnosis however seems a little benign to me: Quote: "For many people, the gun is a way to protect against crime. But it is also an identity marker. It stands for freedom, self-reliance and the ability to control your own destiny." This description would seem to apply only to white middle america. Asians, African Americans or Latino's don't seem to equate gun ownership with these values. There is something bizarre about being White in America. I mean, really....Donald Trump??
4
Racism.
I am a 71 year old caucasian geezer who has watched firearm insanity reach new heights and sees it as the white right's fear of strangers and especially black and hispanic citizens gaining power.
There is a reason that Trump's rallies are nearly totally white. He, using his talent for dog whistles, calls to those who fear black and hispanic people to support him.
And the biggest dog whistle of them all is labeled...firearms, in every purse, in every truck, in every hand.
White hand.
As the minorities gain power, and that includes women who aren't in the minority but who would clearly change the political world, the power of the gun lobby expands dramatically.
But that calls out Trump as his supporters as being mostly racists. Sure seems that way to me, hope they prove me wrong when he is shown to be deserving of impeachment and they help toss him out.
Hugh Massengill, Eugene Oregon
5
David, this is just another excuse from conservatives like you for doing nothing. I think most people understand that slaughtering innocent people is wrong and that assault weapons and bump stocks are not needed for target practice or home protection. Why don't you join your colleague Bret Stephens in a call to repeal the Second Amendment?
6
In other words, guns are the new money.
2
Mr. Brooks writes that America's attachment to guns is about “freedom, self-reliance and the ability to control your own destiny.” Really? He really thinks this abstraction explains the "soul" of America? Explains why we, alone among all the nations in the post-industrialized world, have so many deaths and mass murders by guns that, as Nicholas Kristoff wrote in his recent column, they outstrip all the deaths of all the wars we’ve ever had put together?
Sorry, I don’t buy this lofty, philosophical explanation of our gun death rate even for a second. What’s wrong with America comes out of a much deeper, violent and disturbed river than that carved out by a historical love of freedom and self-reliance.
American attachment to guns, unlike the attachment to guns people in other parts of the post-industrialized world feel, is essentially erotic. Watch people fondle guns at a gun show and you get it—everyone stroking guns in a fetishized and almost sexual fashion, men strutting around with guns as if they are showing off their sexual prowess, women showing off cute, pink handguns as if they’re hot-colored lipsticks.
So don’t give me this lofty stuff about elites versus the common agrarian guy. This is about a sick and vulgar playground rising up out of a sick and vulgar popular culture.
9
Oh stop. The reason people arm themselves is fear of their fellow man. They feel so threatened and have such little confidence in the social contract they pack heat of a beautiful morning to get coffee or to drop off their children at school. The fear is irrational and pitiful and has little to do with socio economics. The Las Vegas and Sandy hook terrorists don't fit your profile. The raw truth is they commit mass murder because they can.
7
Thank you.
Even though I am against guns, I do feel that if just one man is allowed a gun we all should be allowed one.
oh stop. the only reason to arm oneself is fear. Fear of one's fellow man. These people feel threatened and sometimes become so terrified they go nuts and start shooting. The environment encourages this in social behaviour under the guise of frontier ethics.
3
"Gun control proposals don’t seriously impinge freedom; on the other hand, there’s not much evidence that they would prevent many attacks."
WHAT!?!?!?
In this newspaper there have been many stories written after 'Vegas Night' about how other leading democracies such as Australia, Canada and Britain (and Germany, and and and) put meaningful, effective gun control in place that has provided statistical proof of effectiveness.
Today's column is utter nonsense David. Truthiness much?
5
My wife and I have enjoyed shooting for the past several years. She surprised my the other day when we were discussing the killings in Las Vegas and gun rights. She emphatically stated she would never give up our AR or her Sig 9mm. She would be willing to gun it out on the front yard if the government ever attempted to confiscate the firearms. She is intelligent, conscientious and would never be aggressive or mean spirited. Their are 10's of millions of people who feel the same way and would defend their rights at all cost
1
I've never owned a gun in all my life. Perhaps I've been missing something.
2
How would we force some kind of synthesis on the post industrialization/populism war? A shoot out at the OK Corral?
1
Congress and the states can regulated guns according to Justice Scalia's decision in the Heller case,"like most rights, the right secured by the second Amendment is not unlimited, it is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose." "Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms."
Guns are the new Marlboro Man. An mythological figure representing a glorious past, sort of like the Confederate battle flag has come to represent a Gone-With-the-Wind view of a South that never really was.
Guns kill. Stop arguing the NRA's lie that guns don't kill - they do.
If you want to address the problem, first destroy the false narrative. Guns Kill. It is the only reason they exist.
A good article, David. But the very fact that gun stocks have skyrocketed with every mass shooting incidents shows as to who really is controlling the gun culture! Wayne Lapiere is laughing his way to the bank!
What came first, the chicken or the egg. As the Las Vegas murderer accumulated guns, then maybe the guns themselves became a catalyst for his evil deadly plan. Right now, we see that he put gambling casinos, perks of luxury suites and automatic weapons together to create mayhem.
"The wrong answer is that the NRA is a maliciously powerful force.... In fact the NRA spends a minuscule amount on campaign contributions."
Mr. Brooks, you are confusing money with speech. You are in good company, because the Supremes didn't recognize the difference either.
The NRA doesn't need to buy Congress because they have spent their propaganda effort differently. Where does Brooks think that the conflation of guns and freedom have come from? Who pushed the narrative that guns are freedom? Who pushed the idea that any control is a slippery slope and liberals want your freedom? Who pushed the idea that we need guns to protect our freedom from the new world order or jackbooted government thugs or hordes of (name your feared minority here) coming for you stuff?
Th NRA doesn't buy Congress - it puts the fear of all in them that they will support someone else in a primary in a safe district. And it puts its message out in news stories and blogs, and flyers and conversations at gun shows, and bumper stickers and talk radio.
If you have written an overwhelmingly successful and now unshakable narrative, which is ingrained in half the population, you are a powerful force.
1
Mr. Brooks-I am very disappointed in your attempt to downplay the role the NRA plays in campaigns. You know very well that direct donations to candidates is hardly the only way that the NRA hopes to affect elections.
From your own news paper:
"...the gun group poured $54 million in outside spending in 2016..."
"The N.R.A.’s cumulative spending across three election cycles tops $104 million..."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/us/politics/las-vegas-shooting-gun-cl...
I certainly expect more honesty from you, Mr. Brooks.
2
In civilized countries even conservatives ask, "Why would anyone want to own a gun?"
1
We are really a blood thirsty society. If we weren't, we would have done away with the 2nd amendment and its mythology long ago. God bless our ridiculous
18th century mentality.
I am convinced that the farther right one is politically, the more gun violence is literally enjoyable. The farther right, the more the lust for utterly destroying anyone remotely toward the left. They like this. They dream of it. They relish the thought of intimidation via guns, especially liberals. And ALL repubs allowed this.
1
It is not a culture war it is a war between authoritarianism and democracy. The perverse I would say criminal misinterpretation of the second amendment was made by a bought and paid for Supreme Court. I often hear America is a land of laws but Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany were also lands of laws.
Democracy and freedom demand justice and equality before the law.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was followed immediately by the nomination of Barry Goldwater who ran on the platform of repeal and replace. Goldwater's speechwriter was an Anarchist and gun enthusiast named Karl Hess.
The only war is a propaganda war and government of the people is losing badly. This week my party chose as its leader an Orthodox Sikh, my party is democratic socialist. There is no culture war between those of faith and those who believe in a secular state. There is only a conflict between those who would wedge us apart for their own wealth and power and those who would bring us together to celebrate our shared humanity.
Some of my most cherished friends are Christians and some of my most devout Christian friends are democratic socialists.
1
Must EACH of us lose a loved one before the gun lobby is stopped?
Shocking to me that so many opinion writers on this topic minimize or don't even bother mentioning the impact of Fox News and conservative radio on America.
When your news sources spend all day telling you about the dangerous immigrants, the outlaw Blacks in the cities, and the tyrannical government taking away all of your rights, it's no wonder gun sales go up and more people what the freedom to shoot others without consequences.
Fox news and conservative radio are hate spewers plain and simple. We already know a large swath of America only listens to these news sources. So no surprise about the culture clash, but we won't be putting Fox news or conservative radio back in the bottle, it's out there, and will continue to use its power to divide the country.
Americans (5% of the global population) own half of the world's guns.
Considering that less than half of Americans actually own guns, we are talking about lunatics who own 20x the median. This is NOT normal. Stop trying to normalize this.
1
"Today we need another grand synthesis that can move us beyond the current divide, a synthesis that is neither redneck nor hipster but draws from both worlds to create a new social vision. Progress on guns will be possible when the culture war subsides, but not before."
Sure, if the "culture" changes progress might be possible. But anyone who's observed the gun/religion/anti-government/white-dominated/inward-directed culture of some typical red states knows that it won't soon change.
A "redneck/hipster" compromise for the times? With reasonable caveats (no automatic weapons, grenade launchers, flame throwers), register all guns to their owners, keep a record of who owns what and, thus, who is legally responsible, require insurance, etc. In short, simply apply the general and near universal rules that govern automobile ownership.
Of course, that suggestion will be -- is -- rejected by the "redneck", but it's a rational "synthesis" of the sort sought by Mr. Brooks.
i used to think that we were somehow different from Americans. You know, less violent. After all our homicide rate compared to the United States is almost nothing. Than I sat down and watched a hockey game
The only difference between our two countries is that when the trouble begins we don't have a gun in our pocket to settle the matter with finality.
We both have our share of crazies but you have the guns.
2
The NRA this week said they would allow review of bump stocks.
They would allow.
This is all you need to know about who controls politicians and the narrative.
Puppet masters.
4
How David Brooks could write this entire column without mentioning the fact that right wing media (Fox News and talk radio) has been stoking fear, paranoia and cultural resentment in Red America for 20+ years is mind boggling. The gun phenomenon is less about post-industrialization and "souls" and more about people being convinced that the country is on the brink of immigrant invasions, anarchy and apocalypse.
This is the same David Brooks who never fails to mention that the "elites" on the coasts live in a delusional self-satisfied bubble of cultural consensus created by higher education, Hollywood and the mainstream media.
Why use the term “lunatic”? Do you have evidence that the shooter had a mental illness? Absent compelling evidence, your use of such a word feeds into stereotypes that individuals with a mental illness are violent.
I would have to agree to a certain extent. Faced with obvious facts, the gun worshippers leave reason and bury themselves in fear that gun ownership will protect them from said fear. The difference between 2000 and 2016 I would maintain is the proliferation of manipulative propaganda from Fox News, Brietbart and other social media forums. If the NRA does not spend big bucks how is their influence on behalf of gun manufacturers so pervasive?
Welcome to the land of conspiracy theories and the twisting of the meaning of freedom courtesy of InfoWars, etc. The Alex Jones theory that Sandy Hook was a 'false flag' was the most disgusting idea ever stated in modern times. And he felt no shame and kept at it because you know 'They are coming for your guns'.
We are sick right now as a culture, as a society and we are very divided. We need a person or an idea of Messianic proportions to get this country to even be willing to sit at the same table and talk.
Let us distinguish between the legal right to own a gun using a gun in an illegal and wrongful way. Americans want their guns. What they don't want is for their neighbors to have guns too. America operates on fear. Fear of losing healthcare, fear of losing a job, fear of getting older and being replaced by someone younger or a robot, fear of refugees, fear of teenagers, fear of anyone and everyone who isn't "like me and my kind. "
Not respect. FEAR!
Respect is being aware that the Other has just as much right to be here as I do, as you do. America hates Others and teaches Others to hate themselves too. Hated the Native Americans, the Jews, the Queer, and of course, those really strange humans, the Woman. Fear and Hate are our golden-egg-laying geese and anybody who tampers with them, tampers with America.
Gun laws just remove the natural resource of fear from this country and replaces it with what? Pluralism? The overwhelming evidence is that we have been, are, and will be a gun carrying nation grounded in the irrational fears that make us strive harder, work harder, and pretend harder to be the greatest nation on earth.
1
>"Today we need another grand synthesis that can move us beyond the current divide, a synthesis that is neither redneck nor hipster but draws from both worlds to create a new social vision."<
My nominee for perhaps the richest symbolic representation of this synthesis: The small-to-mid-sized organic farmer.
Of the earth, dirt under their fingernails, speaking the language of the land, but entrepreneurial, humanly scaled, and socially progressive.
1
"[Owning guns] stands for freedom, self-reliance and the ability to control your own destiny."
All of which is arrant nonsense.
Just repeal the Second Amendment and confiscate the guns.
For me a gun is an absolute necessity, and in fact I own many guns. Having a rudimentary understanding of history and current events I would be insane to not be well armed. You see, I am an American Jew.
I would suggest a new synthesis centered on individial freedom and dignity rather than identity group and binary two-party politics.
Expose Mr LaPierre for the coward he is would be a good start. Has there ever lived a more heinous excuse of a man?
And show the pictures of what these weapons do to human flesh so the lies cannot remain abstractions.
Yes, it's all the fault of the left. "Persuading" doesn't do much good in the face of gerrymandering, disinformation, and unlimited corporate money (oops, I mean "speech") in politics. Shame on you.
Any new gun legislation, as fanciful as that sounds, would be shot down by the other Republican branch of government, the Supreme Court.
This is a disingenuous column, Mr. Brooks.
You are throwing out gobbledegook to support the idea that a majority of Americans don't support gun rights.
There has been a push from the NRA and its original intent, which ironically was founded by Union soldiers after the civil war because soldiers were such lousy shots.
For you to pretend that the NRA doesn't have an outsized influence on our country, our mindset, is a lie.
In February, President Trump signed a bill into law rolling back an Obama-era regulation that made it harder for people with mental illnesses to purchase a gun -- the Republicans in the House and the Senate passed this bill before sending it on to Trump.
The rule, which was finalized last December, added people receiving Social Security checks for mental illnesses and people deemed unfit to handle their own financial affairs to the national background check database.
The National Rifle Association “applauded” Trump’s action. Chris Cox, NRA-ILA executive director, said the move “marks a new era for law-abiding gun owners, as we now have a president who respects and supports our arms.”
I defy you to show me a poll where a majority of Americans support mentally-ill people having guns. The NRA is kowtowing Americans into the morgue.
The NRA has pushed Republicans into a corner where they don't even allow our Congress to gather data on gun deaths.
This is a national crisis and the leaders of this country need to lead.
Gun control and climate change, realities hard-earned that deserve our immediate attention anywhere in the world. Yet both these issues are shrouded by a harsh reality: American standards mute the sound reasoning, insightful action and change in modern societies. And although change to the accepted order does bring positive results for all, unsurprisingly, the focus remains fixed on America steadfast to accepting antiquated laws for its soul and survival. Highlighting the negative, the one thing we can all agree on.
Start forming militias among BLM and AntFa movements-that'll do it.
2
Repeal the Second Amendment. It was written when the country had no standing army, and needed all able-bodied citizens to be part of "a well-regulated militia" (the first words of the amendment, stating the reason for its existence), because we were facing imminent invasion by foreign countries.
That was 200 years ago. We now have our militia (the National Guard), and the most powerful, and expensive military in the history of the world.
There is absolutely no reason to continue the self-destructive path we have been on, unnecessarily, for far too long.
5
"Gun control proposals don’t seriously impinge freedom; on the other hand, there’s not much evidence that they would prevent many attacks."
Come on, Brooks. Are you saying that every other industrialized country on the face of the earth doesn't owe its vastly lower gun violence to the fact that they have much tighter restrictions on access to guns? I usually try to give your specious claims the benefit of the doubt, but this time you are entirely wrong.
2
"[Gun ownership] stands for freedom, self-reliance and the ability to control your own destiny." As I read this, you are entitled to blame all your problems of immigrants, Obama, China, Liberals, and a whole laundry list of people and things, everyone but yourself. You can expect someone else like Trump to use the government to solve all your problems for you. But as long as you own a gun, you can claim to posses the virtue of personal responsibility and be a self-made man. Now I see the appeal.
1
1. 300 million guns are already out there. Too many now to realistically make a meaningful dent in that pool. Acquiring a gun, legally or otherwise, is not and will never be a real problem to anyone, anyone.
2. "Gun Lovers", a small but extremely passionate part of us, repudiate any form of gun control because, to boil it down to one single factor: DISTRUST.
3. They fear authorities will scoop their guns up some day if they register them and they fear they themselves could be endangered someday if they don't have their own guns (and parity firepower). Waco, Ruby Ridge, "Red Dawn", ISIS, etc.
4. The NRA is fueled by these very gun owners, not visa versa.
5. Restore trust in our authorities? That would take generations...
2
“A fraud on the American public.” That’s how former Chief Justice Warren Burger described the idea that the Second Amendment gives an unfettered individual right to a gun. When he spoke these words in 1990, the rock-ribbed conservative appointed by Richard Nixon was expressing the longtime consensus of historians and judges across the political spectrum.
Adam Winkler of UCLA School of Law & the author of Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America, says the vision of NRA-blessed liberty espoused by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch is not grounded in constitutional reality. “These justices are pushing for a vision of the right to bear arms that has less to with the Second Amendment and more to do with the politics of guns,” he says. “Courts have historically upheld most forms of gun control. Only in the NRA’s skewed understanding does the Constitution require access to military-style assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and concealed carry without a permit.”
2
I think America's love affair with guns comes out of what behavioral psychologists call "the illusion of control." Most people feel safer driving their own car than letting a pilot fly them in a jet, though they're orders a magnitude safer in the jet. They feel sure that they're a good driver and will handle any situation that comes up safely. They're not really imagining all that could go wrong. Similarly, people imagine situations where having a gun will make them safer, but don't take into account all the ways it might make them less safe. People don't expect to become mentally ill, or to have diminished control while high or drunk, or to have an intruder shoot them *because* they're reaching for their gun, .... So we have tens of millions of people who feel safer having guns around, who then are more likely to shoot someone in a rage, successfully commit suicide, have a disturbed or immature family member use the weapon (possibly accidentally), .... Rational arguments don't have much impact on these emotional beliefs.
1
If a gun appears in a movie it gets used.
Same seems to apply in real life.
If over 20, 30, 40 guns appear ina movie, there will be carnage,
3
David: Give a listen to Terry Gross's October 5 "Fresh Air" interview with Mike Spies of The Trace. It isn't the NRA's money that gives them such influence, it's their ability to "primary" any Republican incumbent who doesn't toe the line.
4
I note that many readers lament the high rate of gun violence in the US. When comparing the US to other countries, I would suggest that the focus be on total violence, not just gun violence.
For example, while the US has a much higher rate of gun suicides than, say, Japan, Japan has a much higher rate of suicide (by all means) than the US. If you believe that it is the presence of guns that is the issue, than you have to agree than guns are responsible for the LOWER suicide rate in the US compared to Japan.
1
The first act of Trump and congress was to enable the "mentally ill" to buy guns. No more restrictions.
The Nevada slaughter was a simple lesson in cause and effect.
1
The intellectual dishonesty here is astounding.
The NRA isn't a political force because they don't contribute much money? That may be true, but what they deliver is votes which is what counts.
The Las Vegas massacre wouldn't have been prevented by common sense gun laws? Maybe, maybe not, but it would have been lessened. If the shooter had been limited to legitimate hunting rifles, how many could he have gotten up to his room? There's a difference between a 40" long hunting rifle and an AR15 which can be disassembled to fit a dozen into a suitcase.
How many shots could he have gotten off if he had to reload every 5 shots vs ever 30 or 50 shots?
What's a reasonable goal here, reducing the damage one crazed individual can do at any given time, or doing noting until we can prevent crazed individuals from ever causing harm, any time, any where?
5
Fortunately, due to our penchant for political self segregation, I happen to live in a community of like minded individuals who do not own guns. Our locality does not have that much gun violence, suicide by gun, accidental gun injuries.
Unfortunately, that means, when I venture out into the gun owning society, I am then subject to the gun statistics of those areas. Gun owners are a danger to everyone, gun owners or not. Those of us that do not own guns, are not that much of a danger to others, gun owners or not.
I guess common sense is not actually that common after all.
2
In 2017, your pro-gun excuses like the gun "stands for freedom, self-reliance and the ability to control your own destiny. Gun rights are about living in a country where families are tough enough and responsible enough to stand up for themselves in a dangerous world." is a load of codswallop. The fact is, people with guns make the world more dangerous regardless of who's carrying them, a child could tell you this.
The wild west is best re-lived by watching 1960's westerns, not lived out on our streets by the deluded, violent, armed, malicious, bossy or fearful in 2017. We should be looking forward, not backward when it comes to civil society and human rights.
2
I support gun rights political candidates because I enjoy hunting and collecting. The NRA never fits into the equation.
I don't understand why the NYT gives them so much power. Gun owners are more than capable in regards to developing their own (occasionally ridiculous) rhetoric!
Mr. Brooks is essentially correct. Guns are tied to identity, in a lot of (gasp) pro-social ways: autonomy, thrift, helpfulness. If someone is a gun owner, for example, I can use that as heuristic shorthand for someone who is (generally) mechanically apt, pragmatic, and knows how to stretch a dollar. Plus other qualities as well, many not so endearing.
While I know there are plenty of women who have guns (I am one), the vast majority of gun owners are men. Apparently, there are lots of men who just do not feel "manly" unless they have a gun - or lots of guns. Talk to any police officer in Florida, and they will tell you that not a day goes by when a gun isn't stolen from a frequently unlocked vehicle. So much for "responsible" gun owners. I do not have mine for self defense but to shoot at a gun range -- where there's a huge sign on the door telling you that a loaded weapon is forbidden.
And, while the carnage from gun deaths is now greater per year than automobile deaths, no one is talking about the survivors....In Las Vegas, you now have over 20,000 people who were in the line of fire, some of whom were injured -- but all of them were there and likely terrified. So, every year some 30,000 people die from guns, including suicides...but what about their friends, relatives, family? Maybe the gun control folks should start marching with graphic photographs of gun wounds, so people can see what really happens when someone is shot.
Every gun should be registered; every ammunition purchase tracked; no one other than police should be able to buy body armor, or armor piercing bullets. No one should be allowed to amass an arsenal. Period. None of this makes a man a man, not really.
166
Well put, I am also a gun owner. I have argued that for the public and politicians to understand the impact of gun violence they need to be shown the graphic photos of the aftermath of Newtown, Orlando and now Las Vegas. Gruesome photos of dead parents, children and friends and neighbors I believe might make some sense in weighing the rights of the Second Amendment vs. the dangers of its current situation.
The popularity of zombie and horror TV/flicks makes me wonder if people aren't desensitized already, or are they simply a daretakers look at what could be?
I think forcing legislators to look at the crime scene photos from Newtown might be a minimum offset to the cultural call of "freedom".
Might be a good idea to let people buy body armor. Just not guns or ammo. That way we would have some protection if we foolishly decide to step out side to go to a concert, or the movies, or the mall.
Grand historical analogies feel good but don't guide us on what to do in the present. There are more-salient facts Brooks ignores, such as: 99% of mass shootings are done by men. That cannot be a coincidence. Why are so many of all murderers men? Maybe testosterone plays a role. On the cultural side of things, which Brooks usually loves...what vision of masculinity do the shooters grow up learning? If our society continues to define being a "real man" as one who dominates women, gets rich at all costs, and has lots of high-tech toys, then let's stop acting so shocked when men raised in this environment beat their wives or lose hope in old age or shoot up the place.
In the Vegas case: This Paddock guy was a jerk to his girlfriend, according to Starbucks employees who heard him routinely abuse her verbally. He was a "winner" according to how capitalism measures success--a millionaire, even. And he owned thousands of dollars' worth of guns. Who knows why he did it? Maybe we'll never know. Will different laws matter? Maybe. Can we raise our sons differently so that they recoil at the thought of ever harming so many people? Yes. Let's get to it. That's how I am raising my two sons.
4
Yes! It's William Jennings Bryan and rural America vs. the 1890's cohort of "malefactors of great wealth" in the cities -- except all stirred and mixed up into a different stew.
Gun ownership is much about weak people feeling strong, a real man or woman doesn't need one.
2
It is not just the spending on candidates from the NRA it is the organization's organizing strategy against state legislators who displease them that makes them so intractable. They promote an agenda of paranoia in the face of imagined rampant crime. Let's not forget the underlying racism.
The NRA was FOR restrictions during the era of the Black Panthers et al.
I am sympathetic to agrarian, cultural norms that support gun ownership. It is understandable in Montana but how on God's green earth is concealed carry in a day care center supportable?
2
"The gun issue has become an epiphenomenon of a much larger conflict over values and identity." But nowhere does David admit the Republican Party's willingness to host the worst among us and advance their insidious agendas. It's not just the explicit, shameless racists that have found their identity confirmed, it's a place where the all structures of bigotry ---the values and policies that use race, immigration, the denial of women's rights, and religion to degrade the American soul--- have found their home. Why is the American soul endangered? Republicans. Your Party, David.
2
Why are Americans so paranoid and fearful
thatvthey feel a need to arm themselves?
What is behind our obsession with guns and death?
I was a victim of gun violence in 1982.. I moved to France.
I'm about to move back there to escape the daily massacres here.
Yes Europe has terror attacks but no where near the frequency and carnage that we live with here.
All with the blessings of congress members who take
money from the NRA: our American version of ISIS.
What's the difference? The end result is the same.
Slaughter of innocents.
1
" Progress on guns will be possible when the culture war subsides, but not before."
So we are stuck with guns everywhere until the Republicans decide that they don't need to use guns, abortion and the flag as electoral issues. And the so called "religious" leaders here--how about a few less prayers for the victims every time this happens? The victims were innocent. How about a few more sermons about "turn the other cheek" and "love they neighbor" and "thou shalt not kill"? Those might change a few things. When did it become acceptable to kill--not just fire a warning shot--but kill someone who breaks into your house? Gun owners must feel mighty powerful--accuser, judge, jury and executioner all in one. Wow.
Everyone loves Les Miserables--but in today's world it is not likely to happen. If Jean Valjean tried to steal bread for his starving sister and her daughter, he could easily be shot and killed in the home over a loaf of bread. And in Michigan, the homeowner would be free of blame under our "Stand Your Ground" laws--a man's home is his castle, after all. So there goes one of our favorite plays because we don't want to imagine a person who got away with theft of food from a home.
What is driving all this? Don't fancy it up with three dollar words like displacement and postindustrialization. It's fear. We are no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave. And it's disgusting.
2
So having a gun stands for freedom? Ok, whatever. David, I'm just hopeful that I don't bump into one of these freedom loving people and they think I'm attacking them.
"The only way to make progress on guns control is to forge some sort of synthesis on the larger postindustrialization/populism war."
The gap Brooks argues lies at the bottom of the gun issue is happening in most advanced industrial economies. Rural areas in Britain and Japan are becoming depopulated and lacking employment.. The deep historical, and irreversible changes in modern societies cannot explain why gun violence in the United States is orders of magnitude more horrible than in most other advanced countries. What does explain the difference is the presence or absence of guns.
Morally pardoning an industry that profits from the production of weapons is the American way, well represented by Brooks here, and daily by the hypocritical, self proclaimed pro-life religious right of GOP, but it is also the reason that America tops the list of most dangerous western countries in terms of unprovoked violence. I felt safer in Europe, outside of the airports, than in any big city in America. At least their crazies come mainly from beyond their borders. That is a simple truth. Take it for what it is.
We are addicted to violence and we are uninterested in any interventionist cure. Blame the culture, blame our love of freedom, blame whatever, but we love our right to commit violence. Ironically, several decades ago it was the left that was accused of being soft on criminals (remember H. Bush's ads highlighting Dukakis' pardon of rapist Willie Horton?), but now it is the political right that supports the rights of psychopaths to victimize average citizens. We reap what we sow.
Nice try, David
I do agree guns have entered the culture war realm.
But isn't it really a commerce issue as well? We used to think it was cool to smoke until we realized it was killing us, creating a health epidemic that murdered millions of Americans at a cost of billions. American's were 'free' to smoke until it became clear that you were also killing your neighbor with your second hand activity. And yes, it was an uphill battle against a powerful lobby interest to turn the tide.
Now it's 'cool' to carry a gun, easy to get them, own them, collect them, even hoard them. But the cost of the associated violence due to easy access is in the billions now, and tens of thousands of Americans are dying year over year. And yes, it is an uphill battle against a powerful lobbying interest that cloaks itself in freedom and the flag.
This is not a complex problem. This is a matter of public responsibility.
You seem to imply that the gun rights groups actions are grass roots. You are ignoring the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent convincing people that they should be scared, afraid of immigrants, etc. Should Fox News start telling their listeners that gun control is “patriotic” or something, we will see quick change. Just as when they start telling us that President Pence would be a good idea.
1
Every single gun owner whom I know, here in Vermont, agrees that we need background checks and reasonable limits on gun ownership.Not one is a member of the NRA, yet the NRA holds enormous control over our legislators. It is time to start calling that organization a terrorist group, and to make our legislators know that if they take money from the NRA, they are accepting blood money, and are accessories to crime. Sorry, David, but it's really very basic.
As a city gun owner, I'm thrilled that there is bipartisan repulsion toward the bump stock that turns semi autos into machine guns. I have two residence only guns because I fought a man on the street after he robbed my house and he said he'd be back with a pistol...maybe. He couldn't even commit to that with clarity. I pray for him periodically but if he breaks in with a pistol, he'll get hit with a shotgun shell because that's the only way to stop the trigger finger of the other person and avoid the death or paralysis that he brings in his pistol.
But thank God this other level is being resisted....the machine gun world which is about mass murder. However...understand the rural man who worries about home invasion but so far from quick police response that he feels he needs this bump stock if five men pull up to his farm surrounded home and push on the front door. These people will resist confiscation of their bump stock.
How tragic that gunfire has become fanfare for the common man.
"A lone lunatic." Call it what it is: A lone white man with guns murders a mass of innocent people. The murders occurred in the United States. Now, can you elaborate further on those facts? We will never know or understand the "mental illness" affecting lone white men who kill with guns; their "motives" are inevitably secret, hidden in their psyches to be misinterpreted or twisted to suit someone's agenda. Spending resources in an attempt to discern "motive" is akin to rearranging cards when the house of cards collapses. The problem, the cause, the results are found in guns, ammo, the sale and purchase of those.
The GOP has been the true mastermind of the pro-gun agenda, not the NRA. Before the 70's, conservatives were very pro-gun CONTROL because they feared a black power insurgency - no worse nightmare than a nation filled with crazed, armed minorities shooting at innocent whites (just examine Reagan's attitudes while governing CA).
Then, following the civil rights decades, in the late 70's and early 80's, just as they did with abortion at about the same time, the GOP realized that guns could become a wedge issue (or maybe they thought that the best recipe for a black guy with a gun was a white guy with a gun?). Their support for gun laws was turned into support for gun rights (again, as their support for abortion rights evolved into a right to life) - because of a shameless move to make the south a conservative bastion and gain political power. Well, they've now gotten the country into one heck of a mess.
1
Psyche of white people based on fear so people of US included gun permission in constitution .This fear till hovering in psyche of white people so they wholeheartedly opposed to ban gun.There are ample evidence that show when these mass killing occurred any part country sale of gun increased tremendously How to change psyche of people that is big question
1
“...on the other hand, there’s not much evidence that [gun control laws] would prevent many attacks.”
That depends on what kind of laws you’re talking about, David. Indeed, the kind of half-baked legislation that has any chance of getting over the line in the United States of Gunmerica will do little to stop mass shootings or gun homicide and suicide more generally, but the evidence from here in Australia is hard to refute: robust gun control - a near total ban on handguns and semiautomatic weapons with a nationwide amnesty buyback and tight controls on long arms ownership - has resulted in a 50% reduction in the rate of firearms deaths and a total absence of mass shooting events for the 21 years since the reforms.
I know it’s in your nature as a Republican to sweep inconvenient facts under the rug, but I thought you were better than that.
(By the way, I’m an American expat living in Oz. I grew up in Virginia and received a .22 rifle for my twelfth birthday. My grandfather slept with a .38 revolver under his pillow, and when he died the pistol lived at my house for several years until my dad decided that keeping an unregistered weapon was too big a liability and dropped it off our boat into the Chesapeake Bay. I understand the allure of guns. But gun rights advocates need to recognize that ther are staking their lives - and ours - on a romance, a sad, sick fantasy.)
1
Americans have to accept the fact that nothing will ever be done about guns or gun control. We watch and know that Americans are going to continue to shoot each other and nothing will ever be done to stop it.
For someone who found recent (and superior) President Barack Obama utter anathema, you seem to reinforce (without attribution) a controversial 2008 statement most of the country had no problem with:
"And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
The use of the word "lunatic" in your first sentence, however, mirrors FOXNews, which described the Vegas shooter as such in their headline before any personal details were known. "Lunatic", as opposed to the more accurate label "wealthy American gun afficionado".
1
Yup, culture wars. Perhaps, though, the unraveling of gun laws is a good thing? It will facilitate those of us who might need to take up arms to protect ourselves from the emerging WCN (white Christian nationalists) party that is displacing the GOP. Just being facetious, or am I? It seems the country is pushing itself into irreconcilable positions where one can only choose a side, and come out fighting. Culture wars are like that. Remember John Brown? Do various apocalyptic fanatics always precede and predict a more general conflagration? I'm not yet fearful enough to buy a gun, but perhaps I should be? Your column does not inspire hope, Mr. Brooks.
Nonsense. Republicans have stoked the "culture wars" since before Ronnie Reagan and continue to do so. They have cynically cajoled single-issue voters to vote against their best interests by playing to their fears over gun rights, the flag, abortion, prayer in schools, African American presidents, and immigration to name just a few. Those voters in effect, look the other way, while Republicans do what they do best: pick their pocket and cater to the rich. Do they actually have any principle other than lowering taxes on the rich? The "culture wars" would subside if the Republicans would stop pounding the drum of fear, behave like adults, and do what is best for the country. Fat chance, that.
As long as they have the safe districts that they so cynically manufactured after the last census, Republicans will continue to exercise power disproportionate to their actual popularity. As long as the electoral college elects unqualified presidents, the problem will fester. Look no further than your own party for the key to unlock this mess, because you created it. Yes, people in "flyover country" might be angry over the issues that Republicans use to distract them, but there is a majority in this country that is angry about the behavior of the minority party that is running everything and doing it so ineptly. They are the problem.
"The wrong answer is that the N.R.A. is this maliciously powerful force that controls legislators through campaign dollars."
While there has been a rise of nostalgia about "the land" in response to the abstract indifference of "the global," the way that nostalgia expresses itself is shaped by marketing. Gun ownership is not rising in other countries experiencing a post-industrial crisis. Just the United States. So the post industrial argument only explains a possible root cause not the reason why it expresses itself as gun ownership.
Contributions to politicians are secondary to the NRAs primary strategy. Their approach, to install inaccurate myths about the Second Amendment combined with lizard-brain marketing, has transformed gun ownership into a quasi-erotic obsession with speech-like First Amendment-like significance. To enact sensible gun laws has become tantamount to a dishonor - as if castration a voting bloc of their power and voice.
The NRA is responsible for orchestrating that psychology. Let's not delude ourselves.
1
i’d argue complex causation, a number of factors not mutually exckusive:
gun as symbol, identity marker, part of national mythology
gun as compensation for perceived loss if power, bewilderment
as reaction to feminism, multiculturalism, loss of status of usa
highly effective gun lobby
glorification of violence in entertainment
etc etc
1
Not a surprise and it is only "natural". We are witnessing the dying of the grand old America. Who doesn't like homogeneity?! Who doesn't want to live in a community with people alike?! The America I love is not NY or LA. It is the farm country. Honestly working hard in the field is decent and noble. My biggest dream is to purchase a farm and move away from people and cities. I resonate with the American values. I think liberals are destroying America. How about more personal responsibility! How about more law and order! How about more work ethics! How about more self-discipline! How about less baseless law suits! How about more tolerance of people who want to bring back the good old America! How about less population growth for the sake of environment!
Fortunately Brooks' views on firearms are changing, but only very slightly. Gun owners are obviously not more self-reliant than the rest of us. I hope Brooks reads, and understands, Bret Stephens' recent opinion piece on this subject.
What does it say about this larger cultural contest that 2/3 (about 20,000) of the gun deaths in the US per year are suicides?
Grand synthesis? What's needed is something a lot simpler. Just
step back and recognize when an issue has taken on the characteristics
of not merely a culture war, but a religious war. Indeed,
spectacular events like the Vegas shooting are so rare, and
therefore affect so few people, that they are about as valuable
as UFO sightings for actually advancing policy. Gun control
advocates need to show, by numbers, that they even have a
worthwhile cause. That is, they need to show that reducing some
defined measure of permissiveness by X will reduce some
defined measure of harm by Y. Journalists can help by paying
more attention to numbers. But of course, UFO stories are more fun.
Americans need all those guns because America is dangerous because of all those guns. Any Questions?
2nd Amendment and it's interpretation got us here, do we live with it?
1
On point. Synthesis is the message about the way out of this stand-off.
I'm sick of explanations of why gun rights people put guns over lives. That's what they are doing and I condemn them. Fact: gun control laws are constitutional. Fact: they work - see Australia and the U.S. Capitol building. Every day we wait, more die needlessly. How about doing it because it's the right thing to do?
1
There is vast contributory negligence coming from putatively liberal Hollywood.
Hollywood has flogged the myth of the flinty, self-reliant individualist for decades. It also flogs the idea coopted by the NRA that the only cure for a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Perhaps the reality of John Ford’s “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” got twisted due to Hollywood’s laziness and addiction to an easy explanation. In that seminal film, Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) terrorizes a small frontier town. Mild mannered James Stewart stands up to him, and is about to be killed in a duel, when he appears to get yhe better of Valance. Of course, the truth was that a hidden John Wayne actually shot Valance as a sniper. But Ransom Stoddard (Stewart) ends up in Congre$$. When he tries to come clean to a newspaper man at the end, the cynical Maxwell Scott gives him a classic end line: “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Hollywood has been printing the legend for many years. Cops almost always hit their targets. In reality, the NYPD, as good a police department as exists, professionally trained, has a shooting accuracy of under 33%. So how are those self deluded self defenders better? They aren’t.
There will be no coherent synthesis, Lord Brooks, until Americans can separate fact from fiction, and it is trending worse, not better.
America lost its soul on November 8th with the election of Trump.
As an American living in Austria I would like to state, once more, that in this country you are not able to buy a gun until after a long process which takes over 3 months time and sometimes up to six months. You must go through many mental health tests by trained professionals and other complex testing--you must provide a reason to even apply for a gun here--you just can't go through this process because you "want" to own a gun. Most guns bought are for hunting purposes. This test involves a lot of personal interviews in relation to "reasons" for owning a gun in the first place.
So as in Japan there are very few murders by guns here. And yet the last time I checked there were over 2 million gun owners who had a valid "reason" and past those many tests and interviews to gain access to buying one. I might add that there are over 950, 000 muslims living in this country. Peacefully. There is so much talk about "terrorism" in the USA but for me sheer terror is the over 33,000 gun deaths yearly.
I listened to Mark Kelly speak again this week. When I see Gabby Giffords near him, Mark speaking for them both, her struggle to walk and talk I have tears that could SCREAM! Both of them are beautiful souls. Life changed in an instant.
USA is in ICU. I will not return. Freedom to kill when, how, and who you want is simply perverse and no way to live. NRA is a cancer at the core of my beloved country.
1
If Americans did not come together and enact significant gun controls laws after Sandy Hook, and all those dead innocent defenseless children, it will never happen. We can to write opinion pieces and recite polls but it is all a waste of ink and time.
A 1959 Gallup Poll stated that 60% of those polled favored laws that forbid “the possession” of pistols and revolvers, except for the police.
America has lost its bearing since 1959.
1
David, what you don't seem to understand is that the desire to own and collect firearms is largely a mental health issue. Except for true sportsmen and women hunters, who don't use handguns or assault rifles, most people purchase firearms as a result of fear and paranoia. Although some should have fear, my neighbors shouldn't as the only person I know who was killed during the commission of a robbery here was a female known gun hoarder murdered with her own guns (which the thieves were stealing. Call it a culture war, if you will, I see it as a war between common sense and insanity and a war between people who recognize their President is lying grifter and those who watch Fox News for a daily dose of fake news. Unless or until they get help for their sickness, this will continue.
Only a Princeton man would publish the claim that the 20th century was about 'monetary policy'.
Morgan, Carnegie, Frick, … “genteel aristocrats”? That’s not what they seemed at the time.
>
Until the GOP is sent packing nothing significant or meaningful will happen as to guns.
And once again it's the American people that are to blame.
I'd like to see an analysis of ALEC's role in the loosening of gun laws in Republican legislatures...
For once, I agree completely. Well done Mr, Brooks!
When I see a guy with gun stickers on his oversized pristine truck, I see over compensation for some serious short comings. So in a way this is about feeling left behind and the white man losing ground in this society. The gun is a symbol. An irrational symbol of power for the powerless.
1
"The only way to make progress on guns control is to forge some sort of synthesis on the larger postindustrialization/populism war. "
This is obfuscation bordering on gobbledygook. Right after the Sandy hook shooting the majority of Americans pressed their political representatives for comprehensive background checks. The politicians (Republicans) caved into the pressure of the NRA. It's just that simple. Want gun reform? Mitigate the influence of the NRA to influence politicians and elections. No obscure theories or convoluted explanations are necessary
1
So agricultural and industrial Americans seize on gun issues, they don't cling to their guns. Good to know.
So it's not the guns, it's the post-industrial, post-agrarian, populist, identity marker of gun ownership.
It's not the guns, it's freedom, self-reliance and the ability to control one's own destiny.
It's not the guns, it's the need for a new cultural synthesis like the one that brought us the no-gays-allowed Boy Scouts and Settlement House.
I don't know, David. I still think it might be the guns.
While both men and women own guns, the gender that destroys and kills are men. They feel impotent on the world stage, especially in this time of change where they have no skin in the interconnected global game. I have no idea how to fix that (although I have an idea that a world run by women would be less violent). Lately, with an ignorant egotist in the WH, I am always sad for us, always sad for the world my grandchildren will receive.
1
I never had a gun , don't know anyone who own firearms, but my sense is that once you rely on your gun for security to drop off your children at school or went shopping at Walmart ,it must be difficult to live without a gun , it must be a mindset that gives you an invincible feeling , doing the same things without your gun will probably bring an attitude of emptiness ,vulnerability and maybe even paranoid.
So you're saying guns don't kill people proxies kill people?
When gun owners are also growing their own food; are ham radio operators; have their own powerplants; produce their own antibiotics; operate in a closed loop environment where their trash is not just buried somewhere; when they refine their own gasoline for transport; when they educate their own kids; - when these are true, they can claim they are self reliant. Even then they can't control their own destiny and are trapped in a prison of their own making.
Gun=freedom, self reliance, and ability to control one's destiny is a sham.
1
Having a gun to protect oneself is one thing. Having an arsenal is another. There are currently as many guns as people in the United States. The problem is much like income inequality. The vast majority of guns are owned by a small minority. There is no reason for this whatsoever. As for the Second Amendment, it has been so distorted by conservative justices we might as well have no laws at all pertaining to the kind and number one American may possess. This is one of those amazingly stupid ideas the Founders came up with along in this nation's formation. Good grief, remember these good old White Boys compromised on Slavery. Was this their idea of forming a "more perfect union"? When the US finally decides it is not going to be dictated what to do in a modern world by White Men from two centuries ago then perhaps they can join others who now live in the 21st century. Until that occurs, well American, your significance in the world continues to diminish.
DD
Manhattan
2
David Brooks seems to be arguing here that in order to win the debate, we need to take the fragile emotional needs of gun-huggers into account, given their inability to process the readily available evidence that debunks their superstitious beliefs.
That's a peculiar position for a conservative to take. I thought that was a characteristic limited only to soft-headed liberals.
How about if the evidence is all laid out in a simplified, graphic format? Might that make it easier for gun-huggers to process?
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violen...
Insecurity, manifested in a psychological reaction-formation resulting in a gun-toting "powerful" individual who can't be messed with. The great equaliser regardless of a gun owner's seize or gender. It than escalates to who has the bigger gun - pistol, shot gun, assault weapon? What's next, bazookas? :(
1
I am a gun owner, and while I don't pretend to speak for all gun owners, I do think that many of us share similar views on freedom. I don't want to abdicate my freedom to politicians in Washington - they are not motivated to protect my freedom, and are in fact motivated to make us more dependent on a federal government.
I think that it is unfortunate that gun rights discussions center only on the 2nd Amendment. We should also focus on the 10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The framers never envisioned a federal government that would enact gun laws.
I am a gun owner too, but I feel the real threat to my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness comes not from politicians in Washington, but from a heavily armed lunatic or a gun-toting criminal. To protect my life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, I strongly support strict limits on the purchase, possession, and carrying of handguns and all large capacity long guns, especially those capable of sustained rapid fire.
Please cite a legitimate example of how owning a gun, "protects my freedom."
OK, but I am a law abiding citizens. Do you need to curtail my freedom? Also, the fact is that we are less at risk of violence than at any other time in history. I would argue that is because of freedom, not because of "sensible" restraints on freedoms imposed by politicians.
That culture of guns will never change in our life time, my Dear David Brooks; it is like expecting that discrimination will end. It is the logic of self destruction: a good case for Dr. Sigmund Freud; but in a social context.
5
Historically, gun rights advocates have cited recreation as their dominant reason for owning or carrying a gun, e.g. hunting, target practice. In general, these owners used their guns responsibly for sport.
Over the last decade however, their reasons have changed. Now guns are purchased for “protection” and for “freedom”.
In the case of protection, the number of incidents where a gun owner has successfully “protected” him/herself is minuscule. It is a cruel irony, that gun ownership has the opposite effect.
There is a continual stream of lethal tragedies caused by gun wielding home owner killing themselves, family members, and innocents. It is argued that these events would occur irrespective of gun ownership. However, it is undeniable that guns magnify the scale and lethality of these events.
Statistics show that introducing a gun into a home greatly increases the risk of death. In particular, they show that wives would be well advised to discourage their spouse’s ownership.
In the case of “freedom”, domestic gun violence is beginning to disrupt our everyday life, as public spaces require metal detectors, screenings, etc. Terrorism has amplified this trend. But the screening is still needed to prevent a “good guy with a gun” from killing his peers after a bad workday.
The contrast between countries with and without gun control is stark. Countries They are living examples of its benefits.
The NRA has engineeried a dystopian future for this country.
9
The Las Vegas shootings will change little because of 5 words:
1. It
2. won't
3. happen
4. to
5. me
Ironically, the country suffers from a lack of shootings: no matter how many die, there are still millions of gun fans that believe themselves safe from gun violence, suicide, or accident.
It's not unlike people that text or drink while driving, or do any number of other risky activities known to be dangerous.
"It won't happen to me."
10
There's at least one generation today functioning at a sustainable and critical socioeconomic level that has supplanted a cause, or even a calling, with an industry. That industry and the atmosphere it controls wants if not begs for a dictator, and unless it's directly and meaningfully confronted (and I'm alluding to both industry and generation), whether through events or values, the path is utterly clear for dictatorship to follow.
4
I do think a large faction of the gun ownership crowd holds firm regarding any and all efforts to add some reasonable boundaries to the gun situation because they are imagining a civil war promulgated by a government imposing its will, or by the culture wars turning into large scale, armed confrontation. If the 'conflict ideology' and related 'identity politics' can be tamped down, we all stand a better chance of getting along and in putting reasonable checks in place regarding instruments of savagery available to those who flip from talk to carnage.
2
Mr. Brooks' erudite analysis suggests that our underlying culture wars have fueled the rise of our present gun culture. Perhaps that is so.
But what we can't afford to abide is his conclusion that the fix for our present weapons insanity must await the resolution of our cultural divides.
All weapons capable of inflicting mass death in a short time frame should be banned. We need a critical mass of citizenry to rise up and make it happen - now.
4
Post Industrialization issues also exit in Western Europe. We do not see gun ownership or mass shooting as we do in USA.
I am not sure David's has the right root cause.
4
Mr. Brooks can not state with any honesty that gun control measures won't reduce gun crime and fatalities and injuries - no one knows for certain what will work because the NRA has successfully lobbied the government to deny funding to researchers wanting to study anything related to gun violence. They've even pushed gag orders so that pediatricians can't talk to families about the guns in their homes. Post-industrialization as a reason for the mess we find ourselves in sounds awfully naive from Brooks - surely the enormously effective, broad-reaching influence of the NRA is what's actually winning the debate - sadly.
2
Congress has left the debate about guns, gun violence, and gun control entirely up to the NRA and the courts. The Supreme Court decided a few years back that Americans had an individual right to bear any arms they wish, and that is that. But Congress could act to enforce laws to manage arms ownership.
Why is it that gun owners are not required to join a militia? The Second Amendment seems to point in that direction, if you bother to read it. And further, a militia could be seen as a branch of the military, loosely controlled by the government to supplant our armed forces. The Second amendment doesn't rule that out as far as I can see.
There could be many ways for the Congress to act within the confines of the Constitution that would allow us to get control over all of the guns in America now floating free, and an understanding of their owners. Congress should debate the Second Amendment. America is under fire.
2
"In 2000, according to a Pew survey, only 29 percent of Americans supported more gun rights and 67 percent supported more gun control. By 2016, 52 percent of Americans supported more gun rights and only 46 percent supported more control."
Might this have had something to do with the fact that Barack Obama was elected President in 2000 and the right wing campaign of irrational fear about "the government" coming to take away guns was stoked by politicians and their NRA masters? (To minimize the impact of the NRA and their scoring of candidates is to ignore reality.) Might this also explain why, during those years, gun sales actually went up after high profile shootings (because that's when such fear-mongering was ratcheted up?
3
Of course, that should be 2008 when Obama was elected. Maybe some "target practice" on the keyboard is in order!!
Progress on guns will be possible when the culture war subsides, but not before.
I agree with Brooks's conclusion. The culture war will not wane for another decade or two, I imagine. It comes down to demographics. The portion of America that feels besieged is shrinking. The multi-cultural, browner and more liberal America that they fear is on the rise - half of under-18 Americans are non-white, for instance. Trump, gun fetishization, open racism and xenophobia - they're the death rattle of a culture desperately trying to hold on to their top perch. It will pass, eventually.
3
I agree that the main underlying issue with American gun violence has more to do with values than with legislation: Culture drives politics, not the other way around. So, by the end this piece, I was ready to hear some practical suggestions for reducing gun violence through bridging the cultural divide. What did we get instead? "Grand synthesis" - and no specifics at all. While it's heartening to hear something beyond the usual "Tighter Gun Restrictions Are What's Needed Now" knee-jerk reaction to this latest American tragedy in Las Vegas, still, I'm left with a hollow feeling by your analysis, David. Skillfully diagnosing the problem - absent a prescription - well, that and $2.50 gets you a cuppa Starbucks, nothing more. I only hope you ran up against a word-limit here and perhaps have a future column planned to address the lack? If so, I for one stand ready to read it... dark roast steaming, already in hand.
1
"on the other hand, there’s not much evidence that they would prevent many attacks." Mr Brooks do you wonder why? Read this from your own paper :
"So did our attempts to rescind the infamous Dickey Amendment, which prevents the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from even researching the relationship between gun violence and public health. The Dickey Amendment was so absurd that it was ultimately opposed by its own sponsor, Jay Dickey, an Arkansas Republican. Still, we failed. The result? The government can’t study gun violence but is spending $400,000 analyzing the effects of Swedish massages on rabbits. So at least the rabbits feel safe.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/opinion/gun-control-vegas-shooting.html
I think America has become soulless.
2
The script was written along time ago. The script is followed over and over. A Mass shooting. Followed by thoughts and prayers. Politicians promise in front of tv cameras that they will never abandon the victims. Republicans getting out in front of the issue-Now is not the time to talk about gun control. Democrats offer their usual support of some kind of regulations, but don't follow through. The media is excited to have a story to follow. And the NRA keeps paying Senators and COngressmen to do what they want them to. Special Interestology.
2
OK, let's take a poll to determine if more people would support eliminating speed limits on our highways. Would driving over 100mph stand for "freedom, self-reliance and the ability to control your own destiny"? Maybe. Would everyone driving 100mph cause more serious accidents and kill more people? Absolutely, and there's nothing in the Constitution about how fast you can drive your car. There would be thousands more deaths on the highways, but if that's what the people want . . .
3
I haven't found a comment yet that has identified the nugget of gold amidst the morass of false comparisons, loose generalizations and just-plain-wrong-facts.
In fact, David has engaged in his typical binary analysis, yet underlying this is an insight into the power of stories - myths, if you like - to shape human behavior (and to quite literally sculpt the brain - as one of the NY Picks cites Haidt's absurd, superficial and neurologically wrong research on political views and "genetics).
There are not two stories of what it means to be an American. There are 300+ million stories, with perhaps a half dozen main themes. These stories are far more powerful than facts - and liberals are every bit as subject to the power of these stories as conservatives.
Our greatest leaders - Lincoln, FDR, Dr. King, and so on - knew how to harness these stories to shape our behavior, to inspire us, even to move us to sacrifice for the sake of the greater good.
But we don't have to look for leaders. We can become leaders, by reaching inside ourselves, by bravely looking at the distorted stories that drive us, by transforming them, and learning to live in a way that transcends these stories, inspired by That which transcends all story, all myth, even - yes, all science - That which is the ultimate source of Unity, which perhaps somewhere in the vision of the founding of this country was glimpsed, which Emerson tried for years to articulate - the Source of liberty, equality and fraternity.
4
David, Well thought out commentary on guns. I would add, how masterful the republican elite has used social issues to their advantage, at the same time legislating to the detriment of many of these people in the agricultural and industrial America you talk about. Do you really think this president will stop workers from coming across the boarder?
1
Please go to the NYT front page story, "Comparing the Las Vegas Deaths with Gun Deaths in US Cities" for a graphic illustration of cultural geography and demographics. For example Indianapolis with its weak gun laws and about one tenth the size of NYC had 58 deaths from guns quicker than NYC. Also note the preponderance of southern cities which on a per capita basis are far more dangerous than most northern cities. While I appreciate Brooks' ideas about culture it's hard to ignore the glaring illustration on today's front page of the Times which I believe shows the impact of weak gun control around the country.
1
The Second Amendment conditions universal gun ownership with the phrase "well regulated" and is forgotten by most. Does post industrial means that we never completely implement an idea or that we do not understand it in the first place. I am tired of diffusion articles that fail to identify greed and propaganda as methods to avoid common sense.
It's a lost cause.
Instead of gun control I suggest that someone starts to pay the real 'price of freedom'. Has anyone calculated the financial damage for innocent victims and their families yet? Hospital bills, loss of income etc? Let the gun owners own whatever gun they want, I have completely given up on them. But make them buy insurance, so that the costs of their bloody freedom doesn't add to the burden of the victims. You buy a car, you buy insurance, right? Make it a law for guns as well.
3
Who can say that Steve Paddock was a lunatic? As much as we know right know he was a very rationally acting individual who spend a lot of time thinking, planning and eventually executing his decision to kill as many people he could. Someone might interject and say that only lunatics mass murders. But are police snipers, soldiers, terrorists all lunatics? Have we not as a species sanctioned murder under certain circumstances? Have we not allowed as a nation people to accumulate weapons of mass destruction as many as they see fit? Should we not then expect that people will use them exactly as the weapons were designed? Who is the real lunatic, an individual or a society that enables people? Murder is wrong, murder is a crime, no matter in which circumstance, even in self defense.
If we take social and neuroscience seriously we all would conclude that deadly weapons do not belong into the hands of regular citizens. I’m for strict gun control with the goal to remove fire arms from society. We can’t just talk ourselves out of responsibility as a society by declaring mass shooters lunatics.
2
"The research doesn’t overwhelmingly support either side. Gun control proposals don’t seriously impinge freedom; on the other hand, there’s not much evidence that they would prevent many attacks."
Mr Brooks, there isnt much research because the NRA has successfully blocked the federal government from conducting the research. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2015/01/14/why-the-cdc-...
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-gun-research-fundi...
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/12/08/458952821/congress-s...
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My guess is that most guns in America do not leave the home in which they reside. There is some comfort to those that own those guns that they are available in the many moments before the police can arrive in an emergency perpertreted by a potential one actual intruder. Just this situation alone will be hard to overcome in any proposal to eliminate gunownership for a citizen. Regulation of gun ownership on the other hand is a separate issue.
The words "well regulated" in the Second Amendment are there as well and show that the Founding Fathers did not consider gun ownership free from reasonable laws geverning their possession and use, i.e. keep and bear.
It is ironic that this Amendment is confusied by mentioning a well regulated militia and yet is the basis by many for the right to keep a gun at home.
My Great Great Great Great Grandfather was a Captain of Militia in Pennsylvania from 1775 to 1779. At that time the regulation stipulated that every able bodied male was to have a rifle and certain amount of gunpowder and lead balls at home and be prepared to assemble a march at a moments notice. At the same time, any man suspected of loyalist tendencies was to have any weapons in his possession confiscated.
At this time in our history and for many years after there was always anathema agains a standing army. However, the continuing threat of Indian outrages on the settlers, regardless of how we regard this activity today, required the presence of guns.
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I think Brooks needs to get out into rural America more. Here, politicians running for office, (always Republican) use the mantra that the government is going to take your guns away. Most of their constituents are hunters and take this line of thinking seriously. The notion that the changing economy has stoked these fears is nonsense. Republicans have mis-represented gun control legislation as an attack on individual rights along side the racist fault line that immigrants are coming after you paranoia for years. When one hears this nonsense repeatedly it eventually becomes fact. If Brooks would step into any rural household, he will find they are overwhelmingly tuned into Fox News. Consider what kind of 'information' these folks are getting! It is a case of taking wedge issues and exploiting them to an advantage. Unfortunately, this has led us as a country into deep, irrational devisions, which do not bode well for us as a civilization.
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I rarely, if ever, agree with Brooks, but I think his observation that gun ownership “is also an identity marker. It stands for freedom, self-reliance and the ability to control your own destiny,” is accurate. I posted in the Times yesterday that the gun mentality is fueled by identity affiliation, a deep emotional need for tribal membership, a need to be with like-minded people – a kind of misery-loves-company. Having lost their jobs and upward mobility, their access to the American Dream has shrunk considerably; so, they cling desperately to what’s left: guns, Trump, and white pride. Those things give them momentary status, a sense of shared tribal power and the appearance of control over their lives. These are people who, for lack of skills and education, and fear of the unknown, are unable to adjust to rapid societal changes. And an increasingly significant element in their tribal world view is fear of government tyranny, and being armed to the teeth is to defend against potential government overreach.
However, I have to roll my eyes at yet another pie-in-the-sky “solution” from Brooks. “A grand synthesis”? What would that look like? Brooks offers no specifics. Here are some specifics. We need progressive policies that provide jobs, healthcare, and educational opportunity. This should stem some of the fear that drives the gun culture behind their barracades, locked-and-loaded. Education is the key to conquering localized isolation and to forming “social synthesis.”
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Guns are killing machines. What does it mean when people respond to differences by arming themselves for mortal combat? What kind of leadership is it that foments the desire to wage war with one another and makes it easier to do so?
Are we going to start killing each other over kneeling for the national anthem? Do any of our leaders hope for this? They are certainly fomenting it. The way to win elites-versus-common-man is to get common man to kill one another. It's working.
Every man for himself is the end game of the philosophy of drown-the-government-in-a-bathtub, of government-is-the-problem, and that's the current game plan. I didn't grow up in this America and I cannot understand how those who grew up with me have helped create the one we have now.
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This is the best analysis I've read explaining why we are where we are.
There's nothing to be done about this. O'Reilly was right, for once. Mass shootings are as American as apple pie, and our gun culture is irreversible.
One can only keep one's fingers crossed and hope to avoid becoming a statistic, shot dead by some sadistic creep, or worse, by some incompetent gun owner.
One quibble, however. Can we please dispense with this canard of the week, that the NRA doesn't hold any sway over lawmakers, specifically, GOP lawmakers?
You and Stephens cite the campaign contribution numbers to support this argument which doesn't pass the sniff test. The NRA spends WAY more money outside campaigns than they donate to them.
If you're a GOP congressman or -woman, and you give even the slightest indication that you're even entertaining the notion of any thought that there may be problems with our fetishized gun culture, you will face a primary challenge from someone shooting up, say, a copy of this newspaper, while NRA-bought ads will show a tape of you and explain how anti-freedom you are.
There is no sign of the culture war subsiding as long as fear and anger can be stoked ( and lots of money to be made too ) to divide us.
I am beginning to see this whole division as a battle between Good and Evil and we HAVE to defeat the forces of Evil ( and the NRA is on the side of Evil ).
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Fine and dandy. But in the meantime banning assault weapons (again) would be a nice step. No, it wouldn't have stopped Sandy Hook or Vegas or etc. But a lot fewer people would have been killed.
"Gun control proposals don’t seriously impinge freedom; on the other hand, there’s not much evidence that they would prevent many attacks." Please cite your sources. Why is the murder rate so much lower in nations that have strict gun control laws, like most of Europe, Canada, Australia?
The NRA does not need to spend a ton of money to buy influence, because people spend a ton of money to get influenced by joining the NRA. Subscribers join the club and in every edition of The American Rifleman they get fed with propaganda. Thus, the argument that the NRA doesn't buy influence due to the low amount of lobbying dollars it spends does not work. Second, there is plenty of evidence that gun controls would prevent attacks. Just look at other industrialized countries, such as Australia. See the Australian government's website. Our legislators need to at least try. To argue that we cannot stop gun violence, so we shouldn't try gun control, is ridiculous. Very simply, you cannot kill tons of people with a Glock with a ten round mag. At most, you kill ten, if you can even hit ten. You cannot kill dozens of people with a hunting rifle with a five round mag. At most, you kill five, if you can hit five. This is fairly easy stuff to understand.
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Interesting thesis Mr. Brooks. A little dense for me. I think I will trust my assessment of Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, San Bernardino etc. Kindergartners slaughtered with a military style weapon. Concert goers mowed down like...what? War. Too many Americans, armed. angry, defensive. Republicans in lock step with the NRA, blood on all their hands. For what. So they can continue to stockpile "sporting equipment"? Hunters all?
I think I'll trust my own senses, and common sense, that the NRA is a dark, destructive force that has exerted far too much influence in this country and on malleable republican politicians who continue to sell their offices, and souls, to the gun lobby.
Yes, this is a cultural problem more than a political problem. Gun lovers are living in the past, disenfranchised from the modern world. Shooting guns and sport hunting and "full auto", coal rolling and Nascar - examples of their penchant for things that give them a feeling of power and destruction and freedom in a new world that has left them in the dust and feeling impotent.
We cannot afford to let Trump's know-nothing brand of populism win in our nation. A next step could be taking elites like you or me and putting us into camps.
I say that as a hunter and gun owner who wants to see sensible gun laws at the Federal level.
Just because these people have those "deeply held beliefs" doesn't mean they're right.
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The sad, sick irony of these only-in-America massacre shootings is that gun sales skyrocket in their aftermath. In other words, mass killings using firearms are good for business. The old definition of insanity applies here--continuing to repeat the same action, over and over again, despite getting the same, negative outcome. Of course, in a society where money is the only incentive for doing anything, the regular killing of innocent people with firearms becomes a paradoxical and perverted advertisement for the "need" to stockpile more and more guns, a neverending domestic arms race, as it were.
As with hurricanes that increase in their intensity and frequency, climate change deniers say, "Now is not the time to discuss global warming," so, too, 2nd amendment gun fetishists, after each ensuing bloodbath, parrot, "Now is not the time to discuss gun control."
Whether it's the "president" offering "warm condolences" or Bill O'Reilly reassuring us that Las Vegas-style carnage is "the price of freedom," they, and their ilk are, as the Beaver, of the old tv sitcom "Leave it to..." used to say, "giving us the business".
Sir, what exactly, specifically would you accept as "progress on guns?"
Clearly stating where you want to go is a prerequisite for getting there -- and certainly for taking others with you.
As much as I favor stricter controls on gun sales and ownership, I do believe that that may only have a marginal impact on mass shooting. At the same time the call for a "grand synthesis" is just another fancy way to say that there is no easy answer. What does America need to know other than that there have been more gun related deaths in the recent past than deaths from terrorism. And, if the Las Vegas shooter were a Muslim man from any of the many Middle East countries, there would be loud cries to spend more of defense and declare war on some offending country. We've spent many billions in the so-called war on terrorism; why can't we approach the gun issue with the same vim and vigor?
The guns and ammunitions industrial complex's hand puppet, the NRA, meantime will begrudgingly concede bump stocks ( automatic weapons are with certain exceptions largely not legal to own anyway), as a feint to distract attention from the fact that semi automatic weapons with large capacity magazines are assault weapons, with or without bump stocks. Justice Scalia, a strict contructionist writing for the majority in "Heller", clearly said the ownership of certain classes of guns is subject to restriction. Indicating the second amendment is not as open ended as the gun lobby would have it's constituency otherwise believe.
A large majority of Americans want background checks for gun shows. Congress goes against what Americans want. My congressman (Gianforte) has nust started in congress and has slready taken about $340,000 in money from the NRA. Oh-I think the figures are that 77% of Republicans want background checks for gun shows and the percentage is even higher for Democrats.
From Brooks: "Today, people in agricultural and industrial America legitimately feel that their way of life is being threatened by postindustrial society. The members of this resistance have seized on issues like guns, immigration, the flag as places to mobilize their counterassault. Guns are a proxy for larger issues." Hm, this sounds an awful lot like Barack Obama's comment in the 2008 campaign: "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
Fear fear.. the juice that motivates most Americans. Guns help people get over their fear. Pretty basic .. Cure, stop scaring people. Give up the political lies candidates stoop to. Offer solutions not reactions. Conservative .. liberal.. Guns do not solve problems.. more people with more guns is however a problem, especially if they have their gun because they are afraid. A confident gun owner is merely someone willing to kill. Don't call it protection because statistics will show home owner owned guns are not very good at this. Fear fear because at that moment, no matter how well trained .. the home owner is a novice at this moment and has usually shot the wrong person or nothing at all.. if that worked, just shooting off a gun to scare someone away.. get a tape recording. Guns are a mental health hazard for many. So I don't cotton to the way somebody feels about their gun. I don't just like to some right minded person I am nothing but a liberal.. Well maybe a good start to figuring this out is to realize I don't think your are nothing but a conservative .. because we are all something and the zombies we see on TV are not real.
Perhaps there is a little monster in all of us. I doubt if anyone reading this article will admit they felt like giving up and hen imagined themselves doing some hideous deed until their frontal lobe kicked in.
Some folks have a drink others take a pill, smash tennis balls against a wall, eat copious amounts of cake and ice cream or turn to a trusted companion for catharsis and guidance.
At this juncture, no motive has been established, but unless an autopsy establishes Organicity, (the Texas tower shooter had a brain tumor) I believe Paddock's issues had been going on for a very long time.
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If only ..,,,,
All the words in the world won't influence congress.
It seems that all that matters is money ... lots of it from any source whatever
And until we breach this cultural chasm there will continue to be more mass murders. Until then I am making the choice to leave this country . Living here is too heartbreaking
No grand synthesis is necessary. Some 80% to 90% of Americans have reached consensus: they want universal background checks, bans on assault weapons, on high capacity ammo, and other common sense protection.
Republicans in Congress ignore their own constituents, massacre after massacre. On Feb. 28th, scarcely a month after his inauguration Trump and Republicans changed the law in order to let mentally ill people buy guns. But one knee-jerk reflex by the GOP in the past was that guns were not the problem. Mental illness was the problem. Their solution was to encourage mentally ill people to buy guns.
Trump has enacted Muslim bans and attacks on Hispanic immigrants and the pious reasoning is delays to prevent terrorist acts and that this is worth discrimination that is unconstitutional. Yet Republicans continue to let people on the terrorist watch list who aren't permitted to board planes to buy as many weapons and explosives as they like.
This is about selling guns, ammo, devices no matter how much slaughter of the innocents will occur.
47 guns, at least 12 bump stocks, thousands of rounds of ammo=58 dead, hundreds wounded, yet another community terrorized. Not industrialization but GOP commercialization of massacres, one domestic terrorist at a time.
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David states "As Tali Sharot notes in her book “The Influential Mind,” when you present people with evidence that goes against their deeply held beliefs, the evidence doesn’t sway them. Instead, they invent more reasons their prior position was actually correct. The smarter a person is, the greater his or her ability to rationalize and reinterpret discordant information, and the greater the polarizing boomerang effect is likely to be." If this is true, then either he is not very smart, or not to be believed. It's precisely this sort of nonsense that supports the growing rejection of science and any intelligent thought. And of course the same goes for Tali Sharot - we should doubt her conclusions because she's either not very smart, or simply justifying her own belief by rationalizing and reinterpreting the information. Hogwash!
Mr. Brooks may think that gun deaths are the result of a culture war, which is true to the extent, I think, that the culture war is part of the larger war of the classes. The 1% has done a bang-up job of using fear to divide Americans and increase their profits over the past 30 years. The "culture war" Mr. Brooks theorizes will only subside when the majority wakes up and realizes they're being manipulated like a bunch of lab rats.
I'm not sure, first of all, that there does exist such a great divide in this country about guns. The majority supports some middle ground laws like licensing and background checks. It is the extremes who won't go along with that.
Also, the gun is second to the car in terms of its symbolism to Americans of freedom. Guns may be important to some, but America without cars is almost unthinkable, and not just for practical reasons-- they express our identity, our status, our freedom to come and go as we please. I believe Americans have a different relationship to their cars than you find in most other countries.
Yet, we have no problem with the many requirements that go along with car ownership, and grant that they are necessary for society to function well. We just need to get to the same realization with guns.
I don’t know about a ‘grand synthesis’ as a cure-all but the evidence tells us that violence in any scenario only brings more of the same. It is deeply embedded in our cultural narrative and is a symptom of the sickness of greed that has bleed into society at every level. Those who tend the levers of power are not unaware that fear and prejudice are the raw meat that feed this sickness. Stoking the partisan blame game cements this cycle in place and our response demonstrates we do not know how to and do not want to be well as a society.
I believe our culture does have much to do with the gun violence here. Look at our movies, video games, sports (idiotic NFL players beating their chests and "dancing" about after a violent tackle), the advertisements on television (cars racing and spinning around at excessive speeds), road rage, motorcycles with exhaust systems so loud your ears hurt. Americans are exposed to this moronic stuff everyday and young men especially can be influenced by this fake "power." Though all of the above are violent in themselves our worst cultural influence to the violent is our glorification of the military and the wars we engage in. Let's just say it, is it surprising that we have the amount of gun violence that we do?
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The conservative leaders of the last 20 years represent a generation who selfishly sacrificed the greater public's safety for money and their own careers. They allowed an industry that should be heavily regulated - guns are weapons - to become so powerful that it dictates laws and created a subculture that worships guns and the power they confer. Owning a weapon has now become an important part of some people's identity which is why this issue is now so difficult. This will be one of the main ways history remembers this generation of conservative "leaders."
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Mr. Brooks employs a surprisingly weak argument here. While we wait for the culture to do an about-face we should simply accept the fact that just about anybody can purchase a military grade weapon or lawfully bring a gun into daycare centers, classrooms and legislatures, that 3,000 Americans die each year from domestic gun use? Common sense has been abandoned regarding this issue. The perversion of the Second Amendment is ridiculous and the cowardice of legislators breathtaking when it comes to the issue of gun control.
Our society can tend to make people feel powerless, leading to low self esteem and cowardice, and fear of everything unfamiliar, (not good for a shallow cloistered society).
Voila, get a gun, problem solved, well not quite.
A good analysis. The solution: more taxes on the wealthy and universal education, health-care, and conscription. Yes, conscription. Serve your country as it serves you. And learn how to use a weapon.
"The smarter a person is, the greater his or her ability to rationalize and reinterpret discordant information, and the greater the polarizing boomerang effect is likely to be."
A pretty good description of Mr. Brooks, I'd say.
Excellent, succinct piece describing who we are in America today. I've always wanted desperately to feel a sense of belonging - Jewish from New York doesn't cut it. I see where these gun lovers are coming from, how it is a part of their identity that must be - at this point - critical. I don't see how this can be easily counteracted. The essence of the left is the no-group, the individual, the self examined. It's interested that the boot-straps attitude is promulgated by the same gun people who DO love their group identify. So much overlap between the sides. It's very confusing, and profoundly depressing.
Oh it's simpler than this. 300, 400 years ago this land was invaded by people carrying guns and Bibles and looking for gold. Somehow this culture survived in the rural parts of America and Trump has gaudily magnified its excesses for all to see. We have an administration made up of military, Christians and billionaires whose leader echoes precisely the colonists' destructive attitudes to people of color and the land. Our nation now has its original sins up in its face. We need to choose who we are going to be going forward.
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So the plutocrat/industrial owners of the Republican party have foisted a post-logic/post-sanity political scenario upon us.
It is the smokescreen behind which they may operate unhindered.
"...on the other hand, there is not much evidence that they (gun control) would prevent many attacks." ????? Is Mr. Brooks requiring double blind controlled studies? This is not now, nor will it ever be a hard science to be tested. At best it will be observational in nature. The observational evidence is OVERWHELMING and cited in the NYT only days ago - industrial countries with more guns have more gun violence. There are cultural issues at play here, but to start the argument with a dismissal of gun control laws as ineffective is not the way to begin an otherwise interesting discussion.
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Nope. The genie is out of the bottle. At this point, as with nukes, the goal is to manage, not to prohibit. Welcome to the new normal.
And to manage, my go-to remedy in this most capitalistic of capitalist economy: the boycott. Bet Nevada would change if Las Vegas was boycotted by convention goers and vacationers. My evidence: the NCAA boycotts and others in the wake of recent various oppressive and prejudicial state legislative follies.
This is a state by state battle, not a federal battle. Let's get started. Nevada at this point is low hanging fruit.
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Over in today's WSJ Peggy Noonan has an op-ed that basically says the same thing. People have guns because due to cultural wars they "fear the coming chaos." I think both Brooks and Noonan fall short in failure to acknowledge that this cohort of American is not (legitimately) "fearful". Rather they are paranoid largely due to slanted or poor education, reinforced by self-selected "news" and in many cases the ravings of nearly illiterate clergy or elected representatives. I'm about as interested in "synthesis" with these folks as I would be with the Alien.
It's the second time this week a writer pointed out that campaign contributions by the NRA are "minuscule." It's astonishing that this argument still has legs. The cost effective beauty of the NRA's strategy is that they need only to make the THREAT of a retaliatory primary campaign against any politician daring to promote anti-gun legislation to command obeisance. The tactic is both brilliant and cold-blooded...and they can do it on the cheap.
Mr. Brooks writes that we need a "grand synthesis that can move us beyond the current divide." I imagine a similar argument was made by loyalists trying to avoid the Revolutionary War. When in the course of human events it becomes clear that the chasm is unbridgeable, it is time for like-minded citizens to act. We are, save two, not the "United" but rather the Contiguous States of America. Time to draw up the divorce papers so that the west coast and the northeast can break free from the tyranny of gun-loving, race-baiting Red America.
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Boycott Las Vegas until NV enacts meaningful gun controls. As a one-industry town dependent on tourists, LV is uniquely vulnerable and if we shut it down, NV withers.
Our country is a very sad place. I wonder how many more people will have to die before people who are fooled into thinking that owning a gun makes them more safe realize that the availability of guns in this country is not freedom. It binds, restricts, and oppresses us. The easy availability of fire arms has become a restriction on our freedoms and our life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
To quote an old Humphrey Bogart movie, “... so many guns around town and so few brains.”