The Onion has a story that they update every time we have another grisly sacrifice to Moloch. Josh Marshall has a slightly more elevated take in which he makes a very important point.
Whenever one of these atrocities happens, I think many of us hope that it was "just another" angry white guy. If it was a Muslim or immigrant or African American, it would be seized on by the Right (who currently has to understand that they are beginning to lose the gun debate) to change the subject from the widespread availability of guns to the particular ideology of the attacker. Unless that attacker was seen wearing a MAGA hat and waving a Confederate flag.
As Marshall lays out, usually the ideology is besides the point. Or rather it might be an accelerant of the violence, but it's not the cause. The cause seems always to be the rage inside a young white man about...something. The cause of the rage isn't even always clear, and probably isn't to the shooter. If they could articulate their anger, they probably wouldn't need to demonstrate it via gunfire.
The more interesting question that goes unanswered is whether America has more angry young men or simply more guns. Of course, we know we have more guns. Texas and Florida have a shit-ton of guns. This is not a mystery. The question is whether that surfeit of weaponry is everything or only most of the thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment