This week’s tragedy in Parkland, Florida, marks the 18th (and deadliest) school shooting of 2018. In the last decade, mass shootings in the U.S. have reached epidemic proportions. After each of these heartbreaking incidents, we offer our thoughts and prayers to victims and survivors. We send money to the grieving communities. A predictable public debate about how to prevent further mass shootings lasts for a couple of weeks but leads nowhere. Then we move on, as though each incident is somehow exceptional.
But how many times do they have to occur before we realize that they are not exceptional? The killing of innocent people, whether children and teachers in school, young adults at a dance club, worshipers at a church, or country music fans at an outdoor concert, has become horrifically normal.
There are too many guns in this country, and guns designed for military combat, whose purpose is to slaughter masses of people, are too easy to get. We have the loosest gun laws in the world and more people per capita are killed by guns here than anywhere. Any fool can see the connection.
Maybe – just maybe – the Parkland shooting will be the final straw. Today, tears of grief have given way to outrage. Parents and teachers from Parkland are not mincing words. They are angry that Congress does nothing to curb gun violence. They are demanding action. They say the NRA has way too much power, and that both the President and Congress are too afraid to do what’s right. They are tired of all the excuses, and they want something done now.
At some point in the tired debate about gun violence, there is always a discussion about “the symptoms” and “the disease.” And because this discussion usually carries spiritual implications, I want to address it.
Opponents of any form of gun control often revert to the argument that the problems leading to gun violence cannot be solved by legislation. Taking away guns won’t make any difference, they say, because guns aren’t the real problem. The politicians who take this position often pledge in a pious tone their prayers for those who have become “victims of evil,” implying that the underlying cause of their grief is a mysterious cosmic force before which we are powerless, and that only God can solve.
I have two responses.
First, it is true that gun control laws will not solve the deeper problem. Such legislation will only treat the symptoms, not the disease.
Does it then follow that we should not treat the symptoms?
Is that how we do medical care in this country? Should we discontinue the use of painkillers that only treat symptomatic pain? On the contrary, good medical care treats both the symptoms and the disease, especially when the symptoms may themselves lead to further complications.
The assertion that there’s no point in treating the symptoms because “there’s nothing we can do” about the disease is a pious ruse. Why on God’s earth do we want to weaponize rage? Is an illogically broad interpretation of the constitutional right to bear arms really worth that price?
Second, it is absolutely true that evil is at work in the spiraling gun violence that plagues our society. But as a Christian, I confess that, because of Christ’s resurrection, we are never powerless in the face of evil. Furthermore, human beings are complicit in the ways evil proliferates, and are therefore responsible for fighting back against it.
I don’t think there’s much mystery about the true nature of the problem. The current epidemic of mass shootings is one evitable consequence of the systematic dismantling of communities, a process that has continued apace since the end of the Second World War. The great majority of America’s school shootings have occurred in sprawling affluent suburbs at large, boxy high schools that are probably short-staffed. Nearly always, these shootings are committed by angry young white men (or boys) who, for whatever reason, don’t “fit in.” They turn to violence to exercise power. They are trapped in a world not of their making where they are easily ignored, excluded, and lost.
The “problem” is not angry white boys. Their isolation is also a symptom of the kind of world we have embraced – a world that has little by little eroded nearly every institution of community that creates bonds of belonging. Here is a partial list of factors contributing to this erosion.
- The mechanization of agriculture sent family farms into bankruptcy, destroyed small rural communities, and has nearly obliterated agrarian life.
- The mechanization of factory labor has turned working-class urban neighborhoods into dysfunctional centers of poverty.
- Our love affair with cars has led to the rapid development of suburban neighborhoods with no sidewalks and no obvious pathways to front doors – just huge, fortress-like garages and winding streets designed to discourage confused outsiders from passing through.
- For the boomer generation, television sent everybody indoors and made front porches (and therefore visits with neighbors) superfluous. Today, the screens to which we are addicted have gotten so small we can hold them in our hands, allowing us to retreat even further into our own shadowy corners.
The long-term results of this anti-community trend include: the abandonment of town centers and public spaces; the decline of civic organizations, churches and other religious bodies; the privatization of entertainment and leisure; the politicization of public education as parents pursue adversarial rather than cooperative relationships with schools; and the nationalization of politics even at the state and local levels, which discourages non-partisan community-building efforts. Another result is the rapid escalation of senseless violence.
In the aftermath of every mass shooting, our hearts are warmed as we witness the almost instant re-creation of community. Mourners come together to share their grief. They gather for candlelight vigils. They look for ways to make connections and support each other. Without knowing it, they are reverting to what is actually most natural for human beings. We are made for each other. We are made to be in relationship and build communities. But because so many factors are actively at work against this natural impulse, these grief-centered communities hardly ever grow into anything more sustainable. Lacking a shared vision, they gradually dissolve as the pain lessens.
It’s hard for us to imagine now, but those vigil gatherings that are so moving to us (because they are so exceptional!) used to be the norm. Not so long ago, gatherings like that were commonplace, and did not need tragedy to give them birth. They were not temporary pop-up reactions to events, but deeply ingrained patterns of life that ensured everybody – even misfits – knew they belonged. I’m not suggesting that such a world was perfect or free from violence. But prior to World War II, when local communities, whether rural or urban, were better-defined, senseless mass shootings, like the ones whose frequency threatens to desensitize us today, were unheard of. They simply did not happen, or if they did, were so far outside the norm that they were not repeated for generations.
If we are serious about reading “the signs of the times,” we will demand that the symptoms of our sick society be treated with compassion. That means, among other things, that we will ban the civilian ownership of weapons designed for mass murder, and regulate the use of firearms with a robust system of background checks. It also means we will invest in better mental health services – not because the mentally ill are more prone to violence than the general population, but because untreated mental illness can lead to more serious problems both for its victims and for society.
And while we are treating the symptoms, we will also commit to combating the disease. At least a critical mass of us will determine not to allow ourselves to be complicit in the degradation of community that has brought us to where we are. Instead, we will seek ways to build communities, starting right where we live. We will pick up the isolated threads that have been slowly frayed apart and start sewing them back together. We will demand better neighborhoods, value public spaces, and practice face-to-face interaction rather than reflexively retreating to our smartphones.
One parent who lost a child in Parkland said, “I hope my daughter didn’t die for nothing.” I share that hope. We can do better.
©2018 by J. Mark Lawson
I hope the outrage of students and parents in the Parkland community will finally be a turning point for Congress to listen and stand up to the NRA and to mental health issues. These massacres, however, are a true indication of the deterioration of all that is important to a thriving society. Thanks for your message.
Posted by: Deb Record | 02/16/2018 at 05:35 PM