Gun Violence: Mass Shootings, Mass Sufferings, and Fear
When you think of mass shootings, unfortunately, you think of the United States. It is unavoidable and baffling to people that live abroad, and even more baffling to those living here in the States. We have a lot of guns here in America. It is a right provided to us by an Amendment in our Constitution. Mass shootings are common and shootings in general are even more common. Growing up in the 1980’s, there was always shootings and people getting shot and killed in the neighborhoods. You can look back as far as the 1970’s and there was no change.
As a kid from a California neighborhood, we are introduced to gun violence at an early age. We’ve heard the stories and might have direct experience with guns and killings due to gang violence and crime. I would like to note that I am not an expert in this topic. The following post is just an opinion based on personal sensibilities.
Guns in America is a part of our upbringing. Most of us remember our fathers giving us lessons about guns and their dangers. Kids in my generation would play war and guns in the streets. There was a time when it was acceptable for kids to carry around pop and cap guns that were not neon colors or have an orange tip. Police officers were not afraid of kids in the streets. Police officers back then did not really have much to fear at all. Things have changed.
I was fortunate. During primary school, my good friend’s father was a medic in the local SWAT team. He took us out in a desolate area to shoot various weapons; pistols, rifles, and shotguns. He taught us how to handle a weapon and at a young age, understand its destructive capability. The most important thing we learned about guns was respect. A gun is nothing more than a tool, a tool with one inevitable task; destroy life.
Mass shootings in America are a different animal than regular crime with several roots beyond guns. Like many strenuous topics in the U.S., the solution to gun violence is split into two basic camps - guns kill people or people kill people. This split is also usually divided along political party lines which makes it increasingly difficult to address, let alone solve. There are many interpretations, but the common sense approach is that people with guns kill people. Mass shootings is neither.
Mass shootings stem from a simple mentality now baked into the primer of American society where individuals believe that most things in life should be distributed to everyone, including pain and suffering. Some people believe that ones own misgivings, brought about by society, should be a burden spread onto others. “If I have to go out, I am going to take others with me.” “If I can’t win, you cannot win either.” “If I did not work hard enough or make the best out of my life, then why should you elevate yourself?” Many of these notions are disguised within various vehicles like divisive politics, the idea of community, group think, and social justice.
It is a blocking mentality that in some ways stems from a well-developed capitalistic society that has flourished and brought about the abundance of conveniences generated by our great society. As time has passed and the necessity to work together has waned, Individuals in society operate like their own brand, similar to a company, blocking and advancing like any highly competitive corporation would. This creates a societal ecosystem where there are winners and losers. The issue is that the losers are imbued with an idea of vengeance, mostly directed towards the only thing that they can, the “system.” These individuals, who for many reasons were not cut out to advance, are surrounded by negative stimulus that shows violence at a insanely high frequency, and promotes ultra-violent themes of revenge through movies and video games.
There are many developed capitalistic systems, however, the system of parenting and structured youth has suffered serious deterioration. Mass shootings, what we should rename as Mass Suffering, begins from many elements that occur at a young age. Some of it stems from childhood pain mixed with mental illness; some from twisted parental teaching mixed with a lack of meaning and value of life. There is a portion of our young society that is not equipped to handle feelings of loss, work ethic, and the idea of everyone having a key role in society.
In Japan, there is the concept of “Ikigai,” (yes, pronounced Iki-guy). Ikigai is the idea of finding your individual purpose that provides a reason for living and a reason to wake up in the morning. In more detail, Ikigai is the idea that no matter what you do, you will perform the task to the best of your ability and make every attempt to master the task. That would include cleaning the restrooms at the airport. On Japanese TV, they followed an airport worker as she cleaned the restrooms. She was a master at the craft. She had a strict regiment, understood all the aspects of what the job required, understood the variety of chemicals and techniques needed, and maintained personal responsibility for quality. We are missing that in the United States because we have fashioned a society where everyone must win. Not achieving some sort of victory in the aspects of life, like finances, family, and recognition entails an ultimate failure which leads to personal pain, shame, and feelings that something must be wrong with the world rather than an individual’s accountability.
In Japan, due to the strictness of the education system, the people understand that not everyone is able to reach success. There are standardized college examinations and those that do not reach the mark do not attend. It is almost as if the system regulates who can move forward. There is an understanding that the entrance examinations are extremely difficult and there is a level of performance and rigor that must be met in order to receive a college education. Those that do not make it must find other things to do. Some go into factories and farming or creative pursuits like ceramics and crafts. Others go into service positions just like many Americans do.
I believe the difference is that when Japanese youngsters, do not measure up to a college standard, athletics, or entertainment, life is not over. The believe that they are able to make a decent contribution to society. This belief is based upon the Japanese instilled value of service, customer service. America has an idea of service but it is different. Americans serve, but they do it in a more individual way rather than a societal way. When I use the word ‘serve',’ I do not mean serve in the military, which most Americans view with a high level of honor, I mean serve everyone, even those that you may not agree with or like personally. In Japan, they view the idea of service without emotion and you are not in service to an individual, you are in service to everyone. An individual is everyone and person preferences does not cloud your ability to be of service. Although the United States is a civilized and highly respectful country, I believe that there is an element and commitment to serve ALL of society with purpose rather than the service of an individual, that is missing from our culture. I also believe that this lack is one of the key components to unlocking mass suffering in America.
What I described above is just the tip of the iceberg on this complex subject. There are many portions of the cause, but the common trait is that there is not one simple cause or solution. In order to solve this problem in our country, we must solve many problems a little at a time, all at once. Some of the problems are systemic, others cultural. These are issues that are not simple to fix and will take generations, or a great conflict in order to mend through the (re)establishment of order and values.
The most pressing issue is guns. Guns kill people, people kill people, people with guns kill people. Why do we have so many guns?
First, firearms manufacturing and weapons manufacturing is a major industry in the United States. If we remove the emotional connotations of ‘guns’, the industry is an important one and employs many people. When you think of the economics of the firearms industry we must remember that it spans beyond the individual gun manufacturers. Guns require metal, which needs to be mined. The mining industry needs big heavy trucks and equipment and that equipment needs to be manufactured and repaired. That equipment needs fuel and that fuel needs to be extracted, refined, and delivered. When you look at an industry from that lens, you can begin to see its importance and the impact that it has on society.
With that, we can say that we have a lot of guns in America because there is a huge industry for it. That industry sells guns for sale in the United States; to our people and military, in addition to sales to foreign entities. A lot of guns are made in America and that is one thing that will not change. We must first agree on that. If we do not, any fight or advocacy to prevent gun violence and mass suffering is futile. Guns and the firearms industry are not going to be miraculously swept away by some bipartisan legislation. To gain some control we must find a better understanding and point of focus.
Guns are here to stay. Check. We have guns because of the huge industry. Check. What are any other reasons why we have guns? The one that I believe that goes unmentioned, and which should become a clear part of the narrative, is guns in America is a significant part of our country’s national security strategy.
During the Second World War, a Japanese General was asked about invading the main land United States. He presumed that it may be impossible because of gun ownership. Essentially, every gun owner is a soldier. This means that if you have an official uniformed and equipped army of a hundred thousand soldiers ready to fight, a country with free gun ownership has an equipped fighting army that begins to count into the tens of millions. There is no way to invade a country where you are outnumbered at that scale. The only way to victory would be through nuclear weapons and the mass killing of citizens. When an army decides to roll up on the shores of America you better be ready to fight, against everyone, for a long, long time.
That is the true reason why there are guns in America. The gun violence and mass suffering is a fractional collateral damage when you think about it under those terms. We have guns to keep the United States, the United States. It is a fact. There is not another country that will think to invade us.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has made the idea of a modern invasion real. In the past, a country or territory invading another was common. The World Wars showed that it was still possible, but the cold war showed that there was hesitation due to the amount of horror that was displayed. This includes all countries, Allies and Axis. Time has moved along and things have changed. The shake up of developing nations and the movement towards a new world order has changed the way we look at the world and who actually has the momentum to gaining global control. This changing global socio-economic environment, including the pandemic, has placed a focus on weaponry including personal firearms.
Abraham Lincoln once said “America will never be defeated from outside. If we falter and lose our freedom, it will come from the inside.” The gun control conversation needs to flow through this quote when we look at things from a global perspective. Now plug in new technology, social media, misinformation, divisive media, and other modern aspects in a changing world. Now plug in minor conflicts and disturbances around the world like Hong Kong, Taiwan, the social division of America, drugs in America, our strained relations along the southern border, the Russia/Ukraine Conflict, the changing tides in Europe, and global influence. When you mix up a cocktail like that you can begin to see how things are beginning to brew and the only means to internally topple the United States.
As the Japanese General stated: “America can not be invaded,” Unfortunately, America has already been invaded, a long time ago, but the enemy was not a human soldier. An appropriate analogy would be some fantasy film where one army releases millions of swarming bugs that go into a city and destroys everything before a human invasion can begin. Then you think about it closer and realize that is the ways that many wars are started. The previous World Wars started long before a soldier and a weapon came to bear. There were many political, social, and information campaigns that manifested first. It is no different in the current state of the world, but those elements are masked so well within technology because these are already important components of daily life.
Within the tense state of the world, we must view guns in America from a global perspective. First, guns are here to stay. Second, guns are a matter of national security. Third, guns should be important to all Americans and considered with respect. Fourth, we need new ways of thinking.
I believe our leaders already understand there will be no typical army invasion, although we are well prepared. Our leaders know clearly that Americans will defend ourselves, quite easily actually. Our leaders also understand that the main aspect to address is our social grounds.
It is difficult to allude to, but thinking in global terms, mass suffering has little to do with guns or the individual. Maybe that is why the discussion in America is at a continual stand-still. Maybe that is the reason why most discussions in America are at a stand-still; we are fighting for things that have nothing to do with the issue that needs to be solved.
We are conditioned in an era of convenience to reduce topics down to its simplest forms. With technology that has made daily life simpler, while increasing the complexity in the ways that society must think, we have not made the necessary adjustments. There is so much more to the discussion, every discussion.
Guns kill people. People kill People. People with guns kill people. People with guns kill people with guns.
That is the current narrative in society. Is there more? Continuing this on simple terms without injecting the politics, economics, emotion, and rhetoric, could lead us to an answer.
Guns kill people. People kill people. People with guns kill people. People with guns kill people with guns. People don’t need to kill.
When we look at this broken down, we can see that guns are not the whole problem and people are not the whole problem; the problem is people and killing since those are the only two main words that are in all the sentences above. If we did not have guns, we would still harm one another.
Guns Kill People. Remove the guns and there are just people. However, people kill people. If we just use the idea that guns in society is an important industry which includes national security, then removing guns from a society where people still hurt one another, our social problem still remain unsolved.
The problem is the society, divided or united, at every socio-economic level. If that is closer to the case, let us attempt to view the problem from a positive angle. What if the idea of ‘guns for all’ was a rally that could unite society. Highly unlikely, but let’s just pretend for fun. Everyone has a gun and ammunition. Everyone is educated at a high level and the whole society becomes competent marksmen. Will this solve the problem of gun violence?
No. The problem in America is not guns or people; the problem is killing. For example, just yesterday, a girl and her friends were driving on an unfamiliar road looking for a friends house. They turned into the wrong driveway and were making a U-turn. The homeowner came out of the house and fired two shots and the passenger of the car was killed. In another situation, a teenage boy went to pick-up his siblings from their friends house and rang the doorbell of the wrong house. The homeowner shot through the glass door and struck the teen twice; once in the head and in the arm. The 84 year old homeowner said he was “afraid to death” when he saw the teen at the door.
These situations, which just happened yesterday, begin to illustrate the real problem.
Guns kill people. People kill people. People with guns kill people. People with guns kill people with guns. Why?
From the two previous situations, guns were the problem. They inflicted great bodily damage from a distance and even through a closed door. If you take away the gun as a weapon, these situations are very different. In the driveway incident, the homeowner would need to run out of the house and chase people in a closed car. That would require a huge amount of energy and speed to cover the distance. In the second example, the homeowner would need to open the door first, and even at close quarters, the teen ringing the doorbell may have had a chance to allude the attack and escape unharmed. In these two instances, guns were the problem.
Guns kill people. People kill People. People with guns kill people with and without guns. People with and without guns kill people. People kill.
People kill. That is where the problem of mass suffering starts. So for the faction that says guns are not the problem, they are wrong. The two examples from just yesterday proves it. They can bring up any statistic or twist any narrative or choose not to listen. Guns are the problem. However, lets pretend we agree that guns are not evil and are necessary in America.
People kill. For those that say guns are the reason for the problems, they are only partially correct. The reason is violent crimes are punished with a variety of sentences ranging from the death penalty, to a few years in prison, even probation. The murderers go free, live on, and even reintegrate into society and have a decent life. Let’s not forget that prison in the United States is a country club when you compare it to other punishment systems. There are places in Southeast Asia that will execute you, no questions asked, if you are found guilty of smuggling drugs. They are unapologetic and respond by saying: “we don’t have illegal drugs in our country.” In some places there is a commitment and it is that simple. Based on that, the justice system and its severity is structured merely as a measure of what is tolerated, not by society, but by the leadership of the society. In some countries, there are things that are not tolerated, in others, many things are tolerated, both punished accordingly.
Imagine a committed attitude like that in America; an attitude that is geared towards fixing real problems, the problems that really matter. Our country would be a slaughterhouse until people finally got the message that America is not messing around. People would rise up. There will be protest and violence. The world would rise up, because what better an opportunity to rise up and use the social unrest to gain better economic leverage to drive potential negotiations. Imagine a committed attitude like that. Eventually, the unrest will subside and the society will reemerge orderly and structured.
So if we now maneuver the discussion to include guns, people, killing, justice, and why, it begins to take a different shape.
People kill. Why? If you bring the aspect of justice into the conversation, people kill because they can. Why does this not change? There are no real changes because of fear.
Guns kill People. People kill people. People with guns kill people. People can kill because there is a fear of change.
They always say that things start at the top. When we look at a losing sports franchise we say that the ownership is the main problem. When a team is winning we look at everything, the athletes, management, ownership, and team location. The United States is a huge corporation. The problem is at the top levels.
Let’s agree that it is a difficult problem with equally difficult solutions required. The people that run our great nation (and believe me, its great; I’ve travelled) understand that guns revolve around an industry and has an economic impact which is important. They also understand that guns are in some ways detrimental to the stability of society. With that, the good intentioned folks in leadership, who cannot get into every nook of detail around certain issues of an enormous country, must look at data instead of every single individual negatively impacted by these events and violence.
Remember, every society has violence and crime which is resolved (or left unresolved) at various scales. When leadership views the numbers, the amount of violence in society is a small percentage to the overall population. As a society we need to look at things from the lens of leadership. If we say that we need guns (remember lets pretend we do need them to indefinitely defend our country) then the amount of violence is tolerable.
If people are the problem then we need to crack down on violent crime. If you kill, you die. When this happens your best investment will be in the mortuary industry. The justice system will zap out all the killers and there won’t be as much violent crimes. For lower, yet serious offenses, you will go to prison where you will be fed well and taken care of, but you are going to work. You are going to work in the hot sun, you are going to dig holes, you are going to fix the streets and fix our failing infrastructure. When you go to prison you will be just above slavery.
When this change happens, parenting will change. I know people who have parents that have spent time in prison. Their kids have spent time in prison. That is a problem. Parents will inform their kids that prison is not a place to rest, watch TV, play games, meet old friends, learn the system, read books, and ‘watch your back’. Prison is a factory and you will bring some sort of value to society, walking free, or behind bars. Is that a solution?
That change seems manageable right? A more robust justice system would benefit everyone. Fear is the thing that holds us back. The change cannot happen at the government level because when you stand for something you cannot gather enough votes. Then, potential leaders do not speak out for the things that will truly change society for everyone on both sides of an issue. The political voices become mercurial and constantly mold around what retains leadership. You cannot cast blame there, it is a job and it pays pretty well and doing your job means staying in the leadership. Anyone that goes to work everyday can relate to that.
The root problem is fear and when we cannot institute changes at the top levels, it is very difficult to find middle grounds at the lower levels of society. The people that originally came to this country had to be fearless. They had to occupy and conquer land, (which I believe every civilization has taken part in, including natives to the land which had all sorts of violent territorial disputes), and revolt against an empire.
Those fearless fathers were victorious. Since they were small, everyone had to chip in and chop wood. Well, if the guy down the block was caught up in the drink and was not able to chop, he got left behind. There was not many advocating for that guy. Our society chopped wood and built and chopped more and built more. We became the greatest civilization in human history and we let the little things destroy is from within. It was not guns or even people; it was fear.
I do not think that guns are going away. We are a heavily armed country and I do not see that changing at anytime in the future. What America needs is simple: We need to change our culture, we need change that happens at the top so leaders can make the required changes, like getting weapons out of the hands of people that should not have them. It is a never-ending cycle; the leadership needs the votes to make the change and the voters are split about what change they want. What breaks the cycle? Maybe this a question that we can ask A.I. to solve.
I asked ChatGPT the chicken and egg question. It gave a selective answer that was based on your belief. If you thought about it on biological terms, the egg came first. If you thought about it in creationalist or religious terms, the chicken came first. So which is right? Both and neither. What is the problem with gun violence, guns or people? Both and neither.
How do you solve problems with a both and neither answer? You have to solve for one and then the other goes away over time. Do we think about things on biological terms or in terms of creation? If we choose biology then we must destroy religion. If we choose religion then we destroy biology and science. How many people believe in both biology and religion? There are not many that completely deny biology. Maybe there are those that do, and, maybe the earth is flat too.
How many people own guns and do not wish to create mass suffering? An unverified statistic, but one which I would bet would be accurate: There are more people that wish to create mass suffering or mass killing than those that actually make their violent thoughts real. Who are those people? Who are those that wish to but don’t? What is the thing that leads them toward violence. What is the thing that stops them? Are they mentally unstable? If so, even in a perfect society where machine guns are readily available to everyone including children, folks with diagnosed mental illness should not have access to any types of weapon.
There are many middle grounds here. Which ones we chose and how we bring society together is what is important. The media can help with this. They are experts at division and can become just as adept at uniting us back together, only if they chose.
When there is a way to reduce guns and make lots of money doing it, things will change. The most important initial solution is education. Just like my buddy’s dad that took us out and taught us about firearms. After that, I was never curious about guns. I understood their power. Will that stop people from using them in violence? No.
What is stop them is good parenting and creating safe environments for learning. My gosh, this conversation now gets into another maze; the education system that can’t hold on to borderline students. I’m not going to get into this one, but I’ll speak to one thing.
I once heard how the Amish people educate their young kids. They have a traditional type of school. Someone asked: “well what about the little kids that can’t sit still? What do you do about them? The school master replied: “Oh, that’s fine, we just send those kids out to chop wood and dig. They love it out there and we wouldn’t force them to be indoors.”
That, is a similar concept to the Japanese idea of Ikigai. Everyone has a role and purpose in society. Think about these educational elements and how the chain connects. We have young people that fell like they do not have purpose and they are forced to do work that they hate. The education system is not flexible enough to accommodate a wide spectrum of personality traits and we force kids to learn the same, even when we shout about diversity. What we need is not diversity training but a flexible education system that allows for a diverse range of personalities, not a focus on diverse ethnicities and culture. Our primary ethnicity and culture is American. We can start there.
I have a buddy that said “fuck school” in the eighth grade, went to work with his dad doing concrete, and never looked back. Even though he pounds a few beers at 6:30am, he is a master concrete finisher and works hard. I love working with him and we’ve done some projects together (I save the beer for the afternoon). School wasn’t for him, but there are things that are. He never got into guns or violence beyond getting super fired up when watching sports.
We need to get back to early vocational training and allow young people to get out there and work and make some money. There are to many young people living in despair and we would all be a whole lot better when we get young people working, when they are young and have an opportunity to actually like what they do!
Imagine the affect on society. The problem child who’s father says: “look son, you need to go to school, get a job, or get out!” has a solution. “OK, I’m going to go work and make money because school is not for me. I know how to read and write and do basic math which is all I need to earn a living. The dad is happy. The kid is happy. The kid stays out of trouble so he doesn’t get fired. He’s out there working and feeling good about it. He feels good about himself. He’s not afraid because ‘he can’t hang around late, because he has to wake up early for work tomorrow.’ The senior citizen driving to the store in the morning, sees the young apprentice working hard fixing things around the community. The senior has faith in the young generation and feels good. The youngster feels good about himself and helps others.
The youngster is not filled with hatred. The youngster is responsible and work has taught lessons about conflict resolution and communication. The responsible youngster who becomes a man can one day own a firearms and keep it at home like any other tool. The young man has skills to resolve tension and conflict without shooting up the place.
There are guns. There are people. People are working and not killing. People are happy. Things get done. The economy is fine. Leaders can make good adjustments to regulations as times change without unnecessary conflict. Busy people are not focused on who you want to date or what you want to be. The people that need to be really smart, are really smart. The people that need to be strong and keep our cities running, are strong. People are working together. Society is better.