by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
U.N. Visitor’s Plaza, New York, New York
A gift from Luxembourg.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last forty-eight hours, you have no doubt seen the coverage concerning the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado. If you possess even a minimal level of empathy for your fellow human beings, twelve dead and fifty-eight wounded when their only crime was wanting to see a movie can only be properly described as tragic. Among the dead accounted for up to this point are a man who had been celebrating his twenty-seventh birthday (Alex Sullivan), a member of our Navy (Petty Officer Third Class John Larimer), a twenty-four year old aspiring sports journalist (Jessica Ghawi), and a six year-old girl. Some less responsible outlets are reporting this little girl’s name (Huffington Post, looking your direction), but other more responsible outlets are not. I will not post her name for the same reason others have declined: the little girl remains unidentified because her mother, also a victim of this horrific crime with gunshot wounds to the neck and abdomen, remains paralyzed in hospital and has not yet been told of her daughter’s death. Even in reporting on events, sometimes a little discretion goes a long way and does not impair the “public’s right to know” in any substantive manner.
Over the next few days, you will see many attempts by people with various political agendas trying to monopolize on this shooting to promote their pet causes. In fact, it has already started and in a most heinous manner. During a radio interview on The Heritage Foundation’s “Istook Live!” show, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said Friday that the shootings were a result of “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” . . . and questioned why nobody else in the theater had a gun to take down the shooter. Gohmert in one fell swoop illustrated that not only is he a base political opportunist, but that he apparently doesn’t understand the 1st or 2nd Amendments very well – a common affliction among Texas pols. Others pols are already using this as a way to promote their anti-gun agendas, their pro-gun agendas and the Twitter-verse is filling with statements from “our leaders” about this tragic event and all of them in some way self-serving.
I urge you to ignore these opportunists for a moment and to think about something else related to the Aurora shooting.
Multiple outlets are reporting that the accused gunman, James Holmes, had dyed his hair red and told the police he “was the Joker”.
There is the fantasy of violence. There is the reality of violence. They could not be more different in outcome. This presents the issue of instances like this where the line between fantasy and reality have clearly been crossed in some meaningful manner. Does this problem exist in the individual or in society itself? I submit the answer might be “a little of both”.
Consider this: one of the elements of drama is that the hero (or something or someone the hero holds dear) must be in peril. It creates tension, it moves the story. You cannot have drama without an element of danger or risk and very often that danger or risk is portrayed in the form of physical violence. As a species, we are wired to find this entertaining. There is nothing wrong with a bit of wish fulfilment in seeing the hero overcome adversity as entertaining.
The reality is starkly different. Witness real heroes like Jon Blunk who was killed defending his girlfriend Jansen Young during this rampage. Witness Jarell Brooks, a 19-year-old from Aurora, who put himself at risk to help Patricia Legarreta and her two young children escape, but not before he and Legarreta were wounded. Witness Eric Hunter, a 23-year-old from Aurora, who found two wounded girls and dragged them to safety in an adjoining theater before blocking the door to Theater 8 and preventing the alleged gunman from spreading his gunfire in to a new room of innocent theater goers.
All three possible outcomes. Death, wounding, escape from physical harm. All three equally heroic in that other lives were saved, some of them strangers with nothing in common but a love of the same kind of cinema and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a funny thing about heroism though. As F. Scott Fitzgerald famously quipped, “Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.” In real life, the tragedies and the heroics are real and have real consequences. The hero does not always win the day as they are prone to do in fiction.
Does our propensity for dramatic entertainment, let alone dramas involving violence, feed a propensity for violence? This is a question as old as drama itself. On one side of the argument is the catharsis argument put forth by Aristotle in Poetics; that in viewing tragic events, the audience’s negative feelings like fear and pity are purged. This line of reasoning was later supported by psychologists and psychiatrists such as Sigmund Freud and A.A. Brill. On the other side are modern researchers who have found correlations between watching violence and the rate of violence in society, but causal connections between the two in the general population have been difficult to pin down. What is clear is that “exposure to media violence does not produce violent criminals out of all viewers, just as cigarette smoking does not produce lung cancer victims out of all smokers. This lack of perfect correspondence between heavy media violence exposure and violent behavior simply means that media violence exposure is not a necessary and sufficient cause of violence.” (“Media Violence and the American Public” by Brad J. Bushman and Craig A. Anderson, Iowa State University, American Psychologist, June/July issue, p. 482, 2001.) That a small segment of society seems particularly susceptible to being prodded in to violence through the consumption of media violence though seems undeniable. To me, this seems to comport with the rate in society of people with mental problems revolving around empathy like sociopaths and psychopaths. People who lack empathy would naturally not connect the actuality of violence with the fantasy of violence as they don’t care about the impact of their actions on others to begin with. Correlation is not causation and the root causes of violence are more complex than just a person’s entertainment choices. There are also environmental, social, economic, and personal history to consider. Some people in certain situations are simply going to be more prone to violence. While causation in the general population has been found in desensitization toward violence and violent entertainment, causation of real life violence with fictional violence has been more elusive although desensitization in itself has been can “[increase] aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, physiological arousal and aggressive behaviors, and decreases helpful behaviors.”
As a society, do we have a duty to mitigate all factors that can induce violent behavior in individuals? Even if that susceptible segment of society is a very small percentage of society? With complex compound causation, this is a practically impossible task, and even if “perfect mitigation” of contributing factors was had there are a certain percentage of society that are going to be violent psychopaths no matter what their environment is like. Where to do we draw the line a social inputs that can encourage violence and personal responsibility for individual action? Consider this as well: do we have the same duty to mitigate when the violence perpetrated by sociopaths and psychopaths is economic (as in the banking industry shenanigans that birthed the OWS movement), is purely psychological (as seen in pathologically verbally abusive spouses) or is purely political (as in the religious far right attempting to trample history and the Constitution to institute theocratic laws if not outright theocracy)?
Perfection is not possible. Evil cannot be eliminated in the world for without it we have no definition of good. The perfect removal of error from complex systems is a mathematical impossibility. Does that mean we should not try?
What do you think?
Source(s): ABCNews.go.com (1, 2), NBCNews.com (1, 2), Huffington Post (1, 2, 3)
~ submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
UPDATE: The names of all the victims have been officially released by the Arapahoe County coroner’s office. These are the names it is important to remember. Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6, Jessica Ghawi, 24, Alex Sullivan, 27, Jonathan Blunk, 26, John Larimer, 27, Matt McQuinn, 27, Micayla Medek, 23, Jesse Childress, 29, Alexander Jonathan (AJ) Boik, 18, Alex Teves, 24, Rebecca Ann Wingo, 32, and Gordon W. Cowden, 51.
A Personal Note to the Aurora Victims and Their Families and Friends:
My sincerest condolences. May your loved ones lost live on in your memories and may your memories be long, robust and full of happiness. May the wounded heal and take every advantage of their good fortune at surviving this senseless act of violence. May this harm done to you and yours not keep you in the depths of lament, but transform to a celebration of life – both theirs and yours. Peace, love and long life.
Gene H.
NOTE: For those of you waiting for the next Propaganda installment, I’ll either publish it tomorrow or publish next weekend depending upon time constraints. I thank you for your patience in the face of breaking news.
“The cops represent the 1%” “You never beat up the rich, you never kill the powerful” “We need to defend our own communities from the police, they are killing us” “Murderers” Also chanted today “Shame shame shame”. “you don’t defend us, you represent the rich”
Telling of all senseless deaths from police violence in Anaheim…
SwM & OS,
Kissin’ cousins … 😉
Today the people were chanting “the cops, the courts, the Klu Klux Klan all a part of the master plan” “the cops and the Klan go hand in hand” “No justice no peace” etc etc
What happens when the police are immune to the law unlike ordinary people. When the police are the violent armed and dangerous actors in society.
Swarthmore mom,
Actually, the founding fathers were quite specific in the Militia Act of 1792 that President Washington signed into law. Each male citizen between the ages of 18 and 45 was required to:
“provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball…”
The second amendment provided for militias, not individual ownership, and this law was intended to spell out the specifics of what was expected of each adult man and potential militia member.
I don’t own a gun, but I’d be more than happy to be required to go out a buy a flintlock if every one else were required to do so…. and limited to just that.
Gun manufacturers would be placated with expected orders of a hundred million new weapons to sell and the rest of us would be a whole lot safer.
Sounds kind of silly, but so far as rights go there it is spelled out pretty specifically by the founders. High capacity cartridges aren’t in there anywhere….
Just a reminder, McVeigh killed over two hundred with a lot of fertilizer and 19 people with box cutters killed many more on 9/11. To want to kill a bunch of people you don’t know is psychotic even if you want to couch your actions in political terms. What ever this guys stated reasons he is crazy as a loon and my guess is that in any society, anywhere, perhaps .01% are just as disturbed. In America for instance that would work out to about 35,000 people.
Pretty soon they will just send unmanned drones over to get license plate numbers.
The media showed up to film the license plates of the protesters for the police.
Today, the community mourns the shooting & killing of an innocent young man and the subsequent violent attack on peaceful protesters. The people are gathered at the Anaheim Police station, including the family of the victim.
The naming of the dead, shot and killed for no reason, this is in Orange County, the people eventually storm the police building:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/24180109
swarthmore mom:
no, they probably werent. But they probably understood that there are deranged people in the world and they figured an armed citizenry was worth the risk to preserve individual liberty if necessary.
I doubt the people who wrote this would agree with you on restricting the ability of “peaceable” people to purchase rifles of any kind:
“A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves…and include all men capable of bearing arms.”
(Richard Henry Lee, Additional Letters from the Federal Farmer (1788) at 169)
“What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty…. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.”
(Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment [ I Annals of Congress at 750 {August 17, 1789}])
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive. ”
(Noah Webster, “An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution,” 1787, a pamphlet aimed at swaying Pennsylvania toward ratification, in Paul Ford, ed., Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States, at 56
“The right of the people to keep and bear…arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country….”
(James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434 [June 8, 1789])
“…but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights…”
(Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies in Federalist 29.)
“As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”
(Tench Coxe in ‘Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution’ under the Pseudonym ‘A Pennsylvanian’ in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789 at 2 col. 1)
“The Constitution shall never be construed….to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms”
(Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87)
“The great object is that every man be armed” and “everyone who is able may have a gun.”
(Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution. Debates and other Proceedings of the Convention of Virginia,…taken in shorthand by David Robertson of Petersburg, at 271, 275 2d ed. Richmond, 1805. Also 3 Elliot, Debates at 386)
But it is pretty clear they wanted the average man armed and proficient in the use of arms. I have a feeling the people in Syria would disagree with you as well as they are now undertaking the task of relieving themselves of a tyrannical government.
Night all. Beddy bye here. 12 AM.
Sweet dreams of inbred Appalachia’s Hardin county.
Eskimos and isolated desert tribes have better sense.
Bron, the typical 150 grain 30-06 hunting rifle has a higher muzzle velocity (2,910 ft/s) and impact power than an AK-47 (2,350 ft/s). Either one will kill you at close range. Otherwise there is not much difference. Civilianized AK-47s and similar rifles are NOT assault rifles under the legal definition. For those not familiar with them, an assault rifle has a select fire lever which converts from single shot to automatic fire. If it does not have that, it is just an ugly rifle. Ugly is not illegal, fortunately, or a lot of us would be in real trouble.
First time outside of the Middle Eastern countries that I have heard anyone bragging on belonging to inbred clans. The bridges and roads bit must be a laugh. Do they still shoot each other over the nominations?
You must be making it up. I guess all the ag projects are in the family too. Are you and ýour wife unrelated? First cousins? My arab friends say it is completely OK genetically. Just a few visible defects. The others don’t count, they say.
Ever visited Moulin Rouge in Paris? Nearby is a quarter with visibly inbred families in the prostitution business for many years. Fun to look at.
Similar problem there in Hardin? I guess you’d need genealogical records for obvious reasons. Ever heard of heterozygotism? Good stuff.
You don’t get to attack poison gas, biological weapons, Agent Orange, etc, as a defense of yourselves. Good luck with your guns.
Do you remember when polio made you carry your kids down the hills. I do-
Well this will be a repeat experience. Sad fate for resisters.
bron, Don’t think the founding fathers were thinking about assault weapons in the hands of deranged people.
shano:
and a hunting rifle with a 30-06 or almost any other caliber would have done the same thing at that range.
shano:
a good many people on this blog enjoy shooting sports, Gyges, Bob Esq and Otteray Scribe are 3 who come quickly to mind. And none of them is a d-bag nor would any of them attack helpless, defenseless people in their normal state of mind.
It is easy to say guns are the reason why those people died but the reality is that guns are tools and have no will of their own.
If we really want to cut down on deaths then we will have more transparency in medicine, eliminate swimming pools and restrict driving to people within the ages of 25 to 65 and permanently take away a persons ability to drive after being caught drunk driving one time.
Finally the founders werent thinking hunting when they wrote the 2nd Amendment, they were thinking armed rebellion against government tyranny if necessary.
Agree with shano and rafflaw on gun control.The laws are continually being loosened not tightened.
OS, have been doing extensive genealogical work lately. My newly discovered cousin is the former head of the Ohio genealogical society. I just got the results back from the DNA testing that he recommended. That was very interesting. Lots of lines and names go through Hardin County.
Blouise & SwM, I am related to practically every living soul in Perry and Hardin counties. As a matter of fact, most of the roads and bridges in NE Tennessee are named after either my wife’s relatives or mine. Those who would suggest confiscation of privately owned guns have no idea who or what they are dealing with.
OS and Blouise,
OS,
You are pitiful using Blouise to communicate your bonafides with me. Your openly professed ostracism of me is despicable behavior from a professional therapist. Or anyone who regards himself as a gentleman.
I called you both for facts. You both delivered none. And you both claim roots and claim qualification thereby. What right does that give to cast aspersions on a folk in the whole of Appalachia, as you did OS.
Get them outod the hills? Would not take six months to get them out and into a FEMA camp. And Obama could do it by calling a federal emergency, calling them rebellious and terror supporters. This would open for various unpleasant measures. Like I said, no boots, no drones needed.
How many Cherokee relatives do you have in your direct lineage. No french traders? And I am scotch-irish protestant who came there very early. Mine did not express pride over it however, nor keep brag records. Boo hoo.
You remind me of the DAR and DOC folks. Damning the residue left there and bragging about your roots.
Kind of a conflict there.
Next we’ll hear they came over the Bering Straits.
When did you do your last potlatch?
That high capacity magazine probably saved a few lives. Those things are heavy, and have to have heavy springs to move the rounds forward. The mags jammed in the Aurora shootings as well as the Gabby Giffords shooting. If either of those criminals had been using normal capacity magazines, the carnage would have been worse. High capacity magazines have been jamming since they first started being used on fighter planes in WW-I.
Blouise, My father’s family settled in Hardin, Ky. before moving on to Illinois.