The cry that's still in the air.
There are many reasons why -- oh, why.
Why so many mass shootings? Because our society is in a state of collapse.
Equally true, from Jane Wagner's EDITH ANN: MY LIFE, SO FAR (page 119):
I have read this on a shirt and it sounds true:
"Society deserves the kids it gets,"
but I have never seen
a T-shirt that said
what the kids did to deserve what we got.
How could children not be shooting guns?
Anyone puzzled by that needs to stop burying their head in the sand.
The Iraq War hits the 15 year mark this month -- and it's still going. The Afghanistan War is still going. When Barack Obama left office, there were six wars the US was engaged in -- and he was the first president to preside over a war for every year he was in office -- eight years, two terms -- despite being elected to end the Iraq War.
What do you think being raised in all this violence, in a society's who's only answer appears to be bomb 'em and shoot 'em, does to the children?
Margaret Kimberley (BLACK AGENDA REPORT) observes:
Apparently there is nothing worse in America than the act of shooting white people. Ever since the latest attack at a Florida high school there has been talk of little else. The school shooting enveloped every other issue and was used to vilify Russia, the FBI, Bernie Sanders and the National Rifle Association all at once. One cannot watch a Youtube video without being subjected to the NRA’s public relations juggernaut meant to quiet a population which had forgotten about shootings for a while.
America has a unique history with firearms. The settler colonial state enshrined gun ownership into the constitution because of a determination to maintain chattel slavery and the violent enforcement which had to go with it.
More than two hundred years later that imperative remains. All the sound and fury about gun control is useless because this society demands that the slave patrol never disband. There are even arguments made to expand it. Not only must we live with armed police officers but there are new proposals to arm teachers in the classroom. These same teachers target black students for punishments and “zero tolerance” policies made necessary by the deeds of violent white people. Everyone from the buffoonish president to members of Congress weigh in with ridiculous proposals because the obvious solution will not be permitted in this country.
There are plenty of reasons why gun violence is so extreme these days -- they all go back to the US government.