Come Together Right Now to End Gun Violence

I have nothing brilliant or original to say in the wake of last Friday’s bloody apocalypse in Newtown, CT. Yet, I can’t let that horrible tragedy quietly recede into my personal and the national subconscious without saying something about it, disjointed as it may be, that registers my grief, anger, and despair and my sketchy thoughts regarding what may have caused this calamity and what, if anything, we might do to prevent something similar from happening again.

After the shopping mall shootings outside Portland, Oregon earlier last week, one of the first things that came to mind was, How soon before it happens again? And even if I couldn’t have foreseen how soon it would happen again or how bad it would turn out to be when it did, I wasn’t terribly surprised when it did.

That some mentally disordered person somewhere would lug one or more semi-automatic firearms into a crowded public place and start blowing away innocent people had all the inevitability of a seasonal hurricane or an earthquake in a seismically active region. We know it’s going to happen, we just don’t know exactly where, when, or how bad it will be. Yet, it stood to reason that it could well be sooner than later, exploding from the critical mass of the theater and mall shootings in Colorado, Oregon, and other recent locations.

This points to something I fundamentally believe about all such events. They ARE the human equivalents of natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. No one freely chooses to go out and gun down a bunch of innocent adults and children. They do it because a rare set of internal and external conditions coalesce, like they did in Hurricane Sandy, to cause them to irresistibly erupt in catastrophic violence.

One speculative scenario I’ve pieced together from what I’ve read is that the shooter, whose name I won’t print, had Asperger’s syndrome; was painfully alienated from his family and society by his extreme social awkwardness and shyness; felt lonely, angry, bitter, hateful, and spiteful over what he perceived as widespread social rejection; was part of a Gothic subculture that magnified his alienation and its emotional outpourings; loved to play violent video games that aggravated his violent tendencies while desensitizing him to acting them out; had a careless, “prepper” mother with a gun fetish and an in-house armory; may have given off signs that he was on the brink of something awful but no one was paying attention or caring enough to do anything about it even though there may have been something they could have done; believed that he was a contemptible nobody in a society that glamorizes “somebodies”; paid close attention to the theater and mall shootings in Colorado, Oregon, and elsewhere and fantasized about them; and decided that if his lonely, miserable life as a hopeless social outcast was not worth living, he might as well end it by venting his anger and hatred for a society that marginalized and ignored him, and do it in a way that would make him a somebody that people would never, ever forget even if he wouldn’t be around to bask in the notoriety.

Like I said, this is all just speculation, but I would like to think that by examining all the available facts, law enforcement and behavioral scientists might be able to assemble a pretty accurate and insightful picture of the shooter and of what caused and enabled him to act as he did and that this understanding might prove useful for helping to prevent future shooting rampages.
In the meantime, after thinking about this awful story and reading articles and editorials about it and related issues such as gun control and mental health care in America, here are some of my ideas about steps we should consider taking to decrease gun violence in our society.

First, if we’re as sick and tired of gun violence as many of us say we are and, in any event, should be, why not declare that we, as a society, will no longer tolerate criminal gun violence and follow up by instituting severe, even draconian penalties for illegal gun selling, purchasing, possession, and use? For instance, why not summarily execute anyone who uses a gun to commit a crime? And why not incarcerate for life or for a very long time anyone caught carrying a loaded firearm in public without a legal permit?

Second, why not ban ALL sales of firearms and ammo to anyone who hasn’t been thoroughly screened and hasn’t passed stringent tests of firearm knowledge and proficiency, and why not require people who own firearms to be periodically re-screened and re-tested in order to keep them, just as we have to pass re-screenings and re-tests to maintain our driving privileges?

Third, why not ban the sale and possession of all high caliber, semi automatic assault weapons and high capacity magazines for civilians who have no exceptionally good reason to own them?

Fourth, why not refrain from publishing in the television or print media the name of anyone who commits such heinous mass murder, thereby discouraging would-be mass murderers from seeking their fifteen minutes of fame that will never come to them by name?

Fifth, why not follow Rabbi Michael Lerner’s advice and inculcate non-sectarian values and powerful psychotherapeutic, social, and conflict resolution skills in our children in our public schools?

Finally, why don’t we take it upon ourselves as individuals and as a nation to move far enough away from our enshrined “Greed is good,” libertarian, dog-eat-dog, “rugged individualism,” and “personal freedom” ethos to at least provide far better for the common good in terms of physical and mental health care and other social welfare while also becoming more empathic, compassionate, and caring as individuals toward our neighbors and all humankind throughout the nation and the world? For surely, whatever religion we embrace, or even if we embrace no religion at all, we would almost all agree that we’re lacking as a people in terms of how we care for “the least among us” and for the troubled, and the horrific events of last Friday should make this all the more evident.


Of course there are counterarguments to each and every one of my general suggestions, and some of them may even be cogent. But surely there are things we can do or should at least try to do to protect ourselves and our children not only from gun massacres but also from gun violence of all kinds, and surely there is no better time than now to draw upon the energy of our anger at the status quo and of our desperation for change in the wake of last Friday’s bloodbath of the innocent to come together and seek viable answers and solutions and not let the proverbial perfect be “the enemy of the good.” As President Obama eloquently stated in his moving memorial service eulogy last night, “We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law, no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society, but that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this. If there’s even one step we can take to save another child, another parent, or another town from the grief that’s visited Tuscon and Aurora and Oak Creek and Newtown and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that, then surely we have an obligation to try.”

What Can We Learn From Anders Breivik's Sentence?

On July 22, 2011, 32-year-old Anders Breivik calmly slaughtered 77 children and adults in a meticulously planned and bloody barrage of bombings and shootings purposed with stamping out the alleged corruptions of Islam, feminism, Zionism, Marxism, multiculturalism, and other evils destroying European civilization. He was found guilty and accorded Norway’s maximum sentence of “preventive detention” in August of this year. This means he must spend at least 10 years in prison or 21 years (100 days for each count of murder) there at most unless he’s deemed unfit for release after that time and detained longer or even for the remainder of his life. Most experts believe that he will never get out.

One might expect the unapologetic perpetrator of such monstrous mass murder to, at best, languish in a cramped cell with spartan accommodations and endure rough handling from his jailers. Instead, he lounges in digs many would envy.

His cell looks less like a dungeon than an Ikea display of optimal small-space habitation, and he even had full use of a computer in his comparatively spacious, three-room quarters right up until being sentenced for his crimes. After his computer was removed and he waited for a replacement electric typewriter, he had to use a flexible (to prevent its deployment as a weapon) rubber “nightmare” pen that cramped his hand to write out tortuous treatises defending his murderous mayhem, and he didn’t like it.




In fact, in a scolding, 27-page letter to prison officials he presented a stinging litany of complaints about the “inhumane” indignities he was forced to endure including not only the rubber pen, which he called “an almost indescribable manifestation of sadism,” but also the routine censoring of his mail and phone calls, strip searches, cold coffee, “unwelcoming” prison guards, noisy fellow inmates, and having to wait as long as forty minutes for guards to switch on and off his TV and lights each day from controls located outside his cell.

Had Breivik committed his ghastly crimes in just about any other part of the world he would no doubt have far more to complain about, were he even left alive to complain, but he’s in Norway, and Norway has one of the most lenient justice systems in the world, based, as it is, on the lofty principle of “restorative justice” aimed at healing everyone affected by a crime, including the perpetrator, and arguably remarkably effective at preventing violence in prison and recidivism upon release.

Yet, even Norwegian justice is grounded on the conventional belief that, except in very rare cases of obvious insanity, people commit crimes of their own free will and can therefore be held responsible for them, and Breivik was adjudged sane and responsible for his atrocities. More specifically, he was judged not to have a psychotic condition that caused him to enact his murder spree, and he was consequently sent to prison rather than a psychiatric facility.

But what if Breivik didn’t have free will and couldn’t help but do what he did on that infamously “Bloody Friday” in July? How so, given the fact that he very deliberately planned and perpetrated his massacre? How could he not have been free if he wanted to kill all those people and was able to carry out his homicidal intentions with chilling efficacy?

Because, says philosopher and free will scholar Robert Kane, being free to do what one wills is only a “surface freedom” and not necessarily “free will” as philosophers understand it. That is, if one is free to do what one wills but is determined by causes one doesn’t control to will what one does and to act out that will, how is that free will?

As philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris argues in his recent book Free Will, “free will” is the belief that “(1) Each of us could have behaved differently than we did in the past, and (2) We are the conscious source of most of our thoughts and actions in the present,” and, says Harris, the notion that we have this magical capacity is undermined by a growing body of scientific research showing that our thoughts, choices, and actions inevitably originate from interacting physical, biological, psychological, social, and cultural conditions of which we aren’t fully conscious and over which we exert incomplete control. 




And if this is true of all of us, it’s certainly true of people such as Anders Breivik who commit criminal atrocities. For as Sarah Lucas recently wrote in the Humanist, if we apply Harris’ argument to the Breivik case, we conclude that “had you been born with Anders Breivik’s genes, grown up in the same environment, been dealt the same life experiences and woken up on that July 22 morning with an identical brain, you would have committed his crimes (after all, you would have been him).”

Sam Harris’ argument is controversial, to be sure, but what if he’s right and people can’t help but commit the crimes they do given their nature when they commit them? How should society deal with them? Should it ensconce them in almost palatial prisons like Breivik’s or subject them to harsher treatment? And if the latter, how much harsher should that treatment be?

Many would argue that justice isn’t only about inflicting upon the perpetrator what he or she deserves but also providing society what it needs to heal after the crime. In Breivik’s case, it’s difficult to see how Norwegian society would rest satisfied with Breivik’s present circumstances and readily heal from the terrible trauma he inflicted.

Many would argue that justice is also about deterring future crimes, and, again, it’s difficult to see how Breivik’s cozy living arrangements will deter other dementedly xenophobic souls bent on violently rescuing European civilization from ruin at the hands of barbarian invaders from without and ideological traitors from within.

Moreover, what if Harris is wrong and Breivik freely chose to murder all those people. Was justice served in his case? That is, even if Breivik spends the rest of his life in prison, did he reap the punishment he deserves, and will his punishment deter others from committing similarly egregious crimes and provide Norwegian society with the healing and stabilizing sense that justice was served?

The horrendous case of Anders Breivik raises pressing questions about the nature of justice, free will, and responsibility more than most, and we would do well to spend more time contemplating them.

There But For the Grace of God...

I can't blog much or often anymore. Not that I was doing it anyway. But now there's almost no time for any posting. However, I don't want to stop completely. So, I'll do what I can when I can. I suspect that it will be mostly on the weekends and that I'll keep it mostly short and simple.

I don't know the whole story. I know only what I've heard from snippets on CNN. But apparently he was thrown out of the house at eighteen. He dropped out of high school. He had few friends. He felt like he didn't belong anywhere. He had just lost his girlfriend and his job and believed he was a worthless "piece of sh*t." He wanted to be somebody, to have his proverbial fifteen minutes of fame. So he got it and then some even though I doubt that he's now able to revel in it. He killed nine people including himself in an Omaha shopping mall earlier this week.

When I read about cases like this, I wonder what I would have done in his shoes. I felt pretty worthless and alienated too as a teenager and long after. In fact, I still do at times. But I had a few friends and a family that didn't throw me out of the house. Maybe my family should have been tougher on me that they were and pushed me to do and achieve more. But if they had pushed too hard, what might I have done? I don't think I would have gone into a shopping mall and killed myself and eight other people. But there were times when I felt not only awfully depressed but also very angry about the cold, cruel, fuc*ed up world.

How do I know, how do any of us know exactly what we would do if we were in someone else's shoes? I'm inclined to believe that we would do exactly what that young man did. That is, if we had the same body, brain, mind, and experience as that young man, we would have inevitably acted the same way he did in that mall on that dark day and achieved our own measure of infamy.

There but for the grace of "God" go any of us.