by Ryan Wong
This article was last updated on May 28, and so does not take into account events past that date.
In the United States, it is a common practice to let flags fly at half-staff in the wake of national tragedies. As can be ordered by the President, flags above government buildings, schools, memorials and military bases are temporarily lowered to honor the recently deceased. On May 24, U.S. President Joe Biden issued this order following the mass shooting that took place at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which claimed the lives of 19 children and 2 teachers and left 17 more injured.
The Uvalde shooting is the latest in a string of targeted mass shootings across the country. On May 13, a man opened fire on a Korean-owned hair salon in Dallas, Texas, injuring three. A day later on May 14, ten Black people were murdered and three others injured in a shooting at a Tops Friendly Markets store in Buffalo, New York. A day later in Laguna Woods, California, a mass shooting during the Sunday service attended by members of the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church killed one and injured five others.
These shootings are only a select few from the ones that have occurred this year. In an article published by Insider on May 27 citing data from the national Gun Violence Archive, there have been 45 shootings in the month of May alone—214 overall in 2022 thus far. This number is only expected to increase. Included in the same article is a graph of mass shootings per month, which shows peaks in June and July.
Why does this cycle of hate, violence, murder and grief within the U.S. never seem to end? Why, exactly, does it repeat without pause, wholly indifferent to the calls for unity, for peace, as families and communities are shattered one after the other?
The Cause
I. Legislation, ideology, and shifts in narrative
Perhaps the most obvious factor in the ceaseless stream of gun violence is the Second Amendment. Ratified in 1791 under the Bill of Rights, the Amendment, which states that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” has historically incited little discourse. It was not until two centuries later that it came to be widely contested; the pro-gun advocacy of organizations such as the National Rifle Association, otherwise known as the NRA, was successful in its push for state and federal legislators to relax if not remove laws against firearm possession and usage.
Today, American citizens can legally obtain and carry a gun in public in the name of self-defense, while the Amendment stands firm as the subject of debate between the nation’s politicians. These debates grow increasingly heated with each mass shooting that occurs, yet no definite conclusions can seem to be reached. Ordinary people are able to purchase AK-47s, AR-15s and other assault rifles commonly found at the scene of these shootings with little difficulty; assuming you are not a convicted felon, have not been declared “mentally defective” by court or committed any misdemeanors with sentences of over two years (or do not already have a family member or neighbor willing to pass you one off the record), you need only stop by a local firearm retailer, fill out a form, and pass a background check that often takes less than a few minutes to complete.
I will not be discussing the Second Amendment in further detail as I do not believe that it on its own is responsible for mass shootings. As concluded by historian Patrick J. Charles in an article for American Heritage, the wording used in the Amendment was common to other eighteenth-century laws; not pertaining to hunting or self-defense, but instead to military interests. Rather than it being a root cause of gun violence, I believe that organizations like the NRA used it as a gateway to further their own sociopolitical agendas, effectively turning it into a catalyst for violent ideologies to tangify within the country.
The right to gun ownership in the U.S., much like the bald eagle, has become a national mascot, symbolizing independence, freedom, and personal autonomy. These qualities, however, only represent a specific part of the population: white, cishet, male, and most often, right-wing individuals. The experience of a Latino gun owner, for example, cannot be likened to that of someone who falls within all four of the aforementioned categories; historical segregation, marginalization and violence have made it such that gun owners cannot all be judged by the same standing.
Nonetheless, the obsession traditionally had by white, masculinity-engrossed Republican males towards guns has come to be intrinsically tied to American gun culture as a whole; which, in turn, ties to nationalist, individualist and white supremacist sentiments. A conversation about gun violence and the lack of action towards it cannot be had without also addressing the connection it has to far-right, prejudiced ideologies—the prevalence of which can be linked to a hugely disproportionate percentage of mass shootings across the country.
Bigotry in America is systemic. Racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia, though perhaps less obviously apparent in recent years, is still rampant, and it is because many institutions and structures across the country, at their core, uphold status quos that fundamentally discriminate against minority groups. The people who enforce these structures and the people who believe they have the right—not only to use guns, but to use them on these minorities—are not mutually exclusive.
Of the four May shootings I mentioned at the start of this article, three of them were racially-motivated. Two were committed by white men: 36-year-old Jeremy Theron Smith, who faced delusions that Asian people were out to harm him, and 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron, who, before his three and a half-hour journey to the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, published a manifesto identifying himself as a white supremacist, ethno-nationalist and antisemite, among other ideological stances.
In his manifesto, Gendron describes having been influenced by discussion boards on 4chan and The Daily Stormer, a far-right, neo-Nazi, white supremacist, misogynist, Islamophobic and antisemitic website. He promotes the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, claiming that the Jewish are responsible for non-white immigration into the U.S.—that anyone not of white descent is keen on genociding white people. He expresses his support for other mass shooters, mentioning in particular Brenton Tarrant (who murdered 51 people in mass shootings across two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019) as the “person that radicalized [him] the most.”
And so we see the cycle in action. Systems breed hate. Hate breeds more hate, which breeds outcry, which gives further traction to these systems.
In the media chaos following the shooting in Uvalde, users on Reddit and 4chan (the same website that inspired Gendron) took the photos of a trans woman unrelated to the shooting and used them to claim that she was the perpetrator. Though this was later debunked, the damage was already dealt; the photos quickly circulated on social media, and the woman became the target of online harassment by conservatives. Paul Gosar, a far-right Republican representing Arizona’s 4th congressional district, referred to the shooter in a since-deleted tweet as “a transsexual leftist illegal alien”. Candace Owens, a conservative talk show host with over three million followers on Twitter, suggested that the shooter, based on “photos of him cross-dressing”, was likely “mentally disturbed and abused by adults in his life.”
The purposeful spread of misinformation as in cases like this only serve to add fuel to the fire; members of already-oppressed communities are subjected to further violence as the far-right is given more reason to hate and hate until it culminates in yet another tragedy in the news.
Even then, the news is not exempt from blame either. For every news outlet that chooses to focus on a shooter’s upbringing instead of the lives they claimed and families they tore apart; that condemns non-white shooters as dangerous criminals whilst painting white shooters as misunderstood, ostracized individuals (Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of the Columbine High School massacre, to name an example), two deeply harmful things are implied. First, that only non-white shooters are deserving of punishment, and second, that mass shootings are to be almost expected of bullying victims. Already, there are those who see the headlines, read that the shooter was bullied and think: Ah. Of course. The blame shifts to fall entirely upon the negligent teachers and parents, while the politicians who allowed the gun to fall into their hands in the first place are let off the hook.
Not only do these implications encourage racism, especially towards non-white individuals who fit into the “school shooter” stereotype so carefully crafted by the media, but it also tells any white person considering committing a mass shooting that there will be sympathizers who will fight to defend their innocence. It also makes it such that politicians are further dissuaded from imposing stricter regulations on guns. If a simple “thoughts and prayers” is enough to pacify the public and keep them in power, why bother?
II. The failures of public servants
On April 12, as the New York City Subway in Brooklyn, New York approached its stop at the 36th Street station at rush hour, 62-year-old Frank Robert James put on a gas mask, threw two smoke grenades and opened fire on the passengers before promptly fleeing the scene. 29 were left injured as a result.
Following the shooting, the New York Police Department faced heavy criticism for its lack of effective response. As reports of malfunctioning radios, malfunctioning security cameras and officers who seemed oddly relaxed while at the crime scene began to surface, local residents demanded answers from the NYPD: why the trains were not immediately halted; why there were no officers present at the time of the shooting; why, despite the overwhelming number of cops patrolling the city’s subway system (3,500, following NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ decision to increase the number by 1,000 shortly after assuming office), was the shooter still able to get away?
In the hours that followed, James went about the city freely. Only when he turned himself in a day later was the police able to apprehend him.
A month later, an employee of the Tops supermarket in Buffalo alleged that the 911 dispatcher she had managed to contact during the shooting on May 14 had yelled at her before hanging up. A week later, Salvador Ramos faced no resistance as he entered Robb Elementary School through an unlocked door, barricaded himself inside a fourth grade classroom and massacred the children and teachers within. Video footage showed parents pleading desperately for officers who arrived on the scene mere minutes after Ramos’ entry to pursue him into the school despite their refusal following warning shots from Ramos. In that same video, a cop could be seen pinning a person to the ground while another held a stun gun.
It was not until over an hour later—78 minutes, to be exact—that a Border Patrol tactical team entered the classroom and killed Ramos. In those 78 minutes, officers stood outside, barring parents frantically trying to save their children from entering the school themselves. Ms. Gomez, a mother who had been among the crowd, later told The Wall Street Journal that she had been arrested by marshals for “intervening in an active investigation”. She claimed to have seen one parent tackled and thrown to the ground; another pepper-sprayed. After convincing local Uvalde officers whom she knew to remove her handcuffs, she ran straight for the school, jumping over the fence and rescuing her two children.
Amid conflicting reports and false information given by Uvalde officials in the days following the shooting, one thing could not be clearer: police officers could no longer be relied upon. Indeed, as pointed out by The American Prospect after the New York subway shooting in April, police officers have “no legal obligation to protect the public”, as ruled by the Supreme Court in 2005. This then begs the question: Why do cops still exist? Why, after every national tragedy, do mayors and government officials throw more and more resources into an institution that ultimately produces nothing but suffering?
In the immediate aftermath of the New York City subway shooting in April, Mayor Eric Adams pledged to double the number of officers patrolling the city’s subways. In a press conference held by Texas Governor Greg Abbott a day after the Uvalde shooting, he blamed the tragedy on “a problem with mental health illness” in the local community despite Ramos having no known history of mental health issues. (It is also worth noting that Uvalde, according to a 2020 census, hosts a population that is 78.5% Hispanic and Latin American.) Abbott also states, with the disaffected air of a man who could not care less, “…As horrible as what happened [was], it could’ve been worse”. Remember that in 2021, Abbott passed a law allowing Texans to carry guns without a license.
What politicians like Eric Adams and Greg Abbott are unwilling or simply unable to realize is that a problem as deep-rooted as gun violence cannot be dealt with by surface-level solutions. Rather than examining the why’s, they would rather gloss over the what with gun-fogged eyes, blindly tossing rubber pellets at the monster that pervades their jurisdiction. Investing more into the police when they are proven time and time again to be powerless against mass shooters, chalking up domestic terrorism to mental illness without making a single effort to improve mental health facilities; instead of sucking out the poison, they scramble to find more plasters. Instead of aiming for prevention, they look to alleviate if not completely deflect—to minimize the casualties when the next one inevitably comes instead of making it so that there is no next time.
After learning of the shooting in Uvalde, President Biden took to Twitter to ask the American people a series of questions. In one tweet: “Why do we keep letting this happen? Where in God’s name is our backbone to have the courage to deal with it?”, and in another: “When in God’s name will we do what needs to be done?”
Just six days prior, after the Buffalo shooting, he tweeted: “We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America. Failure to do so will be complicity. Silence will be complicity. We cannot remain silent.” Clearly Mr. Biden, as the most powerful politician in the country, has no feasible way of dealing with gun violence on his own, and so must rely on his citizens to join hands and scream at the top of their lungs so that evil is expelled and harmony is finally restored.
A day before the Buffalo shooting, a hate crime committed by a white supremacist against a predominantly-Black community, he proudly announced the provision of an additional $350 billion to the U.S. police budget (which, in 2018, came third-highest in worldwide military expenditures, losing only to China and the U.S. itself). The implications speak for themselves. How can Biden, elected President in the same year George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery lost their lives, claim to stand indiscriminately against prejudice whilst simultaneously enabling an already-grossly overfunded system that brutally discriminates against Black people and other people of color?
Again, we see a complete failure to address gun violence as it exists within the cycle. When you demand a collective “we” to do better, to do more each time a tragedy on this scale occurs; when you call for unity between murderers and those they seek to murder, you throw every Korean woman working her job, every Black person shopping for groceries and every child in elementary school excited to enjoy their summer break to the dogs. You tell them, “Of course you do not deserve to die, but it is as much your responsibility as it is mine to protect your own life.” It is then that your words mean nothing. Not to the victims, living and dead; not to their families, not to their communities, and most certainly not to the people who have torn them apart.
Conclusion
Gun violence exists in an interwoven web spanning centuries of violence and prejudice. It is this violence and prejudice that have shaped current laws, policies and attitudes towards firearms; the politicians in power who have made it such that guns are an irremovable from American society were put in place by people who share their same beliefs: that guns are essential to American identity (that is to say, the identity they have weaponized against any minority that goes against their values) and that to lose guns would be to lose themselves entirely. It is not simply about the guns themselves, but also the ideals they embody. It is these ideals they are terrified of losing; their right, as a “true American”, to subjugate, discriminate and oppress.
Far-right, white supremacist bigots who, if not pulling the trigger themselves, are more than happy to dismiss the killing of marginalized peoples; who, ten years after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School which claimed the lives of twenty children and seven adults, not including the perpetrator himself, continue to insist that guns are not the problem. If only, they lament, there had been more police at Uvalde. If only the teachers themselves had been armed. If only the kids had been taught better to survive. To them, these lives come secondary to their self-interests: their precious guns, their precious rights.
Thus the cycle continues. Violence inspires further violence. But the blame, of course, does not ever lie with the weapons; nor does it seem to lie with the shooter either, in many cases. The politicians who with one hand sign bills further relaxing gun laws will point vaguely towards issues like bullying or mental illness with the other without once trying to fix said issues, let alone consider the shootings on a level that is beneath their own egos. Others, while perhaps sympathetic, can seem to do nothing more than sit in their offices, rehashing the same old condolences whilst also admonishing the people, oppressors and oppressed alike, for not doing good enough. More money is poured into structures that serve to cause nothing but harm and devastation to those most impacted by the cycle.
The fact of the matter is, gun violence will not cease until politicians decide they are ready and willing to act. If firearms cannot be banned outright, they can at least be placed under stricter regulations. If the police cannot be abolished, they can at least be defunded and held accountable for their unequal, unreliable protection. Until those with the power to make real, lasting change realize that their existing protocols are merely deflections from a deeper, systemic issue, this violence will continue, and the flag will stay down.