Ethnocentrism and attention whores: Answering to gun violence

For those who have just come out of underneath your rock, we had a mass shooting on Friday at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. There were 26 casualties, including 20 who were kindergarten age. Each time, two main factors are considered by our corporate owned media: mental health and gun control. The two are seemingly inseparable. Mental health is always an excuse the NRA latches onto so nothing gets done.

Since the NRA's inception which was a few years before the Ku Klux Klan, it has severely perverted the true intent of the 2nd Amendment. The Amendment does say an individual has a right to bear arms. It goes on to say that individual has the right within "a regulated militia." Let's keep in mind this was created during a time when America was at war with British Imperialism and fighting for its independence. At best, they had muskets and rifles which were very poor with their accuracy. One could be considered a sharpshooter with a musket if able to hit a target that was 100 yards away. So, was the NRA created by a group of people with all Americans' best intentions in mind?

Look at the time period. The NRA became an organization for worried gun owners. At the time, it was white men. More specific, they were predominantly white men from British descent. There were numerous slave and abolitionist rebellions, prompting this group to arm themselves. Translation: What might happen if the slaves come after us, the plantation owners?

After World War II, gun manufacturers began to create more sophisticated handguns and rifles in wholesale mass distribution. Gun ownership spiked. The NRA vigorously defended them and put on a front that every American has the right to bear arms. So, homicides and suicides naturally spiked in this country from the 1950s to the Present. Since that time, no country comes remotely close to us for gun violence and ownership.

Oh, the 1950s. We're told it was The Greatest Generation, most economically stable, and every family was like the Cleavers. Another myth. One needs to look no further than J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and dirty realism writings from the likes of Charles Bukowski and Hubert Selby Jr. to realize there were still plenty of people left out of the so-called American dream. Gun ownership primarily rose when white people again feared blacks would come into their neighborhoods. So, before many left to unoccupied lands now known as the suburbs and referred to as White Flight, they purchased guns to defend themselves against a race still viewed as inferior. This was also a time period when women, disabled, homosexuals, and other minorities that included other white ethnicities with the likes of Irish, Polish, and Jewish were turned away from businesses after trying to apply for gainful employment.

Since the '50s, we get the same excuses from overwhelmingly Republican politicians, a few Democrats, of course the NRA, and other gun right activist groups today each time a gun has been used to kill or injure another human being. Again, these are all white people with perhaps your typical token minority thrown in the mix. We're diverse, yay! The first common excuse: Well, if only someone else was armed, that person could've shot and killed the perpetrator. False. In fact, those armed at a mass shooting only made the number of casualties worse by firing their weapons into a crowd. The second excuse is more reasonable and logical: You're going to take away my guns after someone who was crazy killed a bunch of people. I'm a responsible gun owner and so are all the members of my hunting club. True. However, there's one problem: The weapons used in these mass shootings aren't meant for hunting deer. Why would you want one if you say you're a hunter? You must be a terrible hunter then, unless you're really wanting to use it for hunting other people you don't like or have some fear about.

Injuries and tragedies take place from these high powered weapons when kids don't know if they're real and decide to try and use them. And yes, there are times when these incidents are tragedies. The kid may have turned off the safety clip and accidentally turned the weapon on himself/herself. For the other cases, where was the training for the adults before purchasing the weapons? This becomes very costly on all of us when person after person visits our emergency rooms for gun related injuries.

Ultimately, this is another 99 percent problem. Forget the corporate owned media. They'll tie every mass shooting into how disturbed the mass shooter was. That's a scapegoat. Yes, we've been a very violent country. However, the same entertainment we have here is shown in other countries. And go one step further, have you seen some of the horror films from Germany, France, Japan, and Korea lately? They're hardcore while seemingly every American made horror movie these days is rated PG-13. So, you can't blame it on American entertainment. The main difference is how easy it is for an American to purchase a gun and reenact a scene out of a video game or film than the average citizen in another country.

The second main factor to consider is how little we value time spent with family. We say we do, but we don't. The average American worker is overworked and underpaid. The only Western country who works longer hours per week in the recent past is Italy. What are your kids doing? Well, it's hard to know what Johnny is up to when the average parent is constantly at his or her job to put a roof over the children's heads and food on the table. This is the main theme from the 99 percent and couldn't be spelled out any clearer: Increase wages and improve working conditions for the average non-supervisory worker where wages have flatlined since the '80s to meet the exponential spike from the average worker's productivity. And unfortunately, persistence died with the Occupy movement. Yes, we've seen Wal-Mart workers at various stores protesting and trying to unionize, but the Occupy movement allowed perhaps apathy and complacency to take over. While it's wonderful they've done smaller endeavors to help homeowners and students, we need the mass demonstrations back.

The third and final factor does pertain to race. We shed our tears when a tragedy typically takes place in an affluent suburb and yes, we should all mourn the loss of life no matter where it is. Why don't we do the same for a young, black adolescent or adult in Chicago where gun violence has spiked tremendously in the past few years? And while on the subject, where is the outrage from our drone strikes that have killed dozens of innocent children in areas like Pakistan? Are their lives less significant or should we dress it up as a loss of life due to an accident or mishap by the perpetrator? We've been conditioned to narrowly focus our grief on how and where we should all be living -- nice, two-story home where you still find stay-at-home moms. Today, that's not who and where the average American lives.

Is the true mass murderer the shooter or those who continue to denigrate average, hard working Americans and the most vulnerable among us? Both. Our media has been awfully silent on how unequal our wealth distribution is in this country. In other developed countries, the masses are intolerant to corporate greed. And if austerity measures are presented and like in Greece, passed, they're out in the streets. There's much more mutual respect for one another in these countries.

Watch the local news. The average program highlights a shooting and/or robbery just about every evening. Ridiculous and counterproductive for building a healthy society. Finally, mental health experts say there are a variety of factors that could've caused someone to act with such callousness and lack of empathy: sociopathy. Typically found in males, some human beings don't develop a conscience. Those can include many of the rip-off artists on Wall Street who just recently one firm, HSBC was revealed it actively pursued business and obtained it with drug cartels and al-Qaeda. Due to a contractual clause, they will only receive a fine and no executive will serve jail time. It's about perception for some of us out there. Their existence solely relies on how powerful others perceive them. That's it.

Today, we have just under 89 guns for every 100 Americans. It's too late. The time to act was 60 years ago when gun violence became prevalent. The NRA and gun manufacturers already have won. Even if legislation does pass, what can be done now to eliminate the guns already owned and that are out there in abundance? We have some smart people supposedly serving our interests in Washington, so we expect they can creatively draft legislation that hopefully could have a similar outcome to Australia, right? Over time, we know how this plays out -- Congress and the Obama administration will form a task force and/or committee, investigate, discuss, and after a few months, surprise, surprise -- nothing gets done. During that time, we may hear from the likes of a Louie Goemert or Paul Broun from the dying Tea Party Coalition making outlandish assertions like, "Only if we had God in all our schools, we then could've avoided all of this (Washington refusing to take communion, Jefferson, Madison, Virginia Statute for the Separation of Church and State, etc.?)." Perhaps, the Justice Department and intelligence communities can invest a little more time and money investigating who has lots of high powered weaponry and much less time worrying about those with brown skin, whether they should be deported, and/or black youth who wear casual clothing and might have a little hemp on his or her possession.