Michael's Corner

Guns, Violence, and Culture

Okay, so America experienced yet another shooting. But wait! Aren’t Americans enlightened to shootings every day in urban hotbeds like Philadelphia and Chicago? Indeed. And thus begs the poignant question: Why do we only react when it’s suspected that a shooting is ideologically motivated? Moreover, why do we only unite behind an anti-gun sentiment when the shooter is a young, deranged, suburban male? Last month, in Philadelphia, a family of three walking to a house party was gunned down in a drive-by shooting. The family wasn’t the target; they just happened to be on the street when someone decided it was time to spray bullets. It marked a story that failed to become a national conversation. I find it interesting how one shooting represents a political football and another we’re too timid to discuss in a meaningful way. Like it or not, the most recent shooting that has captured our attention and those happening routinely in American cities, such as the abovementioned, are stereotypical but also mutually exclusive concerning how they play upon the American ethos.

Every time I read about a school shooting, I can’t help wondering: what kind of brain-rewiring pharmaceutical was the shooter forced-fed at age seven and stopped abruptly at seventeen? Once upon a decade, hyperactive children were tolerated until puberty curtailed their wildness. Somewhere along the way, we lost our patience and began drugging children into submission. And now someone trapped between childhood and manhood, living in a multi-media circus that’s telling him he’s no good, gets access to a gun. But we won’t dare blame big pharma because they’re paying the networks that air sports.

Recently, a Chicago academic published a thesis on gun violence. He used Canada and Scandinavia as part of his model. His findings were curious. Both places have the same number of guns per capita and identical gun laws. His findings? Canadians shoot and kill one another three times more than Scandinavians. What does that mean? Maybe it’s time to peek behind the curtain at culture. Each of us comes from tribes that have certain cultural norms that are likely to produce dissimilar outcomes when interfaced with an entity as complex as a society. It’s a dilemma that will require us to have uncomfortable conversations. Pretending that a school shooter could bear the name Lamont is no less absurd than pretending a drive-by shooter could be named Ezra. The truth can be uncomfortable. That’s why it’s called the truth. Canadians are more violent than Scandinavians, or so says the study. Luckily, culture is human software and can be tweaked if we don’t run from the truth.

Michael DeStefano
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4 responses to “Guns, Violence, and Culture”

  1. abn4eternity Avatar
    abn4eternity

    Well stated. Before I get started, a disclaimer, TLDR is acceptable for my rant.

    Let’s get into it. Violence of any kind is bad but is a part of life. Yet, directed, biased violence is evil and is nearly unforgivable. Yet, few seek the unadulterated truth that is the underlying reason for this type violence. Every study, every report, every “news” report has an agenda whether it be ratings, funding, or academic/ social standing. Gun violence is publicized due to the polarizing and gory effects, not to mention the number of victims it can cause. However, historical trends and social “norms” are seldom taken in to account. Years ago, music, movies, and video games were said to cause violence. I beg to differ with the “esteemed” individuals doing the studies or ringing the alarm bell on such catalysts but many things can be catalysts for violence. The main issue for violence isn’t the medium the public is exposed to nor is it the object used in violent actions, no, not even guns. Where is the outcry when the attacker injured and killed individuals with only knives? Where is the outcry when the driver ran killed with a vehicle? Where is the outcry when the illegal immigrant killed a family by turning the tractor-trailer across the highway causing the vehicle with the family to collide with the trailer, killing 3? There is no outcry, instead, the attacks where barely reported, the illegal immigrant had 250,00 signatures to hold him unaccountable. Where is the outcry when the doomsday cult in Japan released deadly sarin gas into the subway? Where is the outcry for all the women Sharia Law oppresses and kills? Where is the outcry when a group calls for the genocide of a people? Where is the outcry when individuals are forced into slavery? Where is the outcry for the unborn? Society cares more for animals than individuals. The bottom line and the main issue is the desensitized morals and double standards of our world society.

    Let me explain my view point. For generations, we have had television, movies, books, and radio media transmitting acts of violence from the mundane story telling to the gory visuals to the mind-numbing violent video games. The more gory a “news” report is, a movie is, an event is, a story is, a game is, the more popular it is. For generations, we have seen an increase in material that bombards our senses with violence and gore resulting in the desensitizing of our senses. Drunk driving was once demonized but has been pushed so much few even take time to think about it and many actively drive under the influence of some substance or another. Marijuana is becoming legal across the nation and globe. Individuals operate dangerous equipment under the influence of substances that affect their judgment and reaction time and not only illegal drugs. Caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, marijuana all affect an individual. Being sleep deprived, tired, angry, frustrated, stressed all affect individuals. Yet we are desensitized to the affects and the effects of our individual decisions. Society makes excuses. Society allows exclusion from consequences. In certain states and nations, the wealthy, the powerful, politicians, public figures are allowed to face lesser consequences for their actions while regular citizens/ subjects are held accountable to a higher degree. Drunk driving by wealthy or public figures is a slap on the wrist even when it is habitual. Governmental individuals have diplomatic immunity whether from another country or national politicians. Wealthy individuals have monetary immunity or can have the consequences reduced due to power and money.

    In the 1970s, government and law enforcement administrations reduced the presence of law enforcement officers and personnel in communities. Officers took on a more reactive stance rather than a proactive stance. In cities and low income neighborhoods, law enforcement presence dwindled allowing criminal groups to grow. Organized crime, street gangs, drug dealers, pimps, drug addicts, supposed “homeless”, and many other elements were allowed to grow and thrive while government officials and law enforcement left the law abiding citizens to become victims. Then the generations that followed saw the lawlessness and some embraced the lawlessness, creating their own brand of law, the old law of the jungle, the strongest and fittest rule. Almost gone are the days of family, morals, and self-sacrifice, replaced by every individual for themself and self above others. Even in families these have become normal. But here is the twist, law enforcement will step in when there is an outcry from citizens and impose their “violence enforced” law. They arrive in uniform, carrying weapons, and demanding everyone cower to their authority. Don’t get me wrong, the majority of law enforcement officers are good people but they are trained and taught they are the authority and everyone is to submit to their authority at that moment. So here we have communities left to create their own rules, their own laws, their own law enforcement presence, only to have the “establishment’s” law enforcement to swoop in and demand obedience to the “governmental” law.

    Then we add in all the movies, music, video games, social media, and political rhetoric that promotes violence. Politicians instigate, encourage, condoned, and called for violence on anyone that doesn’t agree with them, we saw it with all the violent uprisings that burned cities and caused even more social segregation in our nation. The “News” televised the violence and took sides, condoning the violence. Public figures from singers to actors to athletes to social media personalities openly threatened or called for violence against individuals that did not agree with them. In another day and age, these individuals would have been arrested, jailed, and received consequences to their call for violence. EVERYONE that did not openly instigate, encourage, condoned, or called for violence were COMPLICIT in their silence, thus were and are part of the issue.

    Then we have secret atrocities conducted by entities within our government and sanctioned by officials in our government from mind altering experiments to medical experiments to wide spread surveillance to outright murder. Governments as a whole are not evil or bad for the most part, however unsupervised, unregulated, none public entities are evil and bad for the citizens of any and all nations. When citizens are not allowed to know something because a governmental official deems it secret or unknowable, then that society has failed. When money and power supersedes public health and life, that society has failed. When manufacturers are allowed to produce products made of harmful, deadly components, that society has failed. When chemicals are added to life sustaining elements such as water and food, just to make a profit for companies, that society has failed. When governmental officials can deem an invention an economical threat, then that society has failed.

    Now to step outside the United States, we have Communist China, North Korea, the nations of the Middle East, and so many other nations that will lecture on human rights while giving their citizens/ subjects no human rights. No governmental body, no political party, no social or political theology is perfect and none have the best interests of ALL the people in mind.,

    Our global society is broken. All this is to say, violence is a product of society. Violence is a physical expression of frustration, anger, and/ or hatred brought on by society and condoned by society as a whole but not exactly by the individual. Tolerance and acceptance is not something society teaches, on the contrary. Society teaches, demands, and forces division, segregation, exploitation, “slavery”, subjugation, and yes, violence. When an individual, any individual resorts to violence, society as a whole fails. When a governmental body, organization, individual or entity instigates, encourages, condones, calls for, or is silent towards violence, that society fails. When society focuses on an individual or group no matter ethnic, religion, heritage, or physical characteristics, the society fails.

    Isn’t it time for mankind to demand a change, to cast off the failed societies that have come before and create a society that an individual respects others, tolerates different views, and thinks of others before themselves? Life is not about “me”, it is about others. Without others, we don’t live, we do not thrive, we do not survive. Without others we dwindle, we disappear, we vanish. Even animals know this. One cell organisms know this. Mankind is the only creation that seems to forget this. Isn’t it time to have a hybrid society where an individual means more than the whole yet that individual holds others above themselves? Or should we revert to a society where there is no large scale government, no large corporations, no global network where those in government are not part of the community they reign over? Our societies have failed. Those that truly worked were those that were small and took care of those in that community first and then helped those outside their community without an outside entity forcing communities to help others with violence or threat of violence.

    To summarize my take on existence, violence is an aspect of existence but allowing the desensitization towards violence is a failure of society and government. When an individual is desensitized to violence and the suffering of others, society is a failure. When an individual is encouraged to be violent by social norms, political/ societal or religious instigation, movies, games, stories, or social media, society, governments, families, and citizens carrying some responsibility but inevitably the violent individual carries the majority of the responsibility and MUST receive the consequences and the consequences must equal the outcome of their violence if not to teach the individual the lesson their actions are not condoned but to also send a message to others who may contemplate similar violent actions. We have too many individuals in prison for heinous actions. In years past, punishment was a public expression. We have all failed as a society, a race, a family, and as a sentient and sapient person. Every individual has a violent part of their being and each of us has shown violence in one form or another, the difference is to what extent and for what reason. Anything can be justified, even violence. But what causes that violence. Why do individuals want to focus on the instrument used in the violent act rather than the cause and catalyst leading to the violence? The answer is control and power. Or the illusion of control and power. No one can identify exactly what caused an individual to be violent because a violent act is never just the act, it is a combination accumulated over years of individual moral degradation, environmental learning, social indoctrination, and desensitization towards violence.

    If you liked this or would like to discuss the bigger picture, leave a comment.

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  2. Michael DeStefano Avatar
    Michael DeStefano

    We are slowly but unmistakably becoming a death cult. I’m sure at what point in time we fractured, but social media, AI, and the concept that we are all digital avatars of our actual selves have acted as accelerants. Unfortunately, those are genies we cannot put back in the bottle, so our only recourse is to figure out how to access more than the 13% of our brain we are able to use so we can better navigate the world we created. It’s not hyperbolic to suggest we had better learn, and fast!

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    1. abn4eternity Avatar
      abn4eternity

      I understand the death cult analogue and it sure seems that way but has been that way for decades. In my opinion, the majority of social theology have the potential of becoming death cults. All ideology or theology that teaches, promotes, and forces division, segregation, isolation, persecution, forced labor, mental alteration, or indoctrination (just to name a few) are the basis for cults, death or otherwise. Socialism is a prime example. Capitalism could be another.

      Society has gotten away from individual accountability, responsibility, and consequences. Governments force compliance for taxes and generational laws. When an individual is forced to submit by force, opposition begins and will inevitably lead to violence and conflict. Unfortunately, people do not know how to focus their anger and will lash out at innocent individuals and those weaker or more prone to be unarmed and unprotected.

      Shootings are heinous yet the answer isn’t outlawing firearms, instead strengthening the family structure, imparting moral and social accountability, punishment matching the crime, advancing tolerance and inclusivity, not diversity, and enacting meritocracy and experience. Society and employment must become blind, deaf, and dumb to enhance our existence.

      We have a long way to go and no true human, mortal solution.

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  3. KP Avatar
    KP

    Violence is truly has caused a lot of pain and heartache for centuries. No matter if it is verbal or physical it has impacted us all rather directly or indirectly. The world would be a better place if each person lived by the Golden Rule, treat others like you want to be treated. Soon though that will be.

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