The horrific massacre
that took place in a Gay Nightclub in Orlando, Florida in the early morning
hours of Sunday June 12, 2016 is another in a long string of mass killings
perpetrated by a heavily armed assailant(s). These assailants are typically
mentally disturbed and apparently motivated by a blinding hatred seeking
vengeance for supposed wrongs done against them or the group to which they
identify. In this case, the killer, Omar Mateen, was an American
citizen of Afghan descent who was a Muslim and supporter of ISIS – the
extremist Islamic group. He was a young man filled with hatred and
who legally purchased deadly firearms.
Such events are
obviously very unsettling for the general population; for they highlight
intense feelings of insecurity – the natural reaction is for individuals to
want to protect themselves from such senseless violence. The gun
industry in the United States as represented by the National Rifle Association
(NRA) invariably uses such events to encourage ordinary citizens to protect
themselves with firearms in a country where by 2009 there were an estimated 310
million firearms owned by American citizens as published in a Congressional
Research report. The updated estimate is that there are more guns in
the hands of individuals than the entire population.
In the current political
climate demagogues like Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for President,
are quick to find a convenient scapegoat focusing on the Muslim population;
for, the purpose of exploiting and stoking fear in the minds of those who
choose to listen to his invective. The reality is quite different and
far more complex than Mr. Trump would like to suggest. In fact, hate
crimes especially against minorities have been a fact of life in the United
States for many, many years. The African-American community is well
aware of this history that began with slavery, continued through the post-Civil
War era exemplified by Jim Crow throughout the American South and, of course,
manifests itself to this day in many forms including police violence. Other
minorities subjected to discrimination and violence include homosexuals,
Mexican-Americans, Native Americans and immigrants.
It is interesting that
those non-Muslims who have been responsible for mass-killings, regardless of
their underlying motivation, have not been branded as terrorists. These
events though numerous – as chronicled by the New York Times -
are treated as isolated incidents
In fact, the underlying
sense of stability and security that is necessary for a society to sanely
function is being undermined by the reality that we have a well-armed
citizenry. The inevitable result of such an environment is that at
any moment in any part of this vast country, an individual or group my feel
compelled for some reason, inexplicable to most everyone else, to take
vengeance upon some perceived threat, despised group or alleged enemy. As
a people, we are paying a heavy price for this blind allegiance to what has
been proclaimed as our constitutional right to bear arms as embodied in the
second amendment of the U.S. Constitution – some may find
it difficult to envision that the framers of the Constitution had the
current reality in mind.
I believe we have to
ask ourselves as a people, if we really want to continue
on this path. Do we really want to be plagued, on a daily basis, with the
fear that ourselves, or our loved ones or our community will be the indiscriminate target of someone’s senseless outrage? Are we
willing to accept these periodic events of mass killings as a natural
outcome of our collective choice to be armed with deadly weapons? If
so, then we need to be prepared to accept the onerous psychological price that
we are paying for such a choice. If so, then we should be prepared
to endure these disturbing events as a “legitimate” aspect of the national
landscape.
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