The Bullets of August

“A man’s at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he dont want to.” Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian 

Republicans have figured out the cause of gun violence in America. It’s not guns themselves. It’s not white nationalism. It’s not the unhinged brand of capitalism that has hollowed out towns and inner cities and hamlets, put people under extraordinary stress as they struggle against structural poverty and a diminished future, and made them look for scapegoats to explain their misery and anxiety and fear. It’s not our hyper-militarized culture and glorification of war, our “big, beautiful military” as Donald J. Trump calls it, the F-18’s screaming over football stadiums, and the endless “Thank you for your service” adulation given to our troops, even those who have never been within 5,000 miles of combat.  

Video games, violent video games, there’s your culprit. 

Video games. 

A video game didn’t drive 600 miles with the intent of launching a murderous rampage outside and inside a WalMart store in El Paso, Texas. El Paso. A border city with intimate ties to Mexico. A city of immigrants. A city that has pushed back against Trump’s demonizing. 

A video game didn’t load the assault weapon, aim and pull the trigger. A video game didn’t install fear of brown-skinned immigrants in the head of the murderer. A video game didn’t refer to immigrants and asylum seekers, over and over, as an invading force, a gang of criminals, rapists and drug dealers. A video game didn’t demand that Congress authorize funding to build a dubious border wall, itself a symbol of fear. A video game can’t claim to have the unfailing backing of the NRA and all the political clout and cover it buys. A video game has no influence over the United States Senate, and the bills that body takes up or ignores.  

If you have the power to act, but have no intention of doing so because it might cost you political support or campaign donors or invitations to appear on FOX News, you play the distraction game. You shout and point, over there, not over here where the problem is. Trump gives a master class in this misdirection nonsense every single day. 

As I write this I am being pilloried on social media for suggesting that Trump will probably make a quick run down to El Paso, not because he cares about the dead or the grieving, but because the optics might help his re-election effort. The people attacking me have forgotten Trump in Puerto Rico, tossing rolls of paper towels to people after Hurricane Maria. They have forgotten his deploying military troops to the southern border in the runup to the 2018 midterm elections. Trump uses people and places as props. A man who condones, even encourages for its chilling effect, the separation of small children from their parents at the border doesn’t care about people. But it’s me, and folks of my bent, who are the problem. Unpatriotic. Haters. We don’t love America. We are suspect. We are trolls. We should leave. 

As he did so many times, the great James Baldwin said it best. To paraphrase, I love America so much that I reserve the right to criticize it. I reserve the right to demand that my country live up to the ideals enumerated in its founding documents. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. All men are created equal, with certain inalienable rights. Due process under the law. Freedom of speech and assembly and religion; freedom from unlawful search and seizure.

And, yes, the right to bear arms. But the right must come with responsibility and a measure of common sense. If you want to operate a motor vehicle, you have to take a test and obtain a license; in most states you also have to prove that you have insurance because a motor vehicle can become a danger to others. Periodically you have to renew your license. States mandate this and we comply. States also mandate that our vehicles be registered, that our tags are paid for and properly affixed. We don’t lose our minds and scream that the government is intruding, abridging our rights. Why shouldn’t this be true for purchasing and owning a firearm? You can have one, or more than one; you can own pistols and rifles and shotguns. Undergo a background check, take a safety course, obtain and maintain a license. Seems like a fair trade-off, given the damage a firearm in misguided hands can do. 

But here’s the thing: assault-style weapons are for the battlefield, not the mall, the nightclub, the concert hall, the theater, the school, the synagogue, the church, the mosque, the university campus, the city hall.    

And most definitely not a WalMart in El Paso.  

America is a violent, angry, confused and divided nation; we’re angry because we’re afraid of who might lurk in the shadows, afraid they might take what we have, even if all we have is an illusion of how exceptional we are; afraid of a future that looks grim; afraid of the Russians and the Chinese and the Iranians; afraid of Islam. Fear breeds hatred, and hatred breeds violence, and violence breeds more violence. 

And here we are. Again.