Americans are thirsty for violence, from film to sports, the bloodier the better. Our obsession with guns only perpetuates that notion as we seem to think the more the better and of course we love this notion of them being used for hunting and self protection as if we are living in the movie Out of Africa, where we can combine the two. The photos of the Trump children standing over dead animals following a ‘big game’ hunt reminds me of the late Prince Phillip and his standing before a dead Tiger as if it proved what a man he was, how big his dick must of been pursuing an animal in a vehicle along a well marked trail with a long range rife and trackers who were there to ensure that he took the kill shot and saved all the Natives from impending death. How fabulous! Tea anyone?
As we look to the past month we have had an inordinate amount of mass shootings, 45 if you have been keeping track. And we focus on the one or two that have the media captured in the same way we do with regards to Police shootings. But there are always more than the media portrays as there were 985 in 2020 and yet I am sure people might mention the top 3 or 4 that captured their attention and in turn that doesn’t change the reality that every year near to 1000 people are killed by Police and in what is designated a mass shooting the hundreds, the dozens, the few that are injured and/or killed. The GSA archive notes all victims of shootings be they killed or injured. Regardless it is a larger mental and public health crisis than Covid could ever be. And then here comes the hate about this issue and in reality, Covid is a serious health disorder with the reality that while over half a million died in America we have no idea how many actually had Covid, recovered and in turn what was done that contributed to the spread, that added to the number dead and what ultimately contributed to their reaction to Covid that over 95% of the victims did not have. Again, less than 5% of Covid patients are hospitalized and yet it appears that this is not true by the media’s hyperventilation over the subject. In the meantime, no one has ever held anyone’s feet to the fire about how this occurred and what could have been done earlier to ensure that the deaths, the lockdowns, and the overwhelming of medical emergencies that resulted.
Imagine a year ago if the United States rolled out testing on the level they did with vaccines? Imagine all those with pre-existing conditions were immediately quarantined and that we had tested anyone living in communities that are dense and overcrowded homes and found ways to isolate, track and trace each case. To ask businesses to limit numbers, wear masks, alter schedules to have less of a rush-hour flow, including work at home, and kept schools open but fell to a shelter-in-place mode, with mandatory testing, nurses on site, and isolation areas for those who test positive as they await going home in safe manners to locations that allowed recovery or observation without rushing to a hospital. Building strong testing methods and provide them to anyone and everyone, in the same way, we have choices in vaccines. What about that with regards to tests. And build large sites in the same way they have done with vaccines, educating, informing, and establishing locations for people to handle their inquiries and in turn find assistance without effort in which to prevent transmission. We have botched this from day one and now only now are we seeing that we have learned NOTHING. The endless paranoia is still being peddled, the fear factor is rising faster than temperatures and the reality no one knows what they are to do or should do to stop the spread, flatten the curve, to build herd immunity. The reality is that no one has a clue so it is all in or all out. Try the truth it is very freeing.
And with that try that with gun violence. Show the carnage, show the after-effects of what happens after a mass shooting. We seem to love the endless showings of the assaults on Black individuals by Police. I have seen the videos, the photos, the endless loops of news footage that seem to less show the horror but to build another kind of immunity. Today on CNN I watched a story with the caption “Mass shootings are on the rise” but the footage was all from the Police shootings and violence at the Black Lives Matter protests, so no you have that wrong. If anything the Police are on the track to maintain the same numbers they have annually for the last five years that a press organization has been keeping track of. As for mass shootings, they have increased but not by a significant number. Since the GSA has been formed they found 40K incidents in gun violence in 2014 rising to 49K in 2015. Of those mass shootings were 269 and 335 respectively in the same years. Police actually killed by a gun has been consistent, 222 and 278 respectively. The numbers of Police shootings have risen from 1856 to 2055 in the same two years. So some guns are doing a great deal of damage and the Police are not the ones who are on the receiving end.
As I was listening to a podcast with a photo-journalist she spoke about the challenges of her work when it came to actually release the photos she was taking and shared her experience of being embedded with the Military in Iraq. She was frequently told that she could not take nor use the photos she had as in order to allow her to remain on board, she was to agree to certain parameters with regards to the type of photos she took. She feels that is why Afghanistan went on so long as few saw the true photos of damage and carnage that war causes. And why Vietnam ended with such political social outcry as there were no restrictions on the photos and those images being sent home and shown on the daily news led to the push to end America’s role in that conflict. This could be applied to the sites of mass shootings as the former Editor of the local paper in Denver when Columbine occurred received copies of many of the crime scene photos taken that day that showed just how severe the damage was done. In fact, the one photo he did run was one taken outside the school of a young man dead, a Mountain Dew just outside of his hand which his Mother recognized by the shirt and the drink as her son and which she carried with her for years to remind herself of that day. She vacillated on her anger over the release of this photo and then over time changed her mind as she realized that people needed to see what guns do to those who are on the targets of those who have a plan in mind to use them. And if we are so keen to see the death of George Floyd on auto replay and from that a major international movement and outrage were the result, why not see the blood, the visage, and the damage wrought from a concert in Las Vegas or a Grocery store in Boulder. If that is what it will take to see innocent people dead in a pile of blood to get people to realize how dangerous this endless obsession with guns brings, then I am all for it.
We will go to endless bloody violent films, watch horror films in which the antagonist is largely male who is deranged and goes to great ends to stalk and prey mostly young women, Halloween anyone, and we will applaud films that take violent crime and create heroic figures to resolve the situation as a type of well costumed Militia. And then we have the actual Police portrayed as diligent competent figures that have no limit to the resources needed to do their job which further confuses the reality with the fantasy. Again we hear the bad apple analogy but there were three Police that day George Floyd died and any of the other two could have stopped the process, they did not. There are often many members of the force standing by, riding along or adjacent and I have yet to see or hear of any intervention. The same way I have never heard of that ubiquitous “good guy with a gun” will stop and save a “bad guy with a gun”. Who is that? Where are they?
We accept the same sources of information without question which may be why we turn to social media to somehow validate our outrage, confirm our beliefs or simply provide support or balm that we are not receiving from the conventional means that are in place to provide it. I do believe we need to seek blame, point fingers, and demand retribution when we fail to hold those accountable for their failures. The Police knew of the boys in Columbine prior to that day. The Police have gone numerous times to numerous homes under the guise of a tip or in pursuit of a comment or query by a family member. They have yet to prevent that from going forward that I am aware but I am aware that when they go on “wellness checks” on individuals who have demonstrated at-risk behavior and are clearly disturbed and they go guns drawn. We cannot even distinguish the difference between what it means to be at risk to yourself and others, the basic question asked by any Mental Health professional when an individual is seeking care. And we are in need of care, a lot of it.
Add to this Doctors and Nurses on the frontline who handle these victims. The damage is done, the likelihood of actually saving someone from that kind of gun, the kind of bullets use, show the tissue damages, the recovery process, and of course the costs associated with all of it. Show an itemized bill, explain how it is paid and who pays it. They were never-ending with the hero worship and grief suffering during Covid and the endless shots of ER’s and patient trauma and yet what happens when a mass shooting occurs in the local ER? Does the Governor get on the TV and share the numbers of those who were shot, who recovered, the type of injuries, the costs, and the long-term issues that will result? Does he demand change and punish everyone for the failures or acts of a few? Where are the photos of coffins, funerals, and mourners as they bury their dead as they did with Covid? How about a Funeral Director and his/her challenge to handle the dead like they did with Covid. Covid is horrible but again this could have been handled better and it wasn’t. And no one actually did do anything to improve it, the States were like the Cops standing next to Chauvin, immobile.
We have an unrequited love of blood and a lust for pain. We mask it with drugs, alcohol and we pretend that we are healthy and well and we ignore that it only takes one gun and one bullet to bring it all down. So we want more as we want more blood and more pain and that will make us feel better. So let’s show everyone how good you feel, I want the media to start showing the carnage and without apology. If they can show us the last moments of the hundreds of victims as the hands of Cops let’s show the other victims that were largely due to failure by cops to stop them. Where are those good guys with guns when you need them? Well not anywhere where a bad guy is, clearly.
Off the Rack Publishing 