Fourteen people dead, another 21 injured: husbands, wives,
parents. Three were immigrants who had fled violence in their own country.
Their names, like their faces, reflect a diverse community
in an increasingly diverse nation: Robert Adams, Isaac Amanios,
BennettaBetbadal, Harry
Bowman, Sierra Clayborn, Juan Espinoza, Aurora Godoy, Shannon Johnson, Larry
Daniel Kaufman, Damian Meins, Tin Nguyen, Nicholas Thalasinos, Yvette Velasco, Michael
Wetzel.
They went to work December 2 at an agency that helps people
with developmental disabilities. And they lost their lives there.
The FBI is treating the San Bernardino killings as an act of
terrorism, and it certainly appears that it was. But if what we’ve learned so
far is an indication, this wasn’t a massacre designed and directed from abroad.
It seems to have been carefully planned and committed by a young married couple
whose warped religious and political views led them to believe they had an
obligation to kill innocent people.
How this country responds will tell us a lot about what kind
of nation we’ll be in the future. And so far, the signs are troubling.
I don’t underestimate the seriousness of terrorism and the
need to protect us from it. But there are intelligent ways to deal with
terrorism, and there are horribly misguided ones. And as we should have learned
after 9/11, fear, ignorance, prejudice, and political agendas can do enormous
harm, eroding privacy rights and shaping disastrous foreign policies. All of
that can feed terrorism, rather than combatting it.
Once again, sadly, American Muslims are a target of
suspicion. Both Syed RizwanFarook
and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were Muslims, and
Muslims in this country say they’re receiving threats. Among the incidents reported
in Saturday’s New York Times: vandals breaking windows, overturning
furniture, and leaving blood stains in the Islamic Center in Palm Beach,
Florida; death threats left on voice mail at a Manassas, Virginia, mosque, and
threats received at a mosque in San Bernardino.
The threats are nothing new, though. The Times also noted
earlier incidents: women and children harassed; gunshots aimed at a mosque in
Meriden, Connecticut; feces thrown at a mosque in Texas; rifle-carrying protesters
gathering outside an Islamic Center in a Dallas suburb.
The fact is that Muslims have caused very, very few of the
gun deaths in this country. But with gun violence, facts don’t seem to matter.
Another fact: mass shootings are a very small percentage of
this nation’s gun violence. The vast majority of US gun deaths are suicides.
Many others are individual homicides.
It took no time after the San Bernardino shooting for
muscle-flexing Republican politicians to call for tough action. There was none
of that after the mass shooting at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood on
November 27. None after the massacre at the African-American
church in Charleston, South Carolina. None after those precious children
were killed in Newtown, Connecticut, three years ago. None
after the horror in the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.
But now Republicans want action. They want all-out war
against ISIS.
Maybe that’ll resonate: fear, apparently, has a grip on many
of us. The day after last week’s mass shooting, the
Times quoted one after another American who said they worry every day about
being shot. Some seemed overwhelmed by fear.
If politicians really want to protect us, there’s certainly
something they can do – because there’s one more fact to add to the list: Guns
caused the carnage in San Bernardino. Guns caused it in Colorado Springs,
Charleston, Newtown, Aurora….
No matter. The day after the San Bernardino tragedy, while
their presidential candidates were calling for tough action against ISIS, every
Republican senator but one voted against the mildest of gun-control measures:
barring sales of guns and explosives to people on the government’s terrorism
watch list.
Calling for war in another country is apparently easier. And
it won’t upset the NRA.
This article appears in Dec 9-15, 2015.
It’s totally amazing that the author’s nonsensical dribble has once again convoluted the seriousness of terrorism by misdirecting the public to consider that gun violence is to blame and gun control is the answer to deal with terrorism.
Gee, I’ll bet concentrated poverty must somehow be connected to terrorism but you ran out of space to make that point.
You say: “But there are intelligent ways to deal with terrorism, and there are horribly misguided ones.” So please, tell us about these intelligent ways, that you profess, to deal with terrorism.
Is the Homeland Security Department aware of your intelligent ways?
As one of your colleagues, Rahm Emanuel (Chicago mayor and former Obama chief of staff), has been quoted to say: “Never let a good crisis go to waste”.
What that means is that if you have a cause or agenda that you can connect, associate or manipulate the public to believe is a solution to the crisis , it will serve you and your agenda well. Fortunately, there are smarter people in our country who won’t fall for that dupe.
“The fact is that Muslims have caused very, very few of the gun deaths in this country.” Note that ‘GUN deaths’ was specified. If you include mass killing by terrorists on American soil using other weapons such as aircraft (9/11 World Trade Center), car bombs (World Trade Center 1993) and pressure cooker bombs (Boston Marathon) the numbers are significant. The terrorists are using everything at their disposal to wage war on us. We need to continue to do everything we can to disrupt and prevent terrorists attacks but it has come down to protecting vulnerable ‘soft’ targets where people gather like sporting events, shopping malls, etc. We never had to protect courthouses or airports but the nature of the threat has changed and will continue to change. The posting of Gun Free Zone signs isn’t working. And since our police and military can’t be everywhere all the time, now is NOT the time to disarm ourselves. Paul Revere warned “The British are coming”. He didn’t follow with “Get rid of your guns”.
Bart,
If you go back 20+ years to 1993, deaths from Islamic terrorists is still not significant compared with the number of gun deaths (over 30,000 per year). No one is saying that we should downplay terrorist violence; but at the same time, you can’t say that deaths from terrorism are somehow worse than any other gun violence. If so, I guess the more than 100 children killed accidentally every year should be happy that at least they weren’t shot by Muslims.
A gun is the first best choice for: suicide, robbery, revenge killing, lashing out in anger, religious fanatic violence sprees, etc., etc. However, there are other options: knives, bombs, poison, sabotage, etc., etc.
Taking guns from hunters wouldn’t do much. However, your average Joe probably would be better off without a loaded handgun lying around. It would most likely be used rashly.
The problem is that there are too many dumb-asses in this country who conjure up far-fetched scenarios or just get a gun because someone told them to. That just doesn’t sound like freedom to me.
Joe, calling suicides by firearms “gun violence” is like calling Robin Williams’ death “belt violence”.