Litanies of Gun Violence

This post does not offer anything truly new in relation to the long set of posts that I offered almost a year ago on this blog in reference to "Gun Violence and Gun Control."  Rather, it is meant to posit a brief reiteration on the basic argument that I offered there in reference to events today.  Apparently a twelve year old male shooter entered a middle school in Roswell, New Mexico today with a shotgun, intent on hunting down an eleven year old male, who is now in critical condition with gun shot wounds in a Texas hospital. Additionally, a thirteen year old female was wounded and in serious condition (see Stephanie Slifer, "Police: Boy, 12, is N.M. School Shooter Who Injured Two," on CBS/AP, at: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-boy-12-opens-fire-in-nm-school-seriously-injuring-2/).  For peculiar reasons, at least if media coverage is indicative of anything, schools appear to have become the locations of choice of indiscriminate mass shooting incidents in the U.S. (although, this shooting does not seem to have been indiscriminate: the twelve year old hit just who he was aiming at!).  On the other hand, my inspection of news stories today reveals yet another incident involving a retired police officer in a Florida movie theater who shot another movie goer to death for texting during the movie!  (see Tamara Lush, "Man Fatally Shot in Fla. Theater over Texting," on ABC/AP, at: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/man-fatally-shot-fla-theater-texting-21531718). 

To reiterate, in part, the conclusion of my previous set of posts, it seems evident that the U.S., as a society, is becoming really good at inculcating a culture of gun violence.  Moreover, while those on the political left are very quick to argue for gun control as the cure for all ills and those on the right are always ready to drag out and kick around the mentally ill and/or video game designers as the sources of every evil, I think that both sides in the political argument over guns are underestimating the complexity of the issues involved in the production of gun violence in the U.S.  What we are dealing with is a problem of culture that assembles a complex range of familial, legal, economic, mass media, sexual, bio-chemical/genetic, and myriad other social and ecological determinants that have jointly produced a collapsing sense of belonging to community in America.  Set adrift in a world where basic norms of congeniality and solidarity, even at the level of individual households, have broken down, individuals are becoming alienated and, in the face of various social adversities, many (especially males) are becoming mentally unstable and, combined with the availability of firepower, capable of lethal violence.  There is simply no easy way to address the sorts of issues producing gun violence, short of a broader crusade to address the political, economic, and cultural source of the breakdown of community in the U.S.  In this regard, we should be ready for many, many more school children, employees and managers in confined workplaces, shoppers in malls, and other innocent victims of mass shooting incidents in the near future, because there is simply no quick and easy solution to rectify the sources inciting or otherwise facilitating gun violence.