San Bernardino, Colorado Springs, Roseburg, Chattanooga, Charleston, Isla Vista, Killeen, Washington, Santa Monica, Newton, Aurora, etc. Ad Nauseam...

by Tom Kando

 It happened again, as it now happens almost daily. On December 2, three terrorists murdered fourteen people in San Bernardino, and wounded many more. Two suspects are dead, one is still on the loose as of this writing. And the list goes on (See Mass Shootings in the US).

Yes, they are/were terrorists. You don’t need to know who they were, what their religion and ethnicity is/was. Their actions by definition makes them terrorists, as is Robert Dear, who murdered three people at a Planned Parenthood Clinic on November 27, and all the others, regardless of race creed or color. Some random thoughts about this topic:

1. America is afflicted by a lethal combination: There is a diffused rage that is spreading like wildfire, and Americans are armed to the teeth with the most sophisticated weaponry imaginable. This is a very combustible mix.


The rage is fueled by those who peddle anger, angst and discontent to the population, many of them working-class, DOWNWARDLY mobile white males, along with assorted others. The peddlers include political candidates and their media outlets, all the angry people at Fox and other channels.

Among the hundreds of mass shootings over the past few decades, I can’t recall any by blacks or Hispanics, or by women (although there has been a tiny amount of female participation, and of course the homicide rate among Hispanics and African-Americans is quite high - primarily against each other).

2. The police? Yes, black lives matter; yes, police misbehavior is rampant; yes many cops are racially biased. However, when a society globally descends into chaos and violence, the police becomes an ever more essential life buoy for the citizenry. We cannot exist without a police.

3. Whether terrorists murder 130 Parisians or hundreds  of Americans, what is lacking altogether is knowledge and UNDERSTANDING of what is going on. It would be extremely beneficial to catch many of the murderers alive. It would help a great deal if, instead of permitting them to blow themselves up or killing them in a final fusillade, many such people were captured, and then studied in great detail.

I taught courses on Violence and Terrorism at the University for many years. This is a complex scientific field of study, not unlike the medical study of disease. The “mental illness” cliché is facile and used widely. It explains nothing. Rage is an ageless phenomenon. Are we to believe that there is more of it - and more mental illness - today than in the past? That would be nonsensical.

We have much to learn about rage, violence, terrorism and mass murder. A disease must be understood before it can be eradicated, or held in check. I do not bemoan the death of most mass murderers. I merely suggest that by destroying most of the patients, we miss the opportunity to learn about the disease.

4. Gun control: This is not a debate. The presence of hundreds of millions of fire arms among the population, including ever more sophisticated automatic assault weapons, is the ONLY reason why mass murder has become so common and why America differs so much from all other comparable countries in this regard. It is not the main reason. It is the ONLY reason. Anger, political strife, fighting, tribal feuds, mental illness - none of these things are new. What is unprecedented is the insane volume of sophisticated weaponry in the hands of the populace, and the ease of obtaining it. 

There is no point in playing games with people like Wayne LaPierre and the NRA, refuting alleged data about other heavily armed citizenries under entirely different conditions (Switzerland, Israel), etc. None of their arguments holds water. The only sane policy is to reduce the size of our national arsenal of exquisitely effective weapons of mass murder.

President Obama, speaking on the day of the San Bernardino mass shooting, was right - as he usually is: We may never achieve 100% safety, but we sure can improve the odds and the frequency of these horrendous events.

5. Facts matter: when my wife and I returned from Rome a few months ago, many of our friends and neighbors said, “Oh, we are so glad that you are back, safe and sound in the good old USA!” It was no use reminding them that Rome and Paris are considerably safer than Sacramento:

Murder rate in Rome: 1.3 per 100,000
Murder rate in Paris: 2.0
Murder rate in Sacramento: 7.1
Murder rate in Italy: 0.9
Murder rate in US: 4.5

6. At the same time, we should not panic. The panic fuels the fire. After every mass shooting, thousands of Americans go out and buy additional firearms, deluding themselves that this will make them safer.

Here is another fact for you to mull over: The overall US homicide rate is now 4.5 per 100,000. It hasn’t been this low since the mid 1960s. In 1980, it was 10.2 - more than twice what it is today. Thus, while spectacular mass shootings are up, the total number of homicides is sharply down.

The last thing we need is the inflammatory rhetoric spewed by political candidates and bloodthirsty media, urging us to be ever more enraged at everybody, be it the government, politicians, Muslims, Planned Parenthood or illegal immigrants.
© Tom Kando 2015
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