Taking aim in the divided States
July 15, 2024, 8:21 am , by Richard Lutz
Richard Lutz reports on the world of Butler Pennsylvania
When I was eleven, a rifle was put in my hand. I was taught how to shoot lying down, sitting and standing up. I was taught how to load and unload. I was taught gun safety, I was taught what to do, what not to do.
This was no secret woodland meeting of extremists. But my summer camp in New England. And looking back, it was considered normal. There was sailing, archery, sports, swimming, singing lots of campfire songs, sleeping out under the stars on beaches. And, as I said, scheduled trips to the rifle range.
I don’t think my parents minded. I know my school pals back home were seriously envious as I had a National Rifle Association patch sewn onto my jacket. America always has had gun lore. It is in the blood. After all, there’s hunting, shooting clubs and the hotly contest ‘right to bear arms’. Teaching a pre-teen kid how to safely use a .22 rifle was (probably still is) thought of as a good thing, how to safely handle weaponry, how to, in an odd way, save lives while armed. This, in a country where guns are now the major source of death among children (see Julie Osborn’s telling comment below).
Of course, now we fast forward to Butler Pennsylvania where a 20 year old gets a grip on a semi automatic weapon and murders one person and wounds a presidential candidate. At the end of the day, or least the end of this long drawn out campaign, the use of this military hardware, in a country where you can now buy ammunition from vending machines, will be an ingredient in a heated debate over what made this deranged man use a gun.
Was he a part of an extreme right wing group that thought Trump too moderate? Was he on the other side of the spectrum- an assassin who hated the Republican boss? Or was he, like so many others, simply able to get hold of a murderous weapon and use it as part of an unhinged world?
We may never know. But I bet any discovered motive will be used by both sides as part of their arsenal for their campaigns. Gun lovers will see Butler as another reason to protect gun laws. The anti-gun lobby will prove Butler and the alarming roll out of massacres must lead to tougher restrictions.
In Britain, where I live, the weekend’s shooting has led to the usual incredulity that gun ownership is even allowed. A slow sad shake of the head, the unbelieving shock that so many deaths are caused by bullets. Rifle and shotgun ownership in the UK is highly restricted. Pistol ownership is illegal. In the US, possession of weaponry is normalised, even exciting for an 11 year old, from whatever era, who wants to learn how to shoulder a weapon, how to live in an armed world.
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Mike K
refreshingly free of partisan hatred
Lily Walkover
The US is a strange land
Tony Fitzpatrick
Indeed….I don’t think it’s fixable….
Robin McC/Maidens
Great read
Bella Houston
One of the best articles I’ve read on this
David Crompton
I used to shoot birds and once picked one up and it was still warm. Broke my heart and never shot another animal again.
Alan Holland
I did exactly the same when rabbits were eating my newly sown lawn. I felt dreadful when I picked up the little creature. It still makes me sad and ashamed.
Tim C
Allowing young men (the exceptions to that demographic prove the rule) easy access to high powered firearms is as barmy as leaving a six year old alone with a box of matches.
Britain has a dreadful problem with fatal stabbings, again, mainly done by young males. Awful though knife crime is, relatively few victims can be harmed by one perpetrator and
only at close quarters even then.
If our gun laws were the same as the US we would no doubt incur the same dreadful consequences.
But, as you say, gun lore is endemic to US culture and extemely difficult to change. Fortunately our anti gun laws (and lore) are draconian.
Long may they stay that way.
Mark Berman
And consider 1938. Hitler in power elected as a Fascist authoritarian leader. The whole world knew he was building a war machine to accommodate the Fascist doctrine, designed in Italy, that a state needs war to unite its citizens. It is also in the philosophy a need to demonise an ethnic group to empower “countrymen” to believe they are acting for the state in resisting these groups.
And ethnicity is anyone who is not “one of us”. And to a Pro-lifer, a pro-choice is “not one of us”, and vice versa. The NRA is not “one of us” to me, and vice versa.
The difficulty in the States, and the far-right in Europe and Weimar Germany, is that a significant part of the populace feel that it is, in fact, the liberal political elite is trying to dictate their way of life onto everybody but they are not seeing a benefit. And what they want is an Authoritative leader to put those damn lefties in their place so that people can have the freedom to enjoy life.
Which is what Hitler and Mussolini offered: employment, gatherings, sport and no longer the shadow of the Treaty of Versailles. And it is what Trump is offering.
And the question here is how would we consider a person who assassinated Hitler?
Tony Fitzpatrick
The real damage starts today when he is crowned as nominee. Whether he wins or not is now secondary. That the system/establishment is such that it cannot prevent such a serial offender becoming… yet again…President, reveals a deeply and structurally dysfunctional arrangement to the extent that I foresee only long term decline. I hope I am wrong. It’s such a wonderful country in so many ways. As that famous diarist Sir H Elston once said:
“…America… the best of everything and the worst of everything…”
rd
“Like father, like son”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/04/04/fred-trump-arrests/
Joel Mandelbaum
This shooter looks exactly like the high school shooter and other shooters who have done mass shootings out of unspecified rageand a need to even the score. Bullied, outcasts, or whatever, they had access to guns and used them.
The publicity to this and the frequency seems to have almost normalized this behavior.
Julie Osborn
As a current US citizen and resident, I have lived through a long history of irrational and murderous violence against politicians, religious leaders, everyday citizens, and children. It is increasingly horrifying to realize that our current Supreme Court rules in ways that make the continued violence likely, easily accomplished, and random. The leading cause of childhood death in the USA is guns.
Calif Woman
It’s a wild world, especially over here in America. Yikes.
Di Richardson
Now that Vance is onboard: Scary
Kerry Ames
Sobering
Alan Holland
I was taught to handle and shoot a rifle at 14 as an army cadet. It was a compulsory part of basic training in the Cadet Corps which all boys were required to join at my English boarding school. In fact we were taught to handle and fire pistols, sub machine guns, machine guns and even artillery pieces when at Army camps. I guess not having unfettered access to such things made such training exciting but irrelevant. Years ago every Swiss man was required to complete national service and to have a weapon and ammunition
in his home.i don’t think many got slaughtered in consequence. In 2022 Over 42,000 people a year died in road accidents in the USA each year and slightly more, 43,000 in gun related deaths. 111,000 a year die by drug overdose and that’s in 2021.
58,000 died in 8 years in the Vietnam war. 405,000 in the 4 years of WW2.
Serious as gun crime is, I dare say half that number would die some other way. It includes suicides and accidents.
Fentanyl is by far the biggest threat the USA has ever faced and China is pouring the base materials into Mexico to perpetuate this problem.
Guns, cars, wars pale into insignificance compared not only to the deaths but the huge consequences of millions of addicts shovelling money into organised crime damaging both the fabric of society and the economy. Edit away!
Mark Berman
I agree with Alan. Gun incidents allow liberals to take their eye off the ball of a very real chance of an authoritarian Fascist with a subservient Supreme Court and possibly legislatures at his command.
Bill Devin
Things change so quickly
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