The New York Times’ advocacy journalist has returned to his regular column after a five-month book leave, and he has a lot to say about stuff.
Kristof’s first column has to do with America’s need to retool its outlook on security. “We appear willing to bear any burden, pay any price, to confound the kind of terrorists who shout ‘Allahu akbar’ and plant bombs,” he writes, “while unwilling to take the slightest step to curb a different kind of terrorism — mundane gun violence in classrooms, cinemas and inner cities that claims 1,200 times as many American lives.”
Five months ago, the country’s media and political apparatus was indeed embroiled in a protracted, intense debate over gun restrictions. There was all sorts of polling suggesting a divided nation on the issue of gun rights and gun control. But, as is often the case in a world where a 24-hour news cycle consumes everything, other stuff happened. Our collective attention was drawn to some other scandal or act of violence.
Yet Kristof seems to think this is a bad thing. We should have “solved” the problem of gun violence, preferably a month after he went on vacation:
When I began my book leave, it seemed likely that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut would impel Congress to approve universal background checks for gun purchases. It looked as if we might follow Australia, which responded to a 1996 gun massacre by imposing restrictions that have resulted in not a single mass shooting there since.
Alas, I was naïve. Despite 91 percent support from voters polled in late March and early April, Congress rejected background checks. Political momentum to reduce gun killings has now faded — until the next such slaughter.
Indeed, the gun debate was largely put aside with the Boston Marathon bombing, then the Benghazi scandal coming to a head, then the IRS scandal, then the AP phone records scandal, then the James Rosen Scandal, then the NSA leaks. As each story came out in rapid succession, the rest of the country changed its conversation accordingly. Now we’re talking about press freedoms and privacy — an apt discussion, given recent revelations.
To Kristof’s shallow credit, he points out how silly the country’s national security bill — topping $8 trillion since 9/11 — is, when less than 25 Americans are killed in an act of terrorism per year: “More Americans die of falling televisions and other appliances than from terrorism. Twice as many Americans die of bee or wasp stings annually. And 15 times as many die by falling off ladders.”
However, if he thinks that background checks would have stopped the Sandy Hook shooting, or will eliminate gang violence in Chicago, he’s deluding himself.
To reiterate a point I made in a commentary at C4SS back in January:
The possibility no one will admit exists — or, at least, they won’t in any serious sense — is that there may not be a solution to gun violence. For all the good a conversation on systemic violence, state violence, militarism, etc. might do for a small percentage of the population, the fact that at the end of the day, the current state still exists, will serve to nullify that good. People will still deify military service. Children will still be raised to want to be police officers. And the absurd problem will continue on a systemic level. Therefore, we must, as oppositional forces often do, commit to an absurd answer; we must struggle to teach our own children to reject killing, to reject domination over each other, to reject that systemic violence.
I still believe that.
Happy 4th, y’all.