Thursday, December 13, 2012

Gun Control Limbo

The latest shooting spree in what has become the year of shooting sprees seems destined to do little to increase the call for gun control. Why? Like so many of our underlying problems, it appears elected officials are unwilling to address them head on. When a number of cases of dramatic corporate malfeasance emerged in the early part of the 2000s we were told it was a "few bad apples," and the Bush administration ensured that no real reforms were passed. After the 2007-08 financial crisis, there were calls for banking and Wall Street reform, but little substantive action occurred. After the 911 furor and fear mongering had waned, little was done to push back on the question of civil liberties (in fact Obama has been very troubling on this issue). As hate and racist crimes increase, little is done to address the growing tension across difference in the country (and world). As the number of death penalty mistakes increases (including as many as four cases of executed individuals that seemed to be innocent), inadequate reform to the system ensues. And as the number of senseless deaths increase as white men, yes it is almost exclusively white men, go on killing sprees, the calls for a more sensible gun control policy again goes wanting. Where is the common sense in our social policy? All but missing. And this seems to cohere nicely to the increasingly insane nature of our public discourse and debate. Is it the result of how we define experts in the media machine? Is it politicians who lack the will or backbone to act? Is it a public that is so caught up in the spectacle that they can't discern where the real problems lie? Probably a combination of all of these. But when can' feel safe going to see a movie or to the mall to do some Christmas shopping or to a political rally (or to school, for that matter), isn't it time to at least start a debate on the matter? 

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