Over the weekend, at least 30 people died during mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Sadly and predictably, the typical mass-shooting cycle began: Thoughts and prayers are meaningless, President Trump is to blame, and these tragedies demand gun control.
Gun availability, however, isn’t the only trend enabling tragedies like these.
During his speech about the tragedies on Monday morning, Trump said our nation should condemn the “racism, bigotry, white supremacy” that inspired the El Paso attack.
His wording was important, especially since he hadn’t used the terms in his tweet on Sunday, which called the El Paso shooting “hateful,” but not a hate crime. The El Paso shooter planned his Walmart rampage, according to his manifesto, in response to “the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
The El Paso suspect was a racist, and the Dayton suspect, whose killing spree appears to have included his sister and her boyfriend, was evidently a self-proclaimed “leftist” whose motive is still unknown. Whatever hatred drove each shooter to commit his crime, the shootings didn’t start with a gun.
In Trump’s speech, he called for an investigation into the root causes of mass shootings. Sen. Cory Booker called it “ineffective,” but it’s worth looking not only at what enabled these shootings, but at what caused them.
Trump called for identifying early warning signs, such as social media profiles; ending the glorification of violence in our society (falsely blaming video games); reforming mental health laws; and passing red flag laws, which allow courts temporarily to remove firearms from those who could be a danger to themselves or others.
“Cultural change is hard, but each of us can choose to build a culture that celebrates the inherent worth and dignity of every human life,” Trump said.
Surprisingly, Trump made an important point, and it wasn’t a cop-out that he didn’t immediately call for gun control laws. As social scientist Tom Nichols pointed out, mass shootings have skyrocketed since the ’70s, and not because guns have become more available.
“So, yes, ban some of these weapons. Pass laws. But if we’re not having a debate and a hard look at why our culture, for nearly 40 years, has been producing this particular kind of misfit, then I’m not sure it’s going to matter much,” he wrote.
The pop singer Lizzo joined many voices calling for gun control over the weekend, but with her first tweet, she made a point for people on both sides of the aisle.
Don’t “normalize this,” she wrote. We shouldn’t get used to phrases like “today’s mass shooting,” and yes, these tragedies demand action.
But however you feel about the Second Amendment, we should all agree that guns aren’t the only things enabling mass shootings. They are merely the tools, and if we want to see real change, let’s also look at the motivations that drive people to violent acts in the first place.
