New Zealand has 1.2 million registered firearms among its 4.6 million people. A mass shooting in 1990 led the country to tighten its gun laws, including restrictions on “military-style semiautomatic weapons,” but there are still a lot of guns in New Zealand. The strange thing is that murders are rare in the land. There were, according to the NYT, 35 murders countrywide in 2017. That record will now be over-shadowed by the attacks yesterday on two mosques in which one person killed 49 people and wounded a number of others. The suspect in yesterday’s mass shooting reportedly used five guns, which included two semi-automatic weapons.
When these terrible things happen here or there, wherever, we look for cause, for reason, motive, etc. Some focus on the availability and accessibility of guns and types of guns. New Zealand will be focusing on its gun laws now. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said yesterday after the tragedy, “Our gun laws will change…I am committed to that.”
Many people will demand changes in social media platforms since the gunman was able to live-stream his assault on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram for more than an hour. This enabled others to crop the video and re-post it, creating even more disaster and harm. The new safeguards instituted by the social media giants were not sufficient to stop this from happening. Some will be all over the social media issue—just as others will be all over the gun issue.
Still others will attempt to explain the awful event as the result of a “disturbed mind” and urge greater mental health awareness and aid. And there will those who will now insist that every mosque should have armed security present for every gathering.
All of the above are contributing factors and talking points, and each must be addressed. Yet, there is another contributing factor—and we are all culpable in this regard. This factor is our own attitudes, prejudices and nationalistic-leanings. In the New Zealand tragedy the people killed were from Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, India, Kuwait, Jordan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and other nations—many of which were included in the “Muslim Ban” inaugurated by our government in 2017. The suspected perpetrator of the New Zealand tragedy listed the president of the United States in his manifesto as a source for his “inspiration.” This same adoration of the president was displayed by the shooter in Pittsburgh and Cesar Sayoc who sent out the pipe bombs. Attitudes, bigotry, scape-goating, and language play a part in such tragedies. We need to pay attention to that “part” as well as all the others.
No comments:
Post a Comment