Why was the reaction to the Navy Yard shootings more muted than that of Sandy Hook? [View all]

[Eleanors38]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12593500


"I would have expected the Navy Yard shooting to cause more interest in discussing gun control. It appears to have petered out already."-- Skinner

This response from one of DU's Administrators was in answer to a query about the policy of allowing gun discussions in GD to continue. That is a topic for another time. But Skinner's observation is worth investigation.

I agree that there is far less interest in discussing gun control after the Navy Yard shooting. I offer some reasons why this may be the case, esp. in light of the Sandy Hook shooting.

1) The weapon used did not fit the narrative of gun-ban responses. Even though MSM in short order proclaimed the weapon to be an AR-15 "assault weapon," they had to immediately back track and correct themselves. Such a revelation was not only embarrassing to the media, it also effectively short-circuited the usual hard-wired responses. No resonant narrative, no uniform anti-gun message.

2) Politicians within the Democratic Party and anti-gun elements within the GOP (Brady Center) seem to have gotten the message about arm-specific bans and controls after watching the response to Sandy Hook when tens of thousands of citizens formed 'round-the-block lines at gun shows across the country, and ammunition seemed to disappear from the market. IMO, those long lines (along with some notable capitol grounds demonstrations) constituted in-your-face political statements more than paranoia about bans and response to market forces. Politicians noted who had the juice on this issue, and who did not.

3) There were no children or notable politicians or they're-just-like-me theater goers among the victims. That didn't make the killing of these civilian workers any less tragic, but again past narratives could not be relied upon. Further, the perpetrator did not fit the bill, either. He was black, and IMO, was not as readily subject to the easy condemnation and characterization as the usual perpetrators: White murderers. Discussions about his mental health and past run-ins with the law were and are more measured, and unlike the Sandy Hook killer, his family was not keel-hauled in public.

4) Perhaps most disturbing is a new (and false) myth: Mass murders are becoming more routine, and hence less subject to national "outrage." The myth is false since mass murders, while rising in the last year, are not very routine. But that does not make the myth any less powerful and convincing to many. Our culture has blended news with entertainment with celebrity, and has been doing so for years, now. Curiously, while celebrity is sought by those who have the best "voice" or play the best guitar or who kill the most people, the mass-celebrity model for any of these is breaking up as fast as mass media. Those who want to Be Somebody may find more markets for celebrity, but the audiences are shrinking and more fragmented. The community which legitimizes social and cultural values, popular entertainers and "stars," and steers the body politic toward widely-agreed-upon policies and actions is being replaced by an enveloping technological fog, at once alienating the more unstable among us and providing, in the case of mass killings, less and less "recognition." In short, Aaron Alexis is no Cho is no Charles Whitman. But the "style" they use has momentum, and many celebrities in far less malevolent undertakings cannot be accused of creativity and a new approach. So mass killings are likely to continue, though perhaps less frequently. After all, these hideous actions are styles, and subject to the same forces acting on dial-ups, rabbit ear T.V.s, and bell-bottoms.

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It is incumbent on those who wish to deal with the problems of mass killings to take a different approach. Inadvertent or not, with this latest killing the players in gun-control seem to have de facto taken a different approach. It shows: Where are the long lines at gun shows? Are runs on ammunition happening again? I think we know the answer to those questions.

The rhetoric of bans not only fails to address the problem, but severely divides Americans from each other, casting stigma on those who want to at least define the problem and see what can be done: Mass murders are quite different from the daily grind of nightly news murders, and approaches to one only occasionally overlap with the other. I don't propose to deal with new approaches in this thread, only to offer my views on the worthy observation by Skinner. I post here because the special dispensation toward gun topics in GD does allow gun threads which have major, national policy implications.