The United States leads the world in per capita gun ownership. We're the only nation with more than one gun owned per person. Serbia, which is a pretty rough place, is second at roughly one gun for every two people.
I've been unable to reorient after the Uvalde massacre. Living in a red state, I perceive myself as surrounded by "the other." What kind of human being thinks that owning an assault weapon should trump preventing the slaughter of children in a classroom? I am at sea, or more accurately, the River Styx. But, as Steve Kerr pointed out in his presser the other night, 90% of Americans want some kind of red flag federal gun laws. So maybe American life is not as insane as Republican politicians would have us believe.
Why is the United States plagued by these repeated mass slaughters? Perhaps how we entertain ourselves, how we occupy our time, is at the heart of it. I went to two local bookstores, Barnes and Noble and Books-A-Million, to survey the kinds of magazines sold. At Barnes and Noble, I counted 44 science/nature magazines, 20 travel, and 34 magazines devoted to guns and ammunition. I did not count hunting magazines with the guns and ammo. At Books-A-Million, I counted 14 science-y magazines, 50 travel, and 33 devoted to guns and ammunition. I'm not sure if I caught Books-A-Million on a bad science inventory day or something. In any event, I was mightily impressed with the number of guns and ammo mags. They outnumbered all sports mags combined.
First Person Shooter Games
Back in the 80's and 90's there was quite a debate among sociologists and psychologists regarding whether first person shooter games led to violence or, conversely, were some kind of escape valve catharsis. No firm conclusions were reached.
Now we are in 2022, and I don't think pre-teens and teens spending hundreds of hours as first person shooters is a helpful thing. The games are ubiquitous and boringly similar, regardless of whether you're killing zombies, aliens, or soldiers with uniforms different from your own. Training hundreds or thousands of hours at killing simply can't be a healthy psychological endeavor.
No matter the conclusion to the debate about whether these games are amping up or defusing violent behaviors, one fact is clear. Since all branches of the American military use simulation training, training to kill must make one better at it. Practice makes perfect. The more experience one has as a first person shooter, the more damage one can do as a first person shooter. I don't see how one can argue differently.
Conclusion
Every Disney/Marvel film ends with some kind of extended massive conflagration. The routine blueprint is frankly annoying to true comic buffs, because not all comics are written this way. These movies all have two-hours plus of action culminating in an over-the-top battle royale where characters survive through implausible means during unwinnable battles. My point is, every real life showdown with police is also an unwinnable battle.
For more than a generation, we have been training our children to shoot at figures on a screen as entertainment. To kill, over and over, for hours and hours, and to be graded on effectiveness and mass casualties. Points for casualties. We have also inundated our children with television shows and movies where probability is suspended and the self either miraculously survives or sacrifices itself for a greater purpose.
We've trained our children to go out with a bang. And an invoice of casualties.
Bob Dietz
May 26, 2022
