No, this one does not star James Dean chewing on the scenery as he
wails "You're tearing me apart" but it's tearing us all apart. I'm
starting to think there's a national competition going on and I'm
getting tired of saying "not again!"
19 people shot at a parade in New Orleans,
with 3 suspected perpetrators as yet to be apprehended. Why? Is it
some bizarre political statement only they can understand? I can only
guess, but the notion that we have a lunatic fringe competing for their
share of obsessive media coverage is tempting. If there are indeed three
men involved, we have to rule out mental illness as we usually think of
it although we can't avoid the question of what kind of sanity could
prompt such acts of random violence.
New Orleans is a
violent, crime ridden city with a police force that has been accused of
incompetence, corruption and its own acts of violence, but one has to
ask why New York is a vastly safer city; Miami, El Paso -- all of which
prove that ethnic diversity has nothing to do with it and suggests
strongly that strong gun laws have little to do with it.
I
simply don't know, but this, once again, isn't crime for profit, it
isn't about gangs or gangsters or their territorial disputes. I can
only ask myself why people compete, why people are willing to court
death, even seek it just so CNN can have another huge boost in ratings.
UPDATE:
And speaking of ratings, why
is it that we've been carpet bombed with coverage of this incident as
though it were an indicator of increasing violence, yet New Orleans' 193
homicides in 2012 are seven fewer than in 2011 and the
slowdown has continued at least through March of this year. We saw and
heard little about the January drive-by shooting of five people after a
Martin Luther
King Jr Day parade, or the four wounded in a shooting after an
argument in the French Quarter just before Mardi Gras. Suspects are in
custody for those crimes, which seem gang related. Perhaps the Mother's
day shooting is too. Are the media suggesting that gang related crimes
could be caused by gangs and reduced by somehow getting rid of them? I
don't think so.
Police have named 19 year old Akein Scott as the first suspect and have released video of him, according to The Guardian.
It's hard for a rational mind to understand why some gang might
perpetrate such a crime, but this may be another lesson in how gangsters
and the culture of gangsterism eats away at civilization and perhaps
how our culture of prohibition, our failure to deal with poverty and
lack of education nourishes the criminal culture in America.
"-- all of which prove that ethnic diversity has nothing to do with it and suggests strongly that strong gun laws have little to do with it."
ReplyDeleteThis us completely wrong re: "strong gun laws:
http://www.nraila.org/gun-laws/state-laws/louisiana.aspx
And, LA has borders with MS, AR and TX--three states that hardly have draconian firearms laws. Gunz are not the CAUSE of violence in incidents like the one that took place in NO, yesterday; they are a tool, a tool to FACILITATE the violence that took place in NO, yesterday.
Texas is very gun friendly, but El Paso is about the safest city in the US at the moment. They are no less available in Texas than in Lousiana. I don't know why the fact that former murder capitals are now safe and vice versa without any change in gun control laws not only doesn't suggest that other factors are important but actually predominate.
DeleteYes, I know you can shoot someone with a gun. How is that observation relevant?
Ask yourself why some of the safest neighborhoods in the country are Chicago suburbs when Chicago is a dangerous place. Ask yourself why Some Chicago neighborhoods are amongst the most dangerous and others are quite safe, why nearly all the violence occurs on certain blocks. Ask why the one factor that correlates most strongly with safety is affluence - gentrification - if it's all about gun laws. All these places have the same laws.
There are mad, violent people all over the world. America is not unique in this. There is danger everywhere you go. America has not become more dangerous, we just notice it more because the masses demand instant access to all tragedies great and small but mostly great. The NOLA shooting is a sad commentary on a sick society but it is nothing new or even that special. 20 years ago if you didn't live in LA or in a surrounding state you would not even have heard of this.
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time we had communities where you watched out for your neighbor and you visited each other and you had empathy for the homeless guy and tried to help a fellow human being in need. Went to church but kept your religious dogma to yourself. And The Golden Rule did NOT say, "Do unto others whatever you must to obtain as much gold as possible."
Capt,how about that island where the Zoners can live in peace and harmony, sleeping on the beach and feeding on crusteans from the sea? Any prospects? :)
Has there ever been such a place? The Garden of Eden had a 25% murder rate.
DeleteWe're not unique in having sickos, but maybe we have a bigger underclass hostile to law and authority and the price of civilization and the safety that comes with it. I don't know, but I do know that honest dialog is next to impossible and these essential American divisions are never solved, not even by civil war.
I will not comment on an urgent need for social research on root causes of violence, nor will I comment on lame excuses of gun availability being too rampant for new legislation to matter. But I will start by blaming mainstream media:
ReplyDeleteWhen lunatics receive far more publicity than they deserve, and when media lends them legitimacy with airtime and talking-heads reports that fail to expose them as frauds, then lunacy has moved from the fringes to the mainstream.
Media legitimizes lunatics, and they have taken over our culture.
This was my point, while rapes, robberies, muggings and the like decline, we're seeing an apparent wave in meaningless shootings.
DeleteI say apparent because of a lack of data that seems suspicious, but I'm convinced that this sort of crime has one hell of a lot to do with the huge and persistent coverage it gets. The public is addicted to outrage and mourning ( piles of teddy bears once again in Cleveland) and CNN is there to supply it round the clock. It only takes a handful of sick bastards who want to join the party to supply all the tragedy the media can feed on.
The "copycat hypothesis" is certainly as worthy as any; but the NRA has suppressed, through political action, the funding of any new social research. Perhaps what aggravates me more is raising the "mystification fallacy" to the level of NRA talking points. No problem is too complex, too intractable, too unsolvable to merit the use of a logical fallacy on an issue as grave (pun intended) as this. Just not acceptable.
ReplyDeleteWhy do research when you have all the answers? Unfortunately, they're not the only one with fixed ideas and an opposition to research.
ReplyDelete