The Grief and Anguish After Dallas

8 Jul 2016 By Susan Barsy in American Conditions Tags: 2nd Amendment, gun violence, guns, ordinary people, peace, US Congress, US constitution, virtue 4 Comments

What more is there to offer amid the voluble discourse of this sad week, when violence took the place of order and justice? The United States: will the terrorism of Charleston and Orlando diminish them? Will we descend to the habit of a shrug when children are murdered in our schools, when movie-goers are gunned down in a theater, when a cafeteria worker is shot to death in the middle of a routine traffic stop, when a sniper decides to channel his anger into killing police officers?

Sadly, we may grow indifferent if the spiral of unjustified violence continues much longer. We may shun the news for fear of having to look at the latest, outrageous use of quick-murdering guns. We may all cease to bat an eye at the latest victims, the latest place when guns were used to sort out human conflicts that deserved to be aired in the courts. And when that happens, we will have lost the semblance of unity that has kept us going until now. We will be just another war-torn country, with battle-lines too subtle to stay on the right side of.

Congress, endlessly preoccupied with the 2nd Amendment, has forgotten the larger purposes that, according to the Constitution, justify our federal government, particularly its charge to ‘insure domestic Tranquility’ and ‘promote the general Welfare.’ Will Congress act, in whatever ways it sees fit, to promote the internal peace and safety that Americans of all races crave, and that, by right, we are all entitled to expect? Or will Congress forget its obligation to the nation, its members cravenly priding themselves on dedication to some lesser cause or party?

Changes in law are needed, but America also needs something more that’s harder. Americans need to look into their hearts and examine whether they are living up to the potentialities of our civic culture, a culture that has allowed us to dwell with one another in a relatively open and unfettered way. Americans need to recall the great civil tradition that has inspired generations to grow into a society where people who differ from one another nonetheless co-exist, enjoying ‘the blessings of Liberty’ and fitfully recognizing in one another our mutual humanity. We have striven according to an Americanness that is deeper than either religion or skin. This cultural effort will be imperfect always, but without it we will be condemned to grieve forever, anguishing over the most precious republican virtue lost.

Image: from this source.

How Wonderful It Would Be

17 Jun 2016 By Susan Barsy in American Conditions Tags: Civil War, equality, federalism, race, slavery, the South 1 Comment

“It would just be so wonderful if the answers could actually come from the South itself,” Isabella Wilkerson said. She was talking about the Charleston shootings, the Confederate flag, and the influence the South’s slave-holding past continues to have on the region. The race hatred that motivated a young white gunman to kill nine African-Americans in their own church is an extreme manifestation of the bitterness and resentment still lingering in some hearts after the Civil War—a conflict whose one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary the nation has just observed.

That long-ago conflict determined the superior power of the federal government over the states, while putting an end to Southern slavery. The citizens of the sections warred against one another, one side sold on the merits of federalism, the other desiring to preserve states’ autonomy. The South went to war over the right to pass and uphold whatever laws it pleased—specifically those that sanction chattel slavery.

The Union’s victory invalidated the rebels’ arguments, while setting up an asymmetrical dynamic vis-à-vis the South that persists. In the wake of this rebuke, the federal government (in the so-called “Reconstruction” era) ruled Southern state governments for ten years, fearing that, if given political autonomy, the states would use it to resurrect slavery. Later in the century, Southern states achieved something approximate through the Jim Crow laws. During the civil rights era of the 1960s, the federal government again intervened to help secure and uphold black Southerners’ claims to legal and civil equality. This legacy of intervention achieved progress by coercion–an achievement very different than that of racial reconciliation and political healing from inside.

When I traveled to Mississippi in the early 1990s, I was shocked to encounter whites who felt they couldn’t ‘win’ because of the weights the Civil War had placed on them. They still felt diminished and beaten, and still resented and feared the state’s large black population, which could attain hegemony if empowered. Enmeshed in an archaic social paradigm, they still regarded their black brethren as something other than Southern and equal.

The Southern tendency to predicate the present on this past is a baleful impediment to Southern progress. It is, moreover, a baleful impediment to the vitality and strength of the entire country. People of all sections are affected by the conditions prevailing in this one region. Just imagine the transforming effects upon the entire nation if the South were finally to heal its own historical wounds!

Above: A man cuts out stars for a flag with a machine, in a photograph probably taken in 1909.
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The President’s Vision of Progress on Guns

27 Oct 2015 By Susan Barsy in American Conditions Tags: gun violence, guns, mass shootings, Politics, President Obama 3 Comments

The sociopathic killings in Oregon on October 1 spurred another round of chaotic and frenzied comment. The dialogue began with the president, whose comments on the shootings came out fast, faster than news of the shooting itself. Whereas some might see the increase in mass gun murders in the US as a cultural, even media-driven, problem, the president understandably sees the Oregon massacre and others like it as having political roots. In his brief somber statement that day, President Obama argued that this form of criminality has grown out of political choices that ordinary Americans have made. Make different choices, and sociopathic rampages involving firearms will begin to wane. Most strikingly, the president appealed to the public for relief from a stale, inconclusive dialogue about gun violence that has become terrifyingly routine.

President Obama’s remarks are worth reading in their entirety. They are notable for what they did and did not say. The president did not call on Americans to back any specific gun-control measure. Instead, he made three general appeals.

1. GET OUT THE FACTS ON GUN-RELATED DEATHS. The president appealed to the journalistic world to assemble and publish comprehensive data about gun-related deaths in the US. It’s odd, but authoritative statistics about gun trafficking, gun sales, gun violence, and gun crimes are surprisingly hard to come by. Several years ago Congress barred the Obama administration from studying this problem or amassing authoritative statistics on public’s behalf. So, most of the available data is very old, incomplete, or statistically flawed. Instead, the job of monitoring the extent and nature of gun violence has fallen to a ragtag assemblage of voluntary efforts throughout the country, such as Slate’s effort in the year after Newtown, or the real-time reporting on gun violence that the good people at the Gun Violence Archive carry on. Accurate information about gun violence and its social costs could reshape the gun debate by silencing false claims and focusing public attention around effective policy aims.

2. RESPONSIBLE GUN-OWNERS ARE A KEY GROUP IN THE STRUGGLE TO PROMOTE GUN SAFETY. The millions of Americans who own guns are perhaps the only constituency capable of checking the influence of the National Rifle Association. The heinous mass murder of children and teachers at the Sandy Hook School in December 2012 effected an attitudinal shift, galvanizing responsible gun-owners in favor of stricter gun laws. Surveys show that 90 percent of gun owners now favor ‘common-sense’ gun-safety measures, a stance at odds with the unbounded pro-gun rhetoric of the NRA. In his message, President Obama appealed directly to gun owners, asking them ‘to think about whether your views are properly being represented by the organization that suggests it’s speaking for you.’ Gun-owners are uniquely positioned to speak out in support of prudent public-safety measures that do not impinge upon Second Amendment rights.

3. VOTERS MUST MAKE PUBLIC SAFETY A PRIORITY: Though many Americans favor tougher gun laws, they do not view this as a key issue when voting. As a consequence, the gun lobby and pro-gun advocates routinely get their way in Congress and state legislatures. The president urged voters to care more, and to pay more attention to candidates’ voting records (an issue that has lately vexed Bernie Sanders). Without legislators willing to vote for gun-control measures, the political struggle to inhibit the reckless use of firearms will go nowhere.

The president’s conviction that the will of the people can transform the gun debate is characteristic of an executive who has taken to heart his role as ‘the people’s sovereign.’ Time and again, the president has placed his faith in a democratic public to generate the “change we can believe in.” Whether Americans have the determination and wherewithal to fight for a safer civil society remains to be seen.

The Firearm Insurance Requirement Act

6 Oct 2015 By Susan Barsy in American Conditions Tags: Firearm Insurance Requirement Act, gun ownership, gun violence, guns, petitions, US politics 2 Comments

A post I wrote back in 2012, ‘Should We Treat Guns More Like Cars?’ is now the subject of a White House petition. The idea is to require all gun owners to carry insurance on guns and to empower the insurance industry to set appropriate premiums based on risks posed.

Proponents of mandatory firearm insurance include New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof and US congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney.

In combination with other measures, mandatory insurance would help shift the focus of the gun debate toward the crucial issues of responsible ownership and community safety. It would make it more expensive for sociopaths to acquire and stockpile weapons.

Please help promote this idea by signing the White House petition. JUST AS IMPORTANT, share this post with your friends on social media. The petition needs 100,000 signatures by November 1 to become viable.

To sign the White House petition for The Firearm Insurance Requirement Act, click here.

To read my original post, click here.

Image: RGlouster, World Map of Civilian Guns Per Capita, 2007.
Courtesy of Wikipedia.
Click on the map to go to the source.

Recommended:
Rolling Stone, “How to Beat the NRA in 7 Not-So-Easy Steps.”