Sandy Hook Massacre: The NRA Isn't The Main Problem

(Article changed on December 15, 2012 at 17:29)

As much as I despise the NRA, they aren't the primary issue.

Those who assert their rights to their precious goddamn guns will continue to do so into perpetuity, no matter how many tragic massacres occur, their precious weapons in their "cold dead hands" still. They are an easy and deserving target, but they aren't chiefly responsible for these massacres.

The main problem here is that we live in a society in which from the highest office in the land (i.e., the White House) and from the most prominent pulpits of the churches, temples, and media outlets our authorities and leaders practice, celebrate, and justify massacres, assassinations, torture and the cult of the military.

There is a reason why Adam Lanza showed up to do his executions wearing military garb and used weaponry favored by U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. The school principal who let Lanza in the door to carry out his killings apparently didn't blink an eye when she saw Lanza wearing this uniform. Military recruiters and military culture have so thoroughly permeated American society that it didn't give her pause to let this cold-blooded killer in the door. And there is a reason why this computer nerd who normally went around wearing a pocket pen protector and buttoned down shirts chose to come to do his death dealing in uniform.

Adam Lanza was acting out what he sees being done around him and lauded as heroic and necessary every day: this is what the Commander in Chief does when he orders drones to murder children and adults abroad, this is what Staff Sgt. Robert Bales did when he (and probably other U.S. soldiers) murdered in cold blood thirty eight Afghanis in their homes in the pre-dawn hours, this is what video games which celebrate warfare do, this is what the U.S. military teaches its recruits when it gleefully trains them to open fire and dismember people with their high tech weapons, and what Zero Dark Thirty reportedly does when early in the film it shows waterboarding and falsely links torture to the finding of Bin Laden.

Obama's press spokesman says now is not the time to discuss gun control while his boss sheds tears that he undoubtedly does not do while ordering the deaths of women, children and men abroad. There may or may not be some cosmetic changes to gun laws now, but what is certain is that the massacres will continue unless and until the governing ethic of violence in the name of national security and national pride are overthrown.

First posted at http://dennisloo.com