More Shooting and Less Hope for Change

Dr.Janis Orlowski said it (as quoted by Maureen Down in Wednesday's New York Times), and it really resonates:

“There’s something evil in our society that we as Americans have to work to try and eradicate,” she said, her voice stoic but laced with emotion. On the day when she announced only hours earlier that she had submitted her resignation to take another job, she continued: “There’s something wrong here when we have these multiple shootings, these multiple injuries. There is something wrong, and the only thing that I can say is we have to work together to get rid of it. I would like you to put my trauma center out of business. I really would. I would like to not be an expert on gunshots.”

Calling it “a challenge to all of us,” she concluded: “This is not America.”

Yet, somehow, it is America. 

Let's notice how many of these shooters are young, troubled, white, and male.  Seriously, what's up with that?  Here's another piece of information:  "successful" suicide is carried out predominantly by men.  Nearly 80% of suicides are male.  White and Native American men have the highest rates; Wyoming, Alaska, and Montana have the highest rates.  Suicide is not a choice of young men, though.  It's older men who shoot (and hang) themselves.  Half of suicides are by firearm.

Something is wrong with the way men are finding their way in this America we have these days.  

We have to work together to get rid of whatever it is, and a little legislation, whether gun control or mental health care improvements, will not give us the solution.  Why are white men in despair and expressing it in such spectacular ways?  Is it the loss of all that "white male privilege" some of the rest of us have been complaining about for a generation or more? Is it the erosion of living standards from what might have been expected a generation ago? Is it something more subtle? And what kind of answer will move us forward?

Yes, strengthen our mental health care systems.  Yes, let's restrict access to firearms in sensible ways.   Yes, let's organize to fight back against the threats and intimidation of the gun lobby.  But let's not stop there.  

I am so tired of this.  America can do better.