From ‘Grievance Culture’ US can Only Bleed Lives

In the final weeks of the previous month, a gunman in the state of Maine, USA, killed 18 people and injured numerous others. The alarming trend of mass shootings, defined as incidents where at least four people are killed, reached a total of 649 incidents last year. If this pattern persists, the toll of deaths and injuries from mass shootings this year will reach a distressing milestone.

Despite the shocking brutality of mass shootings, they represent only a fraction of the overall casualties caused by gun violence in the United States. This year alone, the total number of fatalities due to gun violence, including suicides and homicides, stands at a staggering 35,000 people.

To provide perspective, this figure surpasses the 58,000 American soldiers lost over eight years in the Vietnam War. In just one year, gun violence claims more than half of the casualties from that devastating conflict.

The toll of 35,000 also far exceeds the number of American soldiers killed in the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars. Therefore, within any two-year period, the casualties from gun violence in the U.S. easily exceed the combined number of American soldiers lost in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Essentially, there is an ongoing civil war in America.

Would the American public tolerate a war where scores of soldiers are ambushed every month? Would they accept a conflict where 35,000 soldiers are lost annually? Such a cost in lives would be deemed unbearable.

Yet, month after month, Americans passively gather to mourn mass shooting victims, while daily gun homicides continue unabated. There appears to be a resigned acceptance of this daily toll of death in their communities, as if murder by firearm is an inherent part of American life. While some Americans advocate for stricter gun laws, they face formidable opposition from powerful gun lobbies, unresponsive institutions, and a culture resistant to change.

Gun lobbies, along with judicial and legislative bodies, are reluctant to infringe on the constitutional right to bear arms. Even common-sense proposals like mandatory background checks or the ban on automatic weapons encounter staunch resistance. The fact that countries with strict gun control laws experience lower murder rates seems to have little impact on the entrenched thinking of influential individuals.

The Second Amendment, which originally addressed concerns in a time when individual responsibility was valued, now exists in a society dominated by a “grievance culture.” In this culture, blame is often externalized, attributing personal failures to societal factors, fostering a mentality of justified vengeance. It’s a troubling societal shift.

Additional Source: The EastAfrican