Thoughts on the aftermath of Sandyhook shooting

Thoughts on the aftermath of Sandyhook shooting

We live in a violent culture in the midst of a rapidly rising tide of fear, approaching paranoia. Violence is not merely condoned but held out as virtuous. Everywhere

we look, we see television programs full of violence, movies abounding in death and destruction, and, most especially, violent video games. 

Yet, since 1961, a wide-spread consensus has held that vicarious

learning occurs from observing the modeling of aggressive behavior.

Bandura's initial research involved adult models observed by 

children with observation of the subsequent behavior in/by the children.

We appear to have massive, pervasive, and seemingly endless prompts

and cues from within our culture to behave aggressively.

If that were not enough, there have been too many repetitions of the Kitty Genovese tragedy, where a young woman was fatally attacked, yet either the attack in progress was not detected or some witnesses failed to call the police or

both.  And, there are stories floating about that report instances where

calls to 911 were unsuccessful in obtaining intervention or help. This

combination of factors may convince many people that they are not safe, 

that societal efforts to increase personal safety are ineffective, perhaps

becoming more so. Some cities in the United States have been described

as more dangerous than Afghanistan--possibly an exaggeration but still

a sobering thought.

Fear is a powerful motivator. Also, fear gives rise to hostility (even 'pre-emptive'

hostile behavior), to hatred, and stereotyping, dividing one's interpersonal 

environment into 'we' and 'they.' I suspect for some people, their sense of

vulnerability and need for protection, their fear, is THE prime motive that leads

to the purchase of a firearm. I suspect that even where fear is not the primary nor principal motive for acquiring a firearm, it may add an important impetus to the

decision to buy a gun.

I am fairly familiar with the 'shooting sports.' The safety record for formal 

competitions within the shooting sports is remarkably good, even admirable.

Formal competitions within the shooting sports are among the safest

athletic endeavors to be found, for both participants and by-standers.

I do not know of any formal form of competition in the recognized shooting

sports that require a magazine capacity of over ten rounds. No formal,

generally accepted and recognized rifle competition requires even

a ten round capacity magazine...indeed the rapid fire phases within 

rifle competition deliberately require reloading in the midst of the

rapid fire string. I seem to recall that there are some rapid fire phases

within handgun competition that do require a full ten round magazine

or at any rate one round in the chamber and nine in the magazine

permitting ten shots in all before reloading. I would add that much of the time

such competition is with (quite expensive) match pistols in calibre .22 Long Rifle.

Also, handgun rapid fire shooting could have the same sort of requirement

to reload (once) in the midst of a string as does rifle competition.

All this leads up to three conclusions: First, the increasing prevalence of gun

ownership is only one among many symptoms of growing serious problems

within our society, within our culture. I believe much of the increase is

driven by very real needs to feel safe and secure in an apparently increasingly

unsafe world. I have no ideas as to how to go about obtaining it, but I

feel that increasing social cohesion and sense of community, starting

by building smaller communities within neighborhoods, is a vital part of

increasing a sense of safety and security. Second, I can see no need for

high capacity magazines for firearms, certainly not for anything larger or more potent that a .22 rifle being used on rats at a local dump! Third, the

family of paramilitary-appearing firearms, often styled 'assault-type weapons'

are generally chambered for cartridges which have been repeatedly demonstrated as being inadequate to, even incapable of disabling a human opponent or killing a game animal humanely. Yet, there continue to be imported into the United States, or manufactured within the United States large numbers

of exactly such weapons. We certainly do not need any more imported weapons, and I suspect that we need fewer more manufactured domestically.

Congressman Charles Schumer (with whom I have often disagreed about some

of his proposals for gun laws) may have identified the key to developing

a more effective set of policies regarding firearms. Schumer suggests that those

seeking more laws start with acknowledging that there is a Second Amendment

and that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right of which no law-abiding 'citizen can be deprived--certainly not within their domicile but also not ion the proper participation formally or informally in shooting sports. Perhaps then, we can get the participation and cooperation of people who are familiar with firearms and the and the shooting sports in designing legislation to protect the common safety and public welfare and also protecting the rights to own and to use lawfully for lawful purposes various sorts of firearms. I mention this because of now expired ban on assault weapons, which by virtue of including bayonet lugs (I don't think I have yet heard of a drive-by bayoneting) and flash suppressors led to the classification of some very fine and expensive ($2,000 and up in,1994 dollars!) rifles, designed specifically for competition, as among the banned!

As I look back on the recent angry, even vituperative rhetoric, increasingly displayed in political dialog, I am not as optimistic as I should like to be: We are a frightened, frustrated, fearful society, too often operating on the 'everyone for themselves first' policy.

Dr. Cliff Dempster, New Hampshire