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If I Can't Have a Pony [1]
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Date: 2023-01-23
The New York Times headline reads “Investigators Seek Motive In Deadly California Shooting,” in which a 72 year old killed ten and wounded ten at a California dance studio. They can’t ask him because, like many mass shooters, he shot himself.
It seems likely that these mass shootings can be linked with the rash of “deaths of despair.” Some people are struggling in life, whether in actuality (they can’t get a job or afford to buy food) or in their imagination (perhaps they imagine that liberals are ruining our country). They see their lives as unbearable and can’t find a solution. In deaths of despair they turn to drink or drugs or dangerous behavior, and whether through intention or careless accident, they end up killing themselves.
One factor links many mass shootings: the shooter kills himself, either with his own gun or by defying police such that they end up killing him. It’s possible that they sacrifice their lives in order to commit mass murder. It seems more likely that suicide was the main intention and the killing of others in the commission of it is ancillary.
It looks like the adult version of “If I can’t have a pony I’ll hold my breath and turn blue and die and then you’ll be sorry!” A kid without a firm grasp of death can imagine being there to watch parents weeping over the body and saying “If only we’d bought that pony!” When you’re seven years old there’s quite a bit of satisfaction in that.
An adult in despair may still crave that imaginary “and then they’ll be sorry!” Add the ubiquity of guns and the constant reminders in the news that other people are taking out whole families before killing themselves, or shooting up the school or shopping center, and indeed people are sorry. Most of us aren’t pushed to the extreme of acting on the worst impulses of an inner child but the rise in other deaths of despair says that many people are pushed to the brink.
Beyond thoughts and prayers there are several steps that could be taken to reduce at least this mode of despairing death.
1) Reduce the availability of guns, of course. “Guns don’t kill people” but reducing the availability of guns reduces both the ability for people to take immediate action in a passing fit of anger and also the ability to easily kill many people at once.
2) Raising the lot of the lower class. Pushing so many dollars into the hands of the very rich and leaving the middle and lower class pining for the days of respectable union labor jobs has been identified as a major cause of deaths of despair of all kinds. The Democrats are working on solving this problem while Republicans seem bent on making matters worse so that they can reap the despair vote.
3) Re-establish a culture of emotional adulthood. Take a look at a school reader from the turn of the 20th century and you see stories exemplifying a very high standard of mature, responsible, selfless behavior. That attitude was much watered down in my (boomer) generation and the bar is considerably lower now. Today adults throw tantrums. In conservative circles venting one’s anger instead of controlling it like a mature adult is lionized as patriotism, particularly if firearms are involved. Some schools have re-added emotional maturity lessons into the curriculum. Conservatives often object, as if mature behavior were a recent invention of liberals and not a return to good old conservative values.
What do you think: can the rash of mass shootings be addressed in the same way as other forms of deaths of despair?
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