This commentary is by Eric Peterson, who was producing artistic director of Oldcastle Theatre Company in Bennington for 48 years. His columns have been published in the Bennington Banner, Berkshire Eagle and Albany Times Union.
“The coroner will be releasing the names of the victims,” the police communications director said to the assembled reporters and a large television audience.
No one is surprised anymore. Horrified. Anguished. But not disbelieving. It is rare now to hear anyone say, “I never thought it could happen here.” We still hear that occasionally, but we all know, wherever we are, that it could, probably will, happen here. It seems to have already happened everywhere else.
Every city, every small town in America is awash with pistols and rifles, some with high-powered magazines that can spray tens of bullets in seconds.
Mass killings in the United States are as commonplace as auto accidents. Mass killings are not accidents, of course. They are planned. Sometimes for weeks, months, maybe even years.
The mathematical equation is a simple one. Americans have more guns than other countries. Americans commit more mass murders than citizens in any other country. By far! The United States has eight times the number of mass shootings in Canada and 100 times those of Britain. In the rest of the world, these tragedies are highly rare. In the U.S., they are a daily occurrence.
Hurt, angry, mostly young males buy some variation of an assault rifle, go to a public place or event — a parade, a festival, a nightclub, a supermarket, a church, a school — and spray bullets indiscriminately into a crowd. The killers are often, but not always, in their late teens or early 20s. Everyone now knows they can be as old as 72 and as young as 6 years old.
The television news channels, particularly CNN and MSNBC, cover it for several hours. If enough people have been killed, for a few days. Fox News covers it for as short a time as they think they can get away with.
These perpetual tragedies are political despite the fact that large majorities of Americans in poll after poll favor restrictions on firearms. The number of mass shootings is up 75% since the Sandy Hook massacre 10 years ago, according to NBC News.
Several members of the U.S. Supreme Court are apparently ignorant of the fact that 21st-century guns are not analogous to ancient firearms used during the time of the Founding Fathers. Muskets were invented in the 16th century. Flintlocks replaced them in the early 17th century. By the 19th century, percussion lock arms were in vogue. Muskets often required two people to fire them from a portable rest.
Today’s weapons fire dozens of speeding bullets in a matter of seconds. Six members of the Supreme Court are convinced that a gun is a gun. Period. So all guns can be legal.
The term “gun control” is now verboten, replaced by “gun safety,” which is thought to be less objectionable. The great Jimmy Breslin decades ago had a solution to the impossibility of banning guns. “Ban bullets,” he said.
People are afraid to shop for groceries, attend church, or send their elementary age child to school because they far too often become shooting galleries. The American carnage must stop. Let’s grow up, get serious about guns, and make the United States a civilized country again.