A Culture of Violence

Read Time:4 Minute, 31 Second
Pic courtesy of the Brady Center. Read more at http://www.madmikesamerica.com

This past week has been a rather extraordinary week for me from the stand point of viewing violence among our citizens. Tuesday night a man walked up to the door of a house about six blocks from my home and knocked on the door and ask for one of the residents who lived there who happened not to be there. He then shot the person who answer the door and then shot another one who came out of one of the bedroom.

This same person then drove to an area of downtown Tuscaloosa where a number of bars were located, calmly walked along the street until he arrived outside a bar named the Copper Top, and opened fire on it with a semi automatic rifle similar to an AR 15 hitting over a dozen people. Fortunately, there were 18 people wounded with no deaths. He then set three places on fire before giving himself up to police.

On that same night, short ways down the street from me a fellow went onto the property of an elderly man (age 79) and flipped off his air conditioner breaker. He then waited for the man to come outside to check on his air conditioner, then beat him to death with a length of pipe. Then, of course, as you have read elsewhere on MadMikeAmerica, the young man calmly walked into the movie in Aurora, CO and proceeded to shoot as many people as possible resulting in 12 deaths and 59 people wounded.

In the next 24 hours there were 2 people killed and 21 people wounded in the city of Chicago. And now, predictably, voices are being raised on both sides of the gun rights issue. There are those who claim that it is their 2nd Amendment Right to own and possess and even to carry guns with them everywhere they go versus those that say that gun ownership, protection, and carrying should be tightly controlled.

Anyone who follows this issue most likely knows all of the catch phrases and arguments on both sides and the political powerhouses supporting each side. During such a discourse in my local paper I submitted the following response to the problem of gun violence in America:


It seems that everyone here is missing the point. A gun cannot kill a person by itself and a person cannot shoot someone without a gun. You can’t have gun violence without both. The problem is in the culture we have developed in this country where people settle arguments and disagreements with violence. It isn’t new but it is getting worse.

Much of the pro gun folks above talk about robbers using guns, but no one mentions the problems of domestic violence, accidental shootings by children and adults, and neighborhood disagreements. As far as preventing robberies a person simply owning a gun without training is often more dangerous than the robber.

The United States has a much higher rate of violence than other industrialized countries despite the fact that our justice system hands out much harsher penalties.

The reason seems simple enough, they do not promote violent reactions to things in their culture while we do. We have integrated fighting into our culture to the point that it is our first inclination instead of discussing our disagreements.

The vitriol we spew at each other often leads to violence and it leads those with warped minds to see it as a way of expressing themselves to the world. The media attention given to these events often is seen by some as their 15 minutes of fame. Until we, as a people, change our attitudes toward violence and teach our children better, we will continue to live in a violent nation.

I am an old southern boy and therefore have been around guns most of my life. Despite my roots I long ago decided that I did not like to hunt creatures in the forest. I know how to use most guns as I spent four years in the Marines and 6 years as a police officer, but I don’t particularly care for them.

I have been witness to the results of too many incidents where people were killed by guns and the definitive results of being on the wrong end of a gun. Having worked more than 50 murder cases as a police officer and later as an investigator and consultant for defense attorneys, I know all too well the destructive force of guns. The gun has no discretion or conscious; the bullet it fires rips and tears through whatever it meets, be it friend or foe, intentional or accidental. Most of the people on the right end of the gun are not the monsters people think they are and are usually as shocked as anyone at the destruction of the gun when they shoot someone. Only a few are proud or nonchalant about it. The problem still lies at how did the person and the gun and the pulling of the trigger get to the same place at the same time when the gun was pointed at someone.

Follow MadMike’sAmerica on Facebook and Twitter, and don’t forget to visit our HOME PAGE.

If you liked our story please share it at REDDIT.COM and PINTEREST as well as TUMBLR.

About Post Author

Bill Formby

Bill Formby, aka William A. Formby, PhD, aka Lazersedge is a former Marine and a former police officer. He is a retired University Educator who considers himself a moderate pragmatic progressive liberal, meaning that he thinks practically liberal, acts practically liberal, and he is not going to change in the near future. But, if he does he will be sure to let you know.
Happy
Happy
0 %
Sad
Sad
0 %
Excited
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
Angry
0 %
Surprise
Surprise
0 %
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of

2 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Carol Maietta
11 years ago

Bill, this is a thought provoking post.

I personally “fear” guns and can’t imagine ever using one or being on the other side of one. So, I support stricter gun control. BUT, I recently had a conversation with a wise man I know that said humans may just be the only species that kill each other (or animals) for game, war, teritory, etc. I believe that to be true. So, I also believe that in the light of stricter gun control, humans will remain creative on how to kill each other as they have in history: gas chambers of concentration camps, lynching, atomic bombs, jet liners into sky scrapers, and (unfortunately) so much more. I don’t think religion is the answer to creating a human “soul” that does kill for “fun”, and I don’t have an answer. But I have to believe that some day, thousands of years after I am gone, there will be a human race filled with compassion and reverence for life. I have to believe that. That will happen one human at a time.

Bill Formby
Reply to  Carol Maietta
11 years ago

Carol, hopefully you are right and my pessimism is unwarranted.

Previous post Explosive Europe
Next post Simplistic Solutions Invite a Theocracy
2
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x