The madness of gun violence is our American norm
Police at the scene of Monday’s mass shooting on the streets of Philadelphia, where a gunman opened fire, killing five people and wounding two boys before surrendering to responding officers. Credit: AP/Steven M. Falk
Coming off another bloody Independence Day holiday, when fireworks and automatic weapons blended into the soundscape, the U.S. may be headed for a new mass-shooting record. The numbers so far in 2023 are grim, and getting worse, with no relief in sight.
All epidemics eventually end, and so will this one, but how and when remain anyone’s guess.
In Philadelphia, the latest mass killer was identified as 40-year-old Kimbrady Carriker, who opened fire Monday with an AR-15-style rifle (recently celebrated on the floor of Congress by friends of the National Rifle Association). Carriker had a bulletproof vest and ski mask, as well as a 9 mm handgun, and a radio scanner that tracks emergency response.
The attack left five dead with two children, a 2-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy, shot and wounded. The attack was random — in the sense that authorities knew of no apparent connection between victims and shooter. Carriker was arrested after a police chase.
In Fort Worth, Texas, several males opened fire, killing three and wounding eight. On Sunday, it was two fatalities and 28 injuries in a crazed shooting in Baltimore. Add to the roundup mass shootings in the Bronx and in Florin, California.
In all, according to the national Gun Violence Archive, there were 16 mass shootings between 5 a.m. Friday and 5 a.m. Wednesday, in which 15 people were killed and nearly 100 injured across 13 states and the District of Columbia. The GVA defines a mass shooting as four or more killed or injured in a single incident, at the same general time and location, not including the shooter.
The bigger picture: As of Monday, 340 mass shootings had occurred across the country in 2023. At that pace, the national number will reach 679 by year’s end. There were 646 in 2022, 690 in 2021, and 610 in 2020. Again, there’s no sign of abatement coming.
If the nation cannot take sensible constitutional steps to stem the sale and domestic use of weapons made for battle, or if gun control does not work, how will this insanity end? Speculative incarcerations before the fact? Will value for life and rule of law suddenly seize the land in a collective change of spirit?
Perhaps the word addiction is relevant. Some neuroscientists argue that the rush of firing a weapon can work the brain’s dopamine circuits as treacherously as harmful smoking, video, drinking, drug and shopping habits. In other words, another psychological challenge of 21st century life. Treating such patterns is complicated.
President Joe Biden this week called — again — for universal gun background checks and a ban on semi-automatic weapons. He can ask for anything he wants, but he already knows Republicans won’t concur. No candidate of any party can honestly promise a public solution.
Atrocities, like addictions and infections, subside eventually. The question here is how that will happen. Suppression tactics always mean some perceived compromise of civil liberties. They ultimately require popular consent, on which no modern proposal can seem to rely.
On top of everything else, NYPD officials report 62 shooting victims in the city so far this year are under 18, as are 14% of those arrested for shootings.
Waiting for this mass-shooting pestilence to burn out while the bodies of children pile up doesn’t sound like much of a plan — any more than would a perpetual state of internal war. The situation is no longer becoming the norm. It is a hideous status quo.
Columnist Dan Janison's opinions are his own.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
