It’s not Muslims, Mexicans or immigrants making the US unsafe – it’s men by Yas Necati
Whenever there’s a mass shooting in the US we begin to
debate as a society what the killer’s motivations could have been. If he is
brown or black there’s a high chance that the tabloid press will cry
“terrorist”. Donald Trump will begin Tweeting rabidly about how we should close
US borders to all (read: black or brown) immigrants. “The wall, the wall!”, his
supporters will cry. Breitbert will release an article trying to convince us
that every Muslim is a terrorist plotting to kill us all. And a member of Ukip
will be forced to issue an apology after making yet another “mistake” like retweeting
“If you want a Jihadi for a neighbour, vote Labour”. For the record I come from
a family of Muslim immigrants, and I can confirm that none of us are about to
run off and join Isis (why do I even have to reassure people of that?)
If the shooter is white, however, it will be a different
story – poor, lonely, teased American guy Tom had a mental health problem. He
always got good grades in school and, although he was quiet, nobody could have
possibly imagined him doing such a thing, including his mum, partner, brother,
uncle, aunt, 12th cousin, nursery teacher, baby sitter, the guy who bagged his
groceries in Walmart, the woman who sat in one lecture with him for a single
term when he was at university, and the family who lived six streets away from
him when he was in primary school. Because, let’s be honest, every one of these
people and more will be interviewed to investigate “what went wrong” with this
unfortunate, mentally ill, all-American, middle class, white school boy.
Once again, white killers will be humanised and black or
brown killers will be dehumanised.
But even many of those quick to point out this racism will
look to other reasons why the shooter could have done what he did. Most of us
on all sides of the political spectrum in the UK frown on the US for its gun
laws – and rightly so. Every time there’s a mass shooting, shares in gun
companies spike up.
Most mass shooters in US history have bought their weapons legally and without
restriction. It’s a dangerous industry, to say the least.
But it’s also not the root of the cause. We need only look
to Switzerland to disprove the theory that if people have easier access to
guns, they are more likely to kill others. It has one of the highest rates of gun
ownership in the world, but you wouldn’t think it (I didn’t know, until I
started research on this article). When’s the last time you heard of a mass shooting
in Switzerland? Not only does the country have a low rate of firearm-related
deaths, but it frequently tops the list as one of the countries with the
world’s lowest crime rates.
It boils down to this: if you put a gun in front of me, I
wouldn’t pick it up and shoot a load of people. If you put a gun in front of
most people, they wouldn’t pick it up and shoot a load of people. So what makes
some people commit mass shootings – what is the common factor that connects all
the people who’ve killed?
You might have noticed that throughout this piece I’ve been
referring to the mass shooters as “he”. And that’s because it’s not mental
health, race, religion or guns that brings any of these shooters together –
it’s gender.
In fact, in a study
of 62 cases of US mass shootings from 1982-2012, it was noted that only one
shooter was a woman. All the others were men. Of these men, 44 out of 61 were
white.
But if it has been proven that 98 per cent of mass shooting
are committed by men, why isn’t the media exploding with stories about why men
are to blame? Why is Donald Trump blaming Muslims and Mexicans, when the
problem here is clearly to do with gender above all else? Why are men so much more
likely to kill others than women? And why are we not doing something
about it?
The truth is – women have been talking about this for a long
time. A few years ago, Janey Stephenson wrote a piece about the link
between toxic masculinity and violent attacks. After the Las Vegas
shooting, Rachael Revesz compiled a list of
mass shooters, all men, all with a history of domestic violence.
Let’s not forget that in the US it’s not just adults who are
committing these crimes – the youngest shooter in the above mentioned study was
Andrew Golden, who was just 11 years old when him and school friend Mitchell
Johnson, 13, killed five other children at their school. How could two people
so young commit such an act? What would make them take that gun, and use it for
murder?
Indeed, not only are most adult mass shooters in the US men, but most
school shooters are boys too. And not only are many adult male shooters
perpetrators of domestic or sexual violence, but young boys can be too. A year
before him and Andrew Golden committed their mass shooting, 13-year-old
Mitchell Johnson was charged with molesting a 3-year-old girl. The case was
expunged because of his age.
But as we’ve seen perfectly illustrated in the book We Need
to Talk about Kevin, we’d sooner blame young boy’s mums than blame masculinity
when it comes to pointing fingers after a mass shooting. When Stephen Paddock
murdered 58 people earlier this year, the media, the public and the police
zoned in on his girlfriend Marilou Danley. It’s important to note here that his
brother, who has been paid less attention, was arrested a few weeks ago on
child pornography charges.
Unfortunately, we would rather peg blame onto a woman than
admit the uncomfortable truth that young men – particularly US-raised young men
– are showing a trend of really disturbing violence. And we would rather blame
guns, Isis and innocent immigrants just trying to settle somewhere than face up
to the facts: we have a problem with men and boys and violence, and it needs to
be addressed.
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