It’s just a scrap of conversation, poached a couple of days ago in a Manhattan cafe. She describes a state of mind in a country armed to the teeth to make war with itself.
“A friend has a house in Connecticut and has invited me over the weekend. I have told him no, that if I make the wrong property they will shoot meâ€, ironized one of the parishioners.
This is a week to reflect on the nonsense of bowing to guns like secular crucifixes and NRA leaders like prophets urging you to buy guns because you have to be ready against heretics.
Four banal incidents, harmless errors in common situations registered in six days, such as getting the door, the way, the car wrong or going for a ball that has fallen in someone else’s yard, have left a 20-year-old girl dead, three teenagers and a girl injured, as well as two adults.
“The truth is that we live in a nation in which more and more people shoot first and ask questions later. I think people are outraged and disgusted by this,†John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization that promotes control measures on the sale and possession of guns, told NBC. “Parents wonder, will my child be next?†he asked.
There is a feeling that the United States is in a spiral of violence fostered by a right wing that is increasingly radicalized in its fears, in full conspiracy and political obsession with the Apocalypse to deactivate the enemy.
The civil war rhetoric of former President Donald Trump is the best example. Last weekend he spoke in Indianapolis, at the big annual NRA fair, where children are taught to handle “toys” that really kill.
The party was preceded by two butcher shops, at a Tennessee elementary school and at a Louisville bank, with a dozen deceased. Trump’s recipe consisted of arming everyone to fight the “bad guys” and the Democrats.
Endorsed by an ultra-conservative majority in the Supreme Court, which defends the literalness of the Second Amendment to the Constitution – the right to own arms, from 1791 –, more and more Republican states approve the so-called self-defense laws or carry weapons to the view.
The perception that violent crimes are increasing is not a manufactured myth. Every year there are 49,000 deaths from firearms in the US. Until this Friday, 167 mass shootings were recorded in 2023. In four months, 13,000 people have died from armed violence, of which more than 520 were children and adolescents. Between 2020 and 2022, Americans bought 60 million guns. 20% of homes were made with one of these gadgets. At least 5% bought one for the first time.
“It’s a totally different kind of property. It is no longer a shotgun to hunt a couple of times a year. Now they are pistols or semi-automatic rifles that you have on your nightstand, in your glove compartment or that you carry around on you,†said the NORC group at the University of Chicago.
“He is responsible for his actions and falling into fear and paranoia stoked by the 24-hour news cycle and wild conspiracies did not help his mental state,†said Klint Ludwing, grandson of Andrew Lester, a white Kansas City resident. 84, who shot Ralp Yarl, 16. The black teenager mistakenly rang his doorbell.
Something similar happened to Kaylin Gillis, 20, who with a vehicle entered the driveway of a private estate and the owner, Kevin Monahan, 65, opened fire, although the car had turned around. Gillis died.
Then came the two cheeleaders (Payton Washington and Heather Roth) who took the wrong car in Texas and Pedro Tello RodrÃguez (25) shot them, without apologizing. And, in North Carolina, Kinsley White, six years old, whose left cheek was grazed by a bullet fired by Robert Louis Singletary (24) when he went to pick up a ball from the neighbor’s garden. His parents were injured.
“Why are you shooting me and my dad?†Kinsley asked. Perhaps, and despite his innocence, he has already understood what it means to live in an armed country.
