Who’s actually to blame for the Las Vegas massacre?
Who is to blame for the murder of 58 people and the wounding of hundreds more this week in Las Vegas? The list of accused is surprisingly long.
According to Hillary Clinton, the NRA was at fault. Second Amendment advocates bear “some responsibility,” said comedian Jimmy Kimmel. He also blamed Congress, specifically Republicans. “White supremacist patriarchy,” “Trumpism,” and “the narrative of white victimization” are complicit, said Drexel University Professor George Ciccariello. Actress and Scientologist Kirstie Alley implicated the use of psychiatric drugs for the rampage and other mass shootings.
A guest on Fox News faulted CNN. Televangelist Pat Robertson linked the shooting to disrespect for President Donald Trump, the national anthem, and authority in general. Conspiracy theory huckster Alex Jones accused Muslims, Bolsheviks and “deep-state Democrats.” Pundit Armstrong Williams wrote, “[W]e are all to blame” for being so preoccupied that we miss “unmistakable clues.”
Other suggested culprits include toxic masculinity, waning religious participation, decline in morals, media sensationalism, and the guns themselves.
While some of the accusations were politically opportunistic, most reflect an earnest desire for answers in the aftermath of violence and the yearning to do something, anything, to prevent it from happening again. But they miss the target. The murderer, who will not be named here, is solely to blame.
Unfortunately, it is easier to impugn the living and to condemn things — be they guns or societal trends — than to place the blame where it belongs. A dead sociopath cannot answer for his crimes. He cannot answer the question “Why?” Berating the living feels a little like justice. The idea that something can be done to stop mass killings — from more gun control to religious revival to more mindfulness — is comforting. But it’s false comfort. Browbeating moral people for being insufficiently vigilant will not stop an immoral man adept at evading notice. Likewise, none of the legislative changes proposed in the wake of the massacre would have prevented it. He passed a background check and went on to break laws against murder. Neither law nor conscience stops a determined killer.
Preoccupation with gun laws or culture lets the killer off the hook. It ignores the fact that people have agency. They make choices. While genetics, upbringing and environment exert influence on individuals, they still have free will to act. In some instances we recognize human volition. We hold the parent who leaves a child in a hot car for hours culpable for the child’s death, not the car, not the car manufacturer, not other drivers, not AAA, not lawmakers.
In other cases we disregard free will. Consider how the word “epidemic” is used to describe obesity rates and opioid abuse, as though these conditions were akin to cholera rather than unhealthy choices. We blame tobacco companies for lung cancer, banks for foreclosures when people buy houses they can’t afford, and fastfood vendors for heart attacks. We blame gun violence for the death toll in Chicago rather than those who pull the trigger.
Failure to fix responsibility on the true culprit creates both faulty solutions and false hope. We focus our efforts on controlling the law-abiding in hopes that it will constrain the lawless and then we are shocked when a massacre happens again.
Would focusing on would-be killers produce better outcomes? Law enforcement has effectively thwarted numerous Islamist terrorist plots by doing just that. They use complex data analysis, tips, and investigations to predict, identify and stop individuals who are planning to commit mass murder. Law enforcement doesn’t waste time blaming innocent Muslims or Islam or pressure cookers. They focus on pursuing the guilty-minded, not the guiltless. The same techniques can be used to find potential mass shooters, but we must first start by placing blame where it belongs. Mac Tully, CEO and Publisher; Justin Mock, Senior VP of Finance and CFO; Bill Reynolds, Senior VP, Circulation and Production; Judi Patterson, Vice President, Human Resources; Bob Kinney , Vice President, Information Technology