Our muted response to terrorism by gun
On Nov. 20, 2015, a group affiliated with Al Qaeda sent two teenagers armed with semiautomatic weapons into a hotel in the African country of Mali, hoping to kill as many people as possible. When the dust settled, more than 20 people — guests, employees, armed security — lay dead. The lone American fatality, a global health policy expert named Anita Datar, was the mother of my then-7-year-old son.
Understandably, this act of terror immediately changed my son’s view of the world. He went from being a happy-go-lucky kid to a child who had to come to terms with the fact the world can be a dark and scary place.
It also instilled in him a fear that the “bad guys” and the violence that had claimed his mother’s life would one day come to our country’s shores.
While pointing out how rare it is for international terrorism to breach our borders may provide some comfort, the sad reality is my son’s fear is anything but misplaced. For, to him, the distinguishing characteristics of his mother’s murder were not the motivations of the attackers, their ethnicity or their ideology. Rather, it was the combination of their methodology (terror by gun) and the gruesome outcome of their actions (mass murder). By this definition, terrorism is unfortunately anything but a rare occurrence in modern America. In fact, it happens with mindnumbing regularity. Yet for some reason, when it comes to this type of terrorism, we are schizophrenic.
Take, for example, the 9/11 attacks. After the attacks, we came together as a nation and proudly proclaimed that “we are all New Yorkers.” Our leaders formed a bipartisan commission to understand how the attacks had happened and how similar violence could be prevented. The following year, Congress held more than 20 separate hearings and passed sweeping legislation to create the Homeland Security Department.
A nearly 60,000-member federal workforce, the Transportation Security Administration, was established nearly overnight to screen every passenger who boards a plane, ensuring that each shoe is X-rayed and every tube of toothpaste is no larger than 3.4 ounces.
Contrast that with our response to the attacks across our country committed by people who do not match the terrorist caricatures portrayed in movies or political ads.
The deaths that they cause are no less real. The pain that they cause to families and communities is no less intense. They wreak havoc on college campuses. On movie theaters. On churches. At concerts and nightclubs. In urban, suburban and rural neighborhoods. In our homes. At our schools.
The immediate reaction to these attacks include statements of shock and horror, along with statements of sympathy for the victims and their families. Then, nothing. No bipartisan commissions. No legislation of any consequence passed. No bureaucracies are created. Nobody is asked to change his or her life in even the slightest fashion.
Last October, after legally buying a small arsenal of weapons and ammunition, a lone gunman massacred 58 people and injured nearly 1,000 at a concert in Las Vegas; our federal leaders now barely mention the attack.
My son is now 10. He likes reading about Greek mythology, watching NASCAR and playing basketball. He doesn’t like to talk about what happened to his mother two years ago. But, with disturbing regularity, the topic is thrust upon him. Anytime someone somewhere is murdered by guns like his mother was, whether in Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Orlando or San Bernardino, he sees it for what it is: an act of terror.
From the reaction after a lone gunman killed 17 children and adults in Parkland using a legally purchased weapon of war, it’s clear that my son is not the only young person to have this simple but important insight. Why is it that hundreds of thousands of other young people from Sandy Hook to Parkland, from Chicago to Los Angeles, are able to see what our federal leaders cannot?
As a society, our first job is caring for our children and protecting them from harm. We are failing them with each day of inaction against the turnkey terrorism enabled by easy access to some of the deadliest weapons in the world.
If we are truly committed to protecting our children, then we should acknowledge that the real threat to Americans isn’t terrorism from abroad, but a rampant gun violence that is grown right here at home.