Gun Madness In America Is Chilling Insoluble Plague | review ★★★★☆

On May 9, the counter for 2023 in America was already at 200 mass shootings , shootings with four or more victims. The United States has an average of 120.5 firearms per 100 inhabitants. For the Netherlands, that number is 2.6.

Are Americans gun-crazy? Paul Auster (1947), successful American author, gives this in his pamphlet Carnage Nation a nuanced answer. A large majority of two-thirds do not own firearms.

One-third of Americans own an arsenal of guns

The minority of one third therefore has an entire arsenal in house. Mass shootings show that: perpetrators often use two or three different firearms. The man who shot dead 61 people and injured more than 400 from his high-rise hotel room in Las Vegas in 2017, setting a sad record, even had 23 automatic rifles, a handgun and a huge amount of ammunition. He took his own life with the gun. His motives have never been clarified.

All those shootings and all those killed and wounded, do Americans never get tired of it? Of course it is. However, it does not lead to restrictive legal measures. In fact, Republican governor of Florida and presidential candidate De Santis recently signed the law that says that you can now carry a firearm in the public domain in Florida without needing a permit.

Auster clearly explains how it is possible that the gun lobby succeeds time and again in stopping restrictive measures. The American political system offers formal and informal opportunities for a minority to oppose policy desired by a majority for a long period of time. The most famous example of this is slavery, which could be maintained in the southern states against the wishes of an American majority.

Endless arguments

The social debate about the scourge of gun violence in America is completely petrified, as is that about other social issues. Opponents of government control of gun control endlessly repeat the same arguments. Which have been refuted just as often. Not responding to rebuttal, just repeating them louder and more often seems to be the message.

‘The best way to bad guy stopping (a villain) with a firearm is one good guy with a firearm,” according to an adage of the NRA, the association of gun enthusiasts, dealers and manufacturers. But Steven Paddock, who caused that carnage in Las Vegas, wasn’t a villain at all. No criminal record, only a few traffic fines, no debts, a stable girlfriend, a good income and no history of mental balance disorders: Paddock, until he started killing, was a good guy with many weapons.

In the last chapter of Blood Nation Auster discusses proposals to restrict gun ownership. But his tone is sombre: the socio-political climate is poisoned and the divide between Republicans and Democrats is so great that legal restraint is impossible. For the time being, only stricter enforcement of existing laws can offer any solace. Auster refers to anti-terrorism laws, which can be used to tackle the heavily armed, often far-right militias.

Bloodbath Nation also includes over 40 black-and-white photographs by Spencer Ostrander, who captured dozens of scenes, sometimes long after they were on the scene. mass shooting . There seems to be nothing special about these silent witnesses, but knowing what happened there makes you shudder at the sight.