Mass shootings and shiny objects
How politicians use social issues to distract us...
Yesterday there was another mass shooting. This one in Indianapolis and this time at least eight people are dead.
According to the CBS News website and the Gun Violence Archive (and it really sucks that we need one of those), there were 417 mass shootings in 2019 – more mass shootings than days in a year – and we’re currently on pace to shatter that record; keep going at this rate and we’ll have 506 mass shootings in 2021.
And yet some people say America’s on the decline.
The Gun Violence Archive defines a mass shooting as one in which there are four or more gunshot victims, excluding the shooter, so keep that in mind while we shoot for the record…an unfortunate, but depressingly accurate description.
So what’s happened since that mass shooting in the Atlanta massage parlors? Weren’t we all worked up and wasn’t it time to take action and finally do something?
As you might have not noticed (because the media covers news like four-year-olds play soccer) there hasn’t been much follow-up coverage about the Atlanta shootings, mainly because the media has the attention span of a house fly, but also because the media had to rush to cover the next mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado and the next mass shooting in Orange, California and the next mass shooting in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
According to CNN, the United States has had at least 45 mass shootings since the one in Atlanta.
I used a baseball setting in the cartoon at the top of this page because I needed someone holding a stopwatch, but right now a baseball setting seems even more appropriate because it turns out our real National Pastime is shooting each other.
After Atlanta, Joe Biden issued some executive orders that nibbled around the edges of the gun control issue, which he now says he really can’t do much about without cooperation from lawmakers on Capitol Hill, although when he was running for president he promised he’d send a bill to Congress that repealed immunity for gun manufacturers on his very first day in office, something he has yet to do.
(Ever notice that when someone’s running for office they’ve got all the answers and once they get in office, things turn out to be way more complicated than those of us who listened to their campaign-promises were led to believe? We’re still waiting on that $15-an-hour minimum wage and if I were you I wouldn’t hold my breath.)
When there’s a mass shooting (and unfortunately, everybody’s had lots of practice at this drill) the people for more stringent gun control say this has to stop and it’s time to do something and the people against more stringent gun control say now is not the time to play politics, which completely ignores the fact that they’re the ones playing politics and if now is not the time, when is?
I’m pretty sure they think “never” and so far they’ve been right which gets us to the “shiny object” portion of today’s sermon.
Transgender teens playing sports
If you’re cynical (and if you’re not, you soon will be) you might think after a mass shooting everyone plays for time until we get distracted by something else and politicians have a pretty consistent record of providing the distractions.
The state of Kansas has a bill banning transgender students from playing girls’ sports at the high-school and college level, an issue which has a lot of people worked up even though an Associated Press story from early March says they reached out to two dozen lawmakers who supported the same kind of law in more than 20 states and in almost every case the politicians involved could not cite a single instance in their own state or region where such participation had caused a problem.
“Yeah, we might not have a problem right now, but we better get on it before Caitlyn Jenner shows up and kicks ass in volleyball.”
According to the same story, the state of Kansas had five cases, but most of the politicians they quoted had to scramble and cite a few cases in other states, so while the number isn’t zero, it also doesn’t appear to be a huge problem that needs to go the front of the Problem-Solving Line. Here’s what Kansas Governor Laura Kelly had to say about that:
“When you’ve got 125 grown-ups talking about girls’ sports participation and they’re not dealing with the issues that are real important to Kansans…you’ve got a problem.
There’s been an incredible amount of, ‘Look at this shiny object over here.’ Let me distract you with this social issue so that you don’t notice what I’m doing to voting laws, that you don’t notice what I’m doing to the budget, that you don’t notice what I’m trying to do to schools.”
The Kansas Legislature also approved a new license plate design featuring a coiled rattlesnake and the motto “Don’t Tread on Me” which also has people worked up because it’s a symbol that’s been adopted by current antigovernment groups and was originally designed by a guy named Christopher Gadsden who was involved in the slave trade, so there’s yet another shiny object to distract people willing to hold a Steel-Cage Death Match about what’s on their license plates.
So does all this attention to issues like transgender athletes and license plates mean politicians don’t actually accomplish anything?
Glad you asked.
Corporate tax rates
According to a recent column in the Kansas City Star by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, in the 1950s corporate taxes accounted for 40% of federal revenue; these days it’s 7% because politicians have been making sure we look at the shiny objects while they take care of the corporations that take care of them.
So while the real business of politics – who gets what – takes place, the rest of us worry about transgender athletes and license plates.
I’d write more about politicians using shiny objects to distract us, but I just checked my watch and it’s a brand new day and if recent events are any indication, time for another mass shooting.
Stay safe and if you can’t do that, run fast, and don’t count on a politician to save you; they’ve got corporations to worry about.
very prophetic in light of the Fed-X shooting in Indiana