(The photos throughout this post display only some of the victims of the mass shooting in Buffalo.)
Below I have posted two very different analyses of the recent mass shooting committed by a young white supremacist in Buffalo, NY.
They are both fairly brief. So, watch both and then rejoin me at the bottom to read my own thoughts about each perspective. I will try to keep my comments as short as possible.
If you want to explore this issue further with me, just make a comment on the blog page. I always respond as quickly as possible.
The first is an editorial from the Christian Broadcasting Network titled “How Americans Can Prevent More Mass Shootings.” The second is an interview from the alternative news program Democracy Now titled “Lessons for Buffalo? Meet the Activist Who Sued the White Supremacists Behind Charlottesville & Won.”
My response. (I’ll give you a heads up — I disagree with everything in the CBN editorial. The Jewish granddaughter of Holocaust survivors makes much more sense and offers far better suggestions for change):
We must begin by noting CBN’s utter neglect of the white supremacist ideology that motivated the Buffalo murders. It only mentions that he had “come under the spell of others” briefly as if he were unwittingly seduced my mysterious, dark forces.
The fact that the shooter wrote a very lengthy online manifesto declaring both his hatred of African-Americans and brown-skinned immigrants as well as his plans to commit a mass shooting are conveniently ignored.
Consequently, the obvious questions for local law enforcement as to how in
the world a young white supremacist, spewing vitriol, who had previously been brought in for questioning after threatening to commit a local school shooting, are nowhere within earshot.
The idea that his young man had personal agency and willingly embraced his racist ideology is also buried very deeply. My suspicion is that CBN’s right-wing Republican political stance is on full display in this editorial decision.
More than that, I suspect that CBN producers regularly consult with Republican party leaders to gather the newest party “talking points.” The Republicans are very busy working to separate their public image from violent racism at the moment — while continuing openly to embrace this evil on the campaign trail, especially when visiting Mara Lago to kiss Trump’s ring — so CBN was almost certainly told to keep
this issue hidden beneath their tight fitting neocon helmet.
Unsurprisingly, the idea of tougher gun laws is put to bed immediately. The implication is crystal clear: restrictive gun laws do not work in limiting gun violence. The spokesman rightly points out that NY state already has very restrictive gun laws, but those laws did not prevent this shooting.
At this point, CBN demonstrates the complete absence of “fact-checkers” in the news room. It’s been widely reported that the NY shooter crossed the state line and purchased the guns and ammunition used in the shooting from a Massachusetts gun shop.
The obvious implication — at least, it appears obvious to my feeble mind — is the need for greater uniformity in US gun laws beginning with a nation-wide, federal ban on all semi-automatic rifles. The shooter ought not have been able to purchase his murderous implements anywhere in the country.
But then, on second thought, perhaps there are fact-checkers at CBN, but the powers-that-be decided to manipulate their conservative, anti-gun law viewers with gross misinformation, which are in fact, outright lies.
If this is the case, then so much for the Christian morality and integrity that the editorialist beats the drum about towards the editorial’s conclusion.
The heart of the problem, according to CBN, is American immorality, most profoundly displayed in the absence of any generally maintained “Christian world-view” among American church-goers.
I have an earlier post criticizing this particular red herring, so I won’t repeat myself here. You can read the previous post if interested.
This supposed lack of a robust Christian world-view among American Christians then becomes a launching pad for the standard, conservative lament about the egregious moral decline of our society, as if we all now inhabit the historic, indecent nadir of US moral degeneracy.
Here it becomes obvious that along with the absent fact-checkers, neither are there any American historians in the CBN editorial room.
But the standard tropes are trotted out once again. The two successive turning points for America’s irreligious degradation are the well-known bobbsy twins of US degeneracy: the outlawing of prayer in our public schools (a ruling that strangely never affected me during my public school career, since I prayed regularly in school without difficulty or interruption), and the Supreme Court ruling of Roe vs. Wade.
As a direct result of these two legal decisions, the United States began a
rapid descent into indecency and flagrant wickedness that has swept the nation and now instigates young, white men like the Buffalo shooter to “randomly” mow down black Americans with a semi-automatic rifle in the local grocery’s produce aisle.
Does that make sense to you? I must confess that it totally baffles me.
Naturally, by the end of CBN’s ahistorical and irrational monologue it all comes down to the failure of parents, meaning that the obvious solution is to, once again, “focus on the family.”
Cultivating stronger, more godly families is, as always, the social, cultural, political, religious panacea needed to solve the problems of white supremacy and gun violence in this country of ours.
More Christian parents, promoting the properly Biblical world-view, taking greater responsibility for the spiritual nurture of their children becomes the one-size-fits-all remedy for everything that ails America.
It’s just that simple.
Or is it? Come back tomorrow for part two of my response to these two videos. I’ve got a lot more to say…unsurprisingly. But I think that this post is already long enough.
Thanks for sticking with me.
