June 08, 2022
Page 9
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o piNioN
Irresponsible Leaders Normalize Violence
Mass killings
evidence of
broken society
By Ben Jealous
The mass killings at the elementary
school in Uvalde, Texas, 10 days after the
white supremacist killings in Buffalo, N.Y.,
are further evidence of how deeply our so-
ciety is broken, and how urgently we need
to figure out how to begin fixing it.
The slaughter of so many young chil-
dren and two of their teachers is shocking
at a human level. It is absolutely gutting
to me as a parent of school-aged children.
Millions of us send our kids off to school
every day, trying to set aside the knowl-
edge gnawing at our insides that our school
and our kids could be next.
It should be unimaginable, and in most
countries it is.
But it is not unimaginable in our coun-
try. It is so not unimaginable that we sub-
ject our young children to the trauma of
live shooter drills. We make teachers re-
sponsible for preparing students to deal
with what too many of our policymakers
have decided is not worth trying to prevent.
A decade ago, after the slaughter of el-
ementary school students and educators at
Ben Jealous
Sandy Hook elementary school in Con-
necticut, most Republican senators used
filibuster rules to block passage of a bill to
require background checks for all gun pur-
chases. That is about the least we could do
to try to limit gun violence. It is supported
by huge majorities of Americans, including
most gun owners.
We see similarly misplaced priorities at
the state level. According to news reports,
the killings in Uvalde were the fifth ma-
jor mass shooting in the state during Gov.
Greg Abbott’s tenure. After previous mass
killings, Texas Republicans have weak-
ened gun regulations. In 2015, Abbott
urged Texans to buy more guns, tweeting
that he was “embarrassed” that the state
was falling behind California in gun pur-
chases. Just last year, Abbott signed legis-
lation to loosen gun restrictions, making
it possible for Texans to carry handguns
without any license or training.
This is a virtual invitation to in-
creased gun violence.
These recent shootings come at a
time when violence is increasingly be-
ing normalized and justified by irre-
sponsible leaders.
The two-year anniversary of the police
killing of George Floyd over the Memori-
al Day holiday was a reminder that Black
Americans are all too familiar with the
threat that “routine” interactions with po-
lice can turn deadly.
In response to widespread protests
against Floyd’s killing, extremists mo-
bilized armed mobs with false fear-mon-
gering claims that “antifa” and Black
Lives Matter activists were planning to
ransack suburbs and small towns. Far
right-wing activists also insist that the
Second Amendment allows private own-
ership of even the most powerful mili-
tary weapons, so that they can be turned
against a “tyrannical” government.
We are also just days away from con-
gressional hearings on the violent Jan. 6,
2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. We
will hear about extremists in the so-called
Stop the Steal movement who threatened
civil war if Trump did not stay in power.
In spite of Republican efforts to sabotage
the investigation, we will learn more
about the crimes that led to that day’s
deadly violence. And the violent rhetoric
goes on: Trump himself recently used his
own social media platform to amplify a
self-identified MAGA activist’s predic-
tion of – or call for – civil war. That is
utterly irresponsible.
Scholars have identified the kind of
polarization taking place in our country,
and the kind of diminished commitment
to democracy we have seen among Trump
Republicans, as predictors of a country’s
vulnerability to civil war.
For families who lost loved ones in
Buffalo and Uvalde, and for the many
communities that have been scarred by
mass murder, it may feel like that war has
already arrived. That suffering would be
multiplied beyond measure if the extrem-
ists calling for civil war in our country get
their wish.
We should not tolerate the slightest en-
couragement for that kind of catastrophe
from political leaders, including the for-
mer commander in chief. And we should
not tolerate continued inaction on the vi-
olence that stalks our streets and schools.
Ben Jealous serves as president of
People for the American Way and Pro-
fessor of the Practice at the University
of Pennsylvania.