Category Archives: American Society

Planned parenthoodlums.

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Opposing illegal immigration and gay marriage proved such successes for Republicans that they moved on to defunding Planned Parenthood. There certainly is an argument that can be made that “life begins at the moment of conception” and that abortion takes far more lives each year than do guns. I agree with the argument. Certainly, I would never have an abortion. It would violate my moral principles. On the other hand, I’m a 61-year-old white man with a Ph.D., steady work, a house in the ‘burbs, and two kids done (or almost done) with college. I’m not willing to shove my ethics up the ass of a 15 year-old black girl from a single parent home in North Philadelphia who wanders off to what the “City of Brotherly Love” is pleased to call “the public schools.” Probably has to skip school to go down to visit one of her relatives in “Riverside” from time to time.[1] Kid’s got enough troubles and adding a baby isn’t got to solve any of them. Same thing goes for white kids like the one portrayed by Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone.”[2]

That said (or ranted), opinion polls show that 22 percent of people think that it would be worth shutting down the government to force an end to funding of Planned Parenthood. In opposition to that, 71 percent of people think that the government should stay open, regardless of conservative outrage over Planned Parenthood.

In 2014, 43 percent of Americans self-identified as political Independents, 30 percent as Democrats, and 26 percent as Republicans.[3] However, it appears to be an article faith among political observers that most “Independents” are actually reliably Republican or Democratic voters who just refuse to declare their party affiliation. Clearly, de-funding Planned Parenthood captures almost all self-identified Republicans. However, the tide has been running in favor of Republicans in recent elections. If 30 percent of voters self-identify as Democrats and 26 percent self-identify as Republican, then at least another 25 percent voted Republican in recent races in order to provide the Republican majorities. That’s why they control both houses of Congress. If that back-of-the-envelope calculation is correct, then almost as many—or more—Republican voters oppose shutting down the government as support it.

This suggests the existence of two or three Republican parties living inside the shell of “The Republican Party.”[4] There are the Evangelical-Culture War Republicans. There are the National Security Republicans.[5] There are the Economic Growth/Opportunity Society Republicans. Obviously, these groups can over-lap. However, Republicans risk alienating half of their own voter-base by doing what the activists want with regard to shutting down the government. Doubtless, this reality is causing John Boehner and Mitch McConnell nightmares.

[1] Which is not the same thing as the “River Walk” in San Antonio.

[2] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdrhoE8_BQc

[3] “Noted,” The Week, 23 January 2015, p. 16.

[4] The same goes for the Democrats, where Bernie Sanders (and—implicitly—Elizabeth Warren) pose a challenge to Hillary Clinton. The Democrats are still trying to recover from the McGovernization of the party in the Seventies. If Hillary Clinton is seen to be failing and about to blow a huge advantage once again, then Joe Biden will be drafted regardless of his own feelings. Worse things could happen.

[5] They are probably fed up with Sergei Lavrov being the only adult in the room during negotiations with Hillary Clinton and John Kerry.

What can be done?

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What can we do? Solutions—in my mind—divide between the nonsensical (but effective) and the practical (but imperfect).

Nonsensical.

The Constitution allows for Amendment. Prohibition was instituted by Constitutional amendment and it was repealed by Constitutional amendment. The same could be true of the Second Amendment. So, amend the Constitution to repeal the current Second Amendment and replace with something that allows for more effective regulation.

This is where a lot of the push-back originates. Part of this reflects a deep distrust of the federal government.[1] Sales of semi-automatic, civilian versions of “assault rifles” have been booming. One type rose from 4,600 sold in 2006 to 100,000 sold in 2010. “The weapons that would be most suited to overthrow a dictatorial federal government would, of course, be weapons of war, and not sports equipment.”[2]

Part of it springs from a realistic belief in self-defense. The number of justifiable homicides by civilians is not great and has declined. From a high of about 325 in 1980, the number of justifiable homicides while disrupting a crime had fallen to about 150 in 2008. Among murder victims age 40 or older, the proportion of homicides committed during a felony began increasing, accounting for 32.8 percent of homicides of 64-year-old victims and 40.3 percent of homicides of 76-year-old victims. That is, some old person is at home or returns home while someone is breaking into their house and gets killed.

Between 1980 and 2008 the number of justifiable homicides while resisting attack bounced up and down between 50 and 100 a year. In sum, civilians kill with legal justification 200 to 250 times a year.

Regulate gun-ownership by age. The drinking age (21) is higher than the age to vote, to enlist in the military without your parents’ permission, to get married without your parents’ permission, and to be charged as an adult for whatever stupid thing you did last Saturday night (all 18). The courts have already approved an age distinction. So, if young men under 25 are the chief source of the murder problem, raise the age of legal gun ownership/possession to 25. For that matter, require men to surrender their guns when they hit 50, hold them in trust until they are 60, and ban gun sales to men in that age range.

Practical: Regulatory.

Greatly tighten ATF regulation of gun-dealers to eliminate the 8 percent of them (in the estimation of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF)), who supply the black market in guns. This will mean repealing or amending the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986.

A lot of prescriptions for anti-depressants are written by primary care physicians, rather than by psychiatrists. Push primary care physicians to aggressively inquire of their male patients aged 50 or more, about their state of mind. Look for signs of depression, ask whether they have guns in the house (pediatricians already do this), and require them to report cases where they fear someone may harm themselves (psychiatrists already have to report cases of potential violence to the police). Sure, there are privacy issues here. But who wants to be scrubbing brain-matter off bathroom tile?

Practical: Political.

End the “war on drugs.” One effect of the “war on drugs” has been to increase the supply of drugs and reduce the price. Another effect has been the “war for the corners” that has led to so many deaths. How is this a successful public policy? We’ve tried a “war on alcohol,” a “war on abortion” before Roe v. Wade, and a “war on drugs.” They all end in the same place.

Roger Lane, author of Murder in America: A History, tells us that, between 1865 and 1917, the “police, the temperance movement, the public schools–the items on the reform agenda designed to discipline the population–were successful as never before. And underlying all of them were the direct demands of the new kind of work itself, which helped create a whole new social psychology.” (p. 182.) Police departments got control of the streets after the Civil War, suppressing riotous behavior. Temperance movements cut down on the amount of alcohol consumed. Young people spent a lot more time in school (and out of trouble) learning how to put up with being bored. Most importantly, industrialization created enormous employment opportunities, even for the semi-skilled and unskilled, so they went to work instead of hanging around the street corner and boozing.

The same thing could happen again now. De-militarize the attitudes—not the weapons—of the police. Whatever you think of Planned Parenthood, fund Narcotics Anonymous. Reorganize the funding of public schools to transfer resources from suburbs toward inner cities. (You can always change your mind if it turns into a rat-hole.) Finally, make thoughtful choices in elections. Which candidates are actually likely to promote a renaissance of the American economy so that there is broad-based prosperity? Both parties claim that to be their goal. Both may have policies that would achieve that goal. It is up to each voter. You’re not a potted plant.

[1] Which criminalized Japanese ancestry in 1941.

[2] David Kopel, Cato Institute, quoted in “The assault weapon,” The Week, 15 February 2013, p. 11.

Murder.

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In murders, the United States ranks 91st among countries, with a rate of 4.7 per 100,000 people. However, Japan has 0.3 homicides per 100,000; South Korea has 0.9; Britain has 1.0; France has 1.0; and Belgium has 1.6.[1] Saying, “well, at least were not Venezuela” isn’t much consolation if you’re trying to think of yourself as living in a civilized country.

What is the death toll from guns? In 2012, about 11,000 people were murdered with guns.[2] This is pretty much our current “normal.”

Who are the killers and who are the killed? From 1980 to 2008, young men (18 to 24 years old) have provided most of the killers. Better than a third (34 percent) of victims and almost half (49 percent) of the killers were under age 25. In cases of gun homicide, 59.7 percent of the killed were between 18 and 34, and 65.9 percent of the killers were between 18 and 34. In cases of drug-related homicides, 70.9 percent of the killed were between 18 and 34, and 76.4 percent of the killers were between 18 and 34.

Males represented 76.8 percent of the killed and 89.5 percent of killers. In gun-related homicides, 82.6 percent of the killed were males, and 92.1 percent of the killers were male. In drug-related homicides, 90.5 percent of the killed were males, and 95.5 percent of the killers were male.[3]

Blacks were and disproportionately represented among both the killed and the killers. According to the Census, 12.2 percent of Americans are black.[4] For all homicides, 47.4 percent of the killed were black; 52.5 percent of the killers were black. In gun homicides, 55.4 percent of the killed and 56.9 percent of the killers were black. In drug related homicides, 62.1 percent of the killed were black and 65.6 percent of the killers were black. In sum one of the biggest drivers in American murders is the illegal drug trade. The killings result from the “war for corners.” See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFkWPNJAy14

Since 2000, young (18-24) white males have accounted for about 6 percent of the population, about 10 percent of the killed, and about 16 percent of the killers. While young (18-24) black males have accounted for about 1percent of the population, 16 percent of the killed, 27 percent of the killers. That is, 1 percent of the population accounts for 27 percent of the killers. If you put the two groups together, then 7 percent of the population accounts for 26 percent of the killed and 43 percent of the killers.

In 2008, of the murders committed by killers 14 to 17 years-old, 37.5 percent involved multiple killers; and of the murders committed by killers aged 18 to 24 years-old, 27.5 percent involved multiple killers; while of the murders committed by killers aged 25 or older only 13.7 percent involved multiple killers. Is murder the price of admission to a gang?

From 1980 to 2008, 57.7 percent of homicides occurred in cities with a population of 100,000 or more; more than a third of all homicides in large cities occurred in the biggest cities (those with a population of 1 million or more); and two-thirds of all drug-related (67.4 percent) and gang-related (69.6 percent) killings took place in large cities.

The “war on drugs” is driving the killings in big cities and, thus, in the nation.

[1] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

[2] “Noted,” The Week, 26 September 2014, p. 16.

[3] Apparently, drug-dealing is not subject to Title IX.

[4] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity

Suicide generis.

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In suicide, the United States ranks 50th among countries, with a rate of 12.1 per 100,000 people. South Korea[1] (28.9) ranks 2nd; Japan (18.5) ranks 17th; Belgium (14.2) ranks 34th; France (12.4) ranks 47th; Canada (10.8) ranks 70th; and Britain (6.2) ranks 102nd.[2] Within this broad figure are many sub-categories. We can cut up the data by gender, race, age, and region.

Within the American rate of 12.1 suicides per 100,000 people is a big disparity. The rate for men is 19.4 per 100,000; the rate for women is 5.2 per 100,000. American men who attempt suicide are almost four times as likely to succeed as are American women. Almost all firearm suicides are men. Why is this? Possibly because most women don’t like guns and don’t want to know how to use one, so guns aren’t an option when they want to commit suicide—even if the guns are available. Possibly, women just want to make a demonstration that something in their life is terrible, while men really do want to blow out their brains. Why would men, more than women, want to make sure that suicide ends in death?

The highest U.S. suicide rate (14.2) was among Whites and the second highest rate (11.7) was among American Indians and Alaska Natives. Much lower rates were found among Asians and Pacific Islanders (5.8), Blacks (5.4) and Hispanics (5.7).[3]

The highest U.S. suicide rate (19.1) was among people 45 to 64 years old. The second highest rate (18.6) occurred in those 85 years and older. (That I can understand: no months in bed with tubes in you and with somebody wiping your backside just so the doctors can bill your heirs.) Everyone younger than these groups has had consistently lower suicide rates.[4]

In 2013, nine Western states had suicide rates in excess of 18/100,000: Montana (23.7), Alaska (23.1), Utah (21.4), Wyoming (21.4), New Mexico (20.3), Idaho (19.2), Nevada (18.2), Colorado (18.5), and South Dakota (18.2).[5] Conversely, places in the Northeast had suicide rates lower than 9 per 100,000: District of Columbia (5.8), New Jersey (8.0), New York (8.1), Massachusetts (8.2), and Connecticut (8.7). Shoveling snow and warding-off black flies is good.

What is it about being a middle-aged white man in contemporary America that has the same psychological effect as living on an Indian Reservation, among the bleakest places in America? One criminal justice scholar has offered an explanation for mass shootings that may also bear on the suicide rate in the United States. American culture says that hard work leads to success. Except that it often does not (or people persuade themselves that they have worked hard when that isn’t exactly true). At some point, these men come to despair. For mass shooters, “they are in real pain, but they’re eager to blame that pain on those around them.”[6] They lash out. Perhaps far more men conclude that they themselves are to blame for their misfortunes. Hence, suicide. So, is it possible that “the American Dream” is more of a nightmare?

[1] What’s so awful about South Korea? Well, it’s a country that has gone through a dramatic social transformation in less than half a century. Now it’s mostly educated, industrial, urban, and exciting (leaving aside the kim-chee). However, the older generation is stuck in the countryside, farming hard-scrabble land, without much education (or the opportunity that comes with education), and un-exciting. The kids rarely visit; they just send you a TV so you can see what you’re missing. Many older people feel cast-aside or a burden. This is true of both old men and old women: the suicide rate is nearly the same for both genders. Eventually, the suicide rate will drop.

[2] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

[3] See: https://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures

[4] See: https://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures   However, in 2013, adolescents and young adults aged 15 to 24 had a suicide rate of 10.9.

[5] See: https://www.afsp.org/understanding-suicide/facts-and-figures Ouch! A bunch of these are places I’d like to retire.

[6] John Lankford, University of Alabama, quoted in “The killing contagion,” The Week, 11 September 2015, p. 11.

The Secret History of the Second Amendment II.

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In 1963 and 1965, Senator Tom Dodd of Connecticut introduced bills to regulate the inter-state commerce in guns. They went nowhere. Then, after the death of President John F. Kennedy, both Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were slain by assassins. In 1968, Congress passed two laws that extended gun regulation. One law raised the age of legal purchase of a gun to 21.[1] The other regulated inter-state commerce in guns, outlawing the mail order sale of guns, and the buying of guns by felons, drug users, and people who had been involuntarily committed to a mental institution.[2] There matters rested for almost 20 years. They didn’t do a Hell of a lot of good: in 1981 a crazy person tried to kill President Ronald Reagan.

Between 1968 and 1986, some politically-active gun owners came to believe that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF), which enforced federal gun-control laws, had often abused its authority. As a result, some of the restrictions of the 1968 Act were rolled-back by the Firearm Owners Protection Act (1986).[3] One provision of the act barred the federal government from running a registry of owners of non-NFA weapons (machine guns, sawn-off shotguns) sales. Another expanded and clarified the list of people who could not buy guns.

In 1990, Congress passed the Gun Free School Zone Act[4] which barred possession of a gun within 1,000 feet of a school. In cities, schools are everywhere. The law meant to provide grounds for arrest for people in big cities, although—the bureaucratic mind at work—it has also been applied to hunters in New Hampshire. However, in 1995 the Supreme Court overturned this law as unconstitutional. The Clinton Administration then passed a revised Act.

In 1993, Congress passed the Brady Bill.[5] This law required a background check on gun-buyers and a five day waiting period until a computerized system became available.[6] That system, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, came on-line in 1998. It applied to “long guns” as well as hand guns, even though long guns account for only a small fraction of homicides.[7]

In 1994, in reaction to several mass shootings, Congress passed a ten-year ban on the manufacture and sale of “assault weapons.”[8] The law helped to bog down the discussion of what constituted an “assault weapon” by focusing on trivia rather than the key issue of the receiver, which controlled the rate of fire. There matters rested for almost 15 years.

In 2008 and 2010, in two separate cases, the Supreme Court held that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right and that federal law trumps state law.[9] For the moment, at least, the quarrel between “individual right” and “collective right” advocates which opened in Kentucky 200 years before has been settled.

[1] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnibus_Crime_Control_and_Safe_Streets_Act_of_1968 So, my folks giving me a gun on my 12th birthday was not illegal. Also, it occurred in 1966, before the law went into effect.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_Control_Act_of_1968 See, also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5IWK9sRYTs

[3] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_Owners_Protection_Act

[4] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-Free_School_Zones_Act_of_1990

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_Handgun_Violence_Prevention_Act

[6] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haeYj82a9f4

[7] In all likelihood, this drove gun owners wild. It probably made non-gun-owning liberals all warm and gooey.

[8] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Assault_Weapons_Ban

[9] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller; andhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_v._City_of_Chicago. In the McDonald case, the city of Chicago had refused to issue hand-gun permits since 1982, effectively disarming law-abiding citizens, rather than criminals.

The Secret History of the Second Amendment I.

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In 17th Century England, exponents of “natural rights” held that humans had a “right to life,” so they had a “right to self-defense,” so they had a “right to keep and bear arms.” The English “Bill of Rights” (1689) forced on William and Mary[1] as part of the price for them gaining the throne “restored” this long-standing right after King James II had tried to take it.

No one in colonial British America doubted that the “right to keep and bear arms” was an individual right possessed by all free white men. They recognized that this right could lead to trouble on occasion,[2] but they never questioned it. The American Revolution extended this claim to a right of armed resistance against tyranny, but did not replace it. The prefatory clause in the Second Amendment (1791) about “A well-regulated militia” reflected this blurring of two issues. Post-war rebellions on the frontier[3] led to calls for the creation of a strong army, rather than to a questioning of the individual right to keep and bear arms.

Nineteenth Century America could be a violent place, so efforts to limit weapons arose. The efforts sparked the basic division between those who saw the right to keep and bear arms as an “individual” right and those who saw it as a “collective” right operated through the state militia. Only in the aftermath of the Civil War did this debate reach the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1875 the Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment to mean that the federal government could not regulate individual possession of arms, but that state governments were free to do so. The case in question arose out of efforts to disarm freedmen to make them vulnerable to attack by the Ku Klux Klan. The Court upheld this strategy.[4] In 1886, the Supreme Court re-affirmed that the federal government could not regulate arms, but that the states could regulate arms. The case in question arose out of efforts by companies to disarm working men to make them vulnerable to attack by gun-thugs hired by the employers to prevent unionization. The Supreme Court upheld this strategy.[5] There matters rested for 50 years.

In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, various local efforts at gun control proliferated.[6] None of these challenged the individual right, but they sought—with uneven effect—to regulate its use. Then came the “Noble Experiment”: Prohibition.[7] Prohibition stimulated violence among black-market liquor dealers.[8] In 1934, in a reaction against the violence, Congress passed the National Firearms Act (NFA). It required the registration and control of private ownership of fully automatic machine guns and sawn-off shotguns. Congress had considered banning hand-guns as well, but decided that was a loser’s game: too many men owned hand-guns for perfectly legitimate purposes.[9] In 1939, the Supreme Court upheld this law.[10] There matters rested for 30 years.

[1] The king and queen, not the highly-regarded university in Virginia attended—ahem–by my god-son.

[2] For example, writs of eviction of frontier squatters often were not served by sheriffs “by reason of a gun.”

[3] Shay’s Rebellion, 1786-1787; the Whiskey Rebellion, 1791.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Cruikshank

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presser_v._Illinois

[6] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NzK6NzctuE See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullivan_Act

[7] The “war on alcohol” preceded the “war on abortion” before Roe v. Wade, which preceded the “war on drugs.”

[8] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seewFj-zybQ; see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Valentine’s_Day_Massacre

[9] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act

[10] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Miller In 1968 the Supreme Court found that the law would require self-incrimination if a convicted felon failed to register a weapon he was not allowed to own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Firearms_Act Sigh. It was the Sixties. See: “Dirty Harry” (dir. Don Siegel, 1971), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh62SjGdI0s

Assault weapons.

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In America, a lot of people own guns, but most people don’t own any guns.[1] Therefore, most people get confused by the terminology bandied about in public discourse. Government estimates are that Americans own 310 million guns: 196 million “long guns” (110 million rifles; 86 million shotguns), and 114 million hand guns (pistols). Perhaps 4 million of the “long guns’ are what might be called “assault weapons.”[2] A semi-automatic weapon fires one round each time the trigger is pulled. Semi-automatic weapons are fully legal, whether pistols, rifles, or shotguns. In contrast, an automatic weapon fires continuously as long as the trigger is depressed. So, an automatic weapon is a machine gun. These have been banned since 1934.

There is nothing like war to encourage innovation. One of the weapons that made the First World War so appalling was the machine gun—a heavy weapon served by the crew of three or four. Toward the end of the war, weapons-designers invented single-man-portable machine guns: the Thompson sub-machine gun and the Bergmann machine pistol. Other countries soon followed. Toward the end of the Second World War, the German weapon-designer Hugo Schmeisser (yes, that one) produced the “Sturmgewehr” (“storm rifle”). The Russkies soon adapted this into the AK-47.[3] The US countered with the M-16. Both weapons are “selective fire”: they can fire on either automatic or semi-automatic.

There is a semi-automatic version of the M-16 that is known under the generic label of the AR-15. The civilian version of these weapons still fire at a high rate (up to 50 rounds per minute) and they have little recoil. The latter facilitates a different kind of “gun control” than what liberals have in mind.

Sales of semi-automatic, civilian versions of “assault rifles” have been booming. One type rose from 4,600 sold in 2006 to 100,000 sold in 2010. Part of this reflects a deep distrust of the federal government.[4] “The weapons that would be most suited to overthrow a dictatorial federal government would, of course, be weapons of war, and not sports equipment.”[5]

Homicides rarely involve “assault weapons.” In 2011, there were 323 murders committed with any kind of rifle, but there were 6,220 committed with hand-guns. “Assault weapons” were used in less than half of the “mass shootings” in the last thirty years. On the other hand, some of the most eye-catching mass killings involved “assault weapons”: the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado, and the Sandy Hook School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, both used civilian versions of “assault weapons.” One estimate suggests that banning assault weapons[6] would reduce the death toll from shootings by as much as 100 victims per year. That isn’t much in comparison to the 11,000 gun homicides a year in the United States. Unless you’re one of the dead or the bereaved.

On one level, the question is how did James Holmes (Aurora, CO), or Adam Lanza (Newtown, CN), or Jared Loughner (Phoenix, AZ) get a gun in the first place? On another level, the question is why people are obsessed by 4 million weapons that caused 300-odd deaths?

The real issue is hand-guns. Who owns them? Why? Would regulation work?

[1] If you just “don’t like guns,” then my tedious explanation is not for you. I understand your emotions, but do not share them.

[2] “The assault weapon,” The Week, 15 February 2013, p. 11.

[3] See: “The Gun That Made the Nineties Roar.”

[4] Which criminalized Japanese ancestry in 1941.

[5] David Kopel, Cato Institute, quoted in “The assault weapon,” The Week, 15 February 2013, p. 11.

[6] As Australia did after one terrible massacre in 1996.

Mass shootings.

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What is a “mass shooting”? Answers differ: at least four people shot dead in a public place; or at least four people shot dead anywhere; or at least four people shot—wounded or killed–anywhere.

In liberal discourse, the US leads the world in mass shootings. By one count, 31 percent of all mass shootings occur in the United States.[1] Proponents of this view are quick to slide in the “developed country” qualifier because in reality, it doesn’t. Why not drive into a Mexican border town to check it out? Still, saying “well it’s worse in Guatemala” doesn’t help.

The most expansive totals for “mass shootings” appear to be arrived at by rolling in all the shootings associated with a sub-culture of violence among poor people. Drive-by shootings get counted just like massacres in fast-food restaurants. “Would you like death with that?”

One trope, less noticed and less publicized than others, holds that mass killings have a copy-cat element to them. Mass media attention devoted to one killer then helps put the idea into the pointy little heads of others. So, one solution would be to regulate the press to reduce the “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality.[2] This would involve curtailing the First Amendment.

Another trope, much more widely noticed, holds that these appalling crimes arise from American “gun culture.” Widespread gun-ownership and feeble limits on access to guns by evil-doers leads to slaughter. Leaving aside the people who beef with someone at an after-hours party in a rotting former greenhouse on a Saturday night, who are the shooters? Almost all are men; almost two thirds (64 percent) are white.[3] Working backward after mass shootings, scholars have found in about half of the killers some earlier sign of “mental illness.” The trouble is that this runs the gamut from depression to paranoia to full-blown schizophrenia. Moreover, “there is no one diagnosis that’s linked to mass shootings.” Many different diagnoses have been offered. Hence, “We can’t go out and lock up all the socially awkward young men in the world.”[4] Of course not: they often become college professors. (I can hear the gears turning in Lynn Cheney’s head already.) Furthermore, millions of men suffer from some kind of mental illness without ever becoming violent. In our current state of knowledge, it is impossible to predict who will be a killer (perhaps 20 a year) and who will not (millions).[5] Like convicted felons, people who have been involuntarily committed to a mental health facility are barred from purchasing guns. However, less than a quarter of the killers in mass shootings (23 percent) have been treated for a prior mental illness.

So, if you can’t invade First Amendment freedoms because the right of businesses to sell faulty products is sacred, and you can’t predict which mentally ill person will turn into a mass killer, and you don’t like a high murder rate, and the regulation of sales of guns is flawed by human error, then the only logical solution to the problem would be to disarm Americans in general. This is where a lot of the push-back originates.

About 100 people get killed a year in mass shootings out of 11-12,000 murder victims. That is both a drop in the bucket and a sign of the malign influence of media.

[1]. “The killing contagion,” The Week, 11 September 2015, p. 11.

[2] Hillary Clinton has recently endorsed proposals to try to deter the “short term” obsession of the stock market traders, so it isn’t much of a jump to deterring the obsessions of reporters and advertising managers.

[3] Compared with African-Americans (16%) and Asians (9%). The white share of mass shooters matches with the share of the over-all population, while the African-American share somewhat exceeds the share of over-all population (12.2%) and the Asian share is dramatically higher than the share of over-all population (4.7%).

[4] Jeffrey Swanson, Duke University, quoted in “The killing contagion,” The Week, 11 September 2015, p. 11.

[5] See: “Minority Report” (dir. Steven Spielberg, 1995).

The Clin-tons. See: Theme for “The Simpsons.”

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After leaving the White House in 2001, Bill Clinton found himself at loose ends. He didn’t have a ranch with brush to clear, so he started a little foundation to help children in Harlem. In 2002 he added an effort to raise money to lower the cost of AIDS drugs in Africa. In 2005 he launched the Clinton Global Initiative: an annual meeting of the smart, rich, and “concerned.”   This mini-Davos still runs, providing an opportunity for powerful people from many domains to hob-nob. However, the Clinton Foundation soon saw itself awash in donations ($2 billion and counting) from big business and foreign governments. In addition, Bill Clinton found himself much in demand as a speaker: he’s earned $26 million in fees.[1] It is, or should be, hard for any American to carp about this tale of a poor country boy who made good.

One fly in the ointment is that examination of the tax records of the Clinton Foundation for 2011-2013 shows that only 10 percent of the donations it has received go to actual charitable projects. The rest goes to administrative expenses.[2] Those administrative expenses include a staff of 2,000 that is packed with Clinton loyalists. .

A second fly in the ointment is that Hillary Clinton launched her own political career at the same moment that Bill Clinton launched his profitable post-presidency. She won election to the Senate, ran for the Democratic nomination for President in a year when the Democrats actually did win the White House, served for four years as Secretary of State as a consolation prize from Barack Obama, and is no the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for President. The millions of dollars pouring into their joint account began to look very much like a slush fund and as influence-peddling.

In the second term of the George W. Bush Administration, the US sold about $85 billion in weapons to twenty State Department-approved countries. In the first term of the Obama Administration, the US sold about $165 billion in weapons to twenty State Department-approved countries. Those twenty countries had made millions of dollars in donations to the Clinton Foundation.[3] For example, the government of Algeria donated $500,000 to the foundation, then received State Department approval for a 70 percent increase in authorized military purchases from the United States. That looks bad, to my eye, but it gets worse. The Obama administration had extracted a promise from the Clintons that all foreign donations to the foundation would be fully reported. Somehow, the foundation forgot to report this one and others as well.

When the Hillary Clinton e-mail “scandal” first broke, 44 percent of Republicans thought it was a “very serious problem,” while 17 percent of Democrats thought it was a “very serious problem.” After a week of both parties spinning the issue for all it was worth, the divergence had increased. By late March 2015, 68 percent of Republicans thought that it was a “very serious problem,” while 8 percent of Democrats thought that it was a “very serious matter.”[4] That “scandal” centers on Hillary Clinton’s use of a potentially insecure private e-mail server located in the Clinton family home in New York. Under pressure, she turned over 30,000 e-mail messages that bore on State Department business. Some Republican inquisitors may hope to find a smoking gun with regard to Benghazi. However, the real issue may be in the many other “personal” messages that she deleted. Worming around in the minds of many people is the suspicion that “If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck.”

[1] “The Clintons’ controversial foundation,” The Week, 3 July 2015, p. 11.

[2] “Clinton Foundation: Is it a true charity?” The Week, 15 May 2015, p. 16.

[3] “Noted,” The Week, 12 June 2015, p. 16.

[4] “Poll Watch,” The Week, 27 March 2015, p. 17.

Vacation dream spot.

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Back in April 2008 a New York Times writer sang the praises of an as-yet under-touristed destination. There one could find an “ancient way of life that is still largely intact.” It was but the latest of the-next-place-to-be-discovered.[1] Contemporary society—or some sub-set of it—places a premium on rare and new experiences. Probably they are a form of status possession. Globalization in all its forms (standardization of products world-wide; cheap jet fares; the idea of taking a gap year or sabbatical at some point in your life; wealthy leisure-based societies) has created a huge market for experiences that once were the realm of misfits.[2] Now college graduates with Business degrees fight forest fires and work at ski resorts; academically-inclined college students seek berths on merchant ships, future school teachers spend a few years trying to surf all the best breaks in the Pacific; and bed-and-breakfast inn-keepers in New England spend the off-season buying textiles in Bali.[3] What are they after? Something different from the Burberry-Ralph Lauren-Tommy Hilfiger knock-off possessions that jam the stores? Some contact with challenging and “authentic” experience? Hence the search for new places.

Where was this wonderland? Yemen.[4] There, “every prospect pleases”[5]: remarkable traditional architecture un-sullied by the golden arches of McDonald’s and a combination of mountain with desert. In the Old City section of the capital, visitors are literally walking back into the Middle Ages in a way that is not true of the hordes trudging around Notre Dame in Paris. There are street markets that look and smell (of khat and persimmons) much as they must have when Mohammed was contemplating a career change. Striking out from the capital, visitors could explore the mountain-top village of Al Hajjara,[6] a sort of cactus-strewn Muslim Orvieto, which is not much changed from the time of its original construction in the 11th Century. Then there is the Wadi Hadhramaut, an Arabian valley in which things will actually grow. Frankincense first of all, but also senna and cocoanut.

Well, understandably, things have deteriorated since that description of actual adventure tourism.[7] “Only man is vile.”[8] Even in 2008 the US Department of State issued scary “travel advisories” for those thinking of a trip to Yemen. Now the country is home to a lot of al Qaeda people, there’s a savage civil war going on, and Saudi Arabia and Iran are using it as a proxy battlefield in the same way that Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia used Spain in the late Thirties.

That doesn’t mean that things will stay this bad forever. Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din (or Imam Yahya) (1869-1948) ruled the country after the First World. He reined-in, if he could not entirely put a stop to, the endemic feuds and banditry. So, perhaps one day trekkers will return to Al Hajjara and the Hydramaut valley.

[1] See: Alex Garland, The Beach (1996); William Gibson, Pattern Recognition (2003); and David Simon, producer, “The Wire” (2002-2008) for various observations on modern society’s relentless drive to “step on the package.” Anyway, that’s how I read them.

[2] See, for one example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_de_Monfreid

[3] Just to list some people I know.

[4] “This week’s dream: Yemen’s secret world.” The Week, 4 April 2008, p. 30.

[5] Reginald Heber, “From Greenland’s mighty mountain” (1819). http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/from_greenlands_icy_mountains.htm

[6] Lonely Planet used to publish a guide-book to Yemen. It noted that Al Hajjara served as the jumping-off point for people hiking into the wilderness. I wonder if Anwar al-Awlaki had a copy?

[7] As opposed to merely working up a sweat being led around places by NOLS teams or having a five-star dinner in the open on a dude ranch.

[8] Heber again.