Texas shooting: United States: violence without end | Opinion

It has happened again, this time twice, and once again the same cycle will presumably be repeated: an episode of shocking violence followed by civil and media stupefaction that leads to calls for regulation that do not end up crystallizing into substantial measures. In the face of tragedy we are always tempted to take refuge in despair, but the will to understand also beats within us. That is why, beyond the complaints both outside and inside the United States, the same question resonates: how is it possible?

The question does not point so much to the mobile of the attackers (it is doubtful that in other countries we are safe from individuals who share their desires) as to the means used. Thus, the first thing that draws attention is something so obvious that it is sometimes overlooked: why does a teenager have access to weapons capable of unleashing such a degree of violence? The answer is mainly political and has its roots in the origins of the country itself. We have all heard of the famous Second Amendment. It is not necessary to be familiar with the American legal system, it is enough to consume the culture that arrives from the other side of the Atlantic. The Second Amendment, inspired by an English legal precept derived from the Glorious Revolution and proposed by James Madison, was created in 1791 (it is part of the so-called Bill of Rights) and the reason for its existence is apparently simple despite its confusing wording: to legalize the existence of militias (essential in a historical context of war and weak state construction) and provide Americans with the possibility of protecting themselves from a despotic government . The average citizen can only frown: what does that have to do with the possibility of unleashing a massacre in the 21st century?

Laws are rarely unequivocal, and in the United States there is an entire political and industrial fabric with little interest in undoing the ambiguity of the Second Amendment. The justifications for the sale of weapons have fluctuated from one reason to another in the last two centuries, but they can be reduced to two: the right to protect oneself (from criminals, it is assumed) and the prevention of state abuse. What began as a collective right in a very precise context that referred mainly to the civil militias (which nobody mentions anymore) was individualized in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, so that suddenly it serves to legitimize that one can have a rifle home assault. Large arms manufacturing companies such as Ruger or Smith & Wesson have been benefiting from these interpretations for decades to establish a market that has been on the rise since the middle of the last century. The National Rifle Association (NRA), with thinly veiled ties to industry, takes the place of lobby quintessential pro-weapons. It has millions of members and revenues of more than 400 million dollars, which are used, among other things, to support Republican candidates (in 2016, Trump received around 30 million dollars). For these, the right to bear arms is a symbol of American freedom (understood as protection of the individual) that can always be threatened by Washington (obvious, of course, the possible asymmetry between an armed civilian and the most powerful Army of the planet). For this reason, it may be surprising to know that the right to own weapons has also been defended from progressive positions, in part returning to the original meaning of the Second Amendment: it has been defended by unions, anarchist militants, feminist groups, and (perhaps this is the most famous example ) the Black Panthers of Bobby Seale and Huey Newton to protect themselves from a series of state institutions that they considered essentially racist.

But whoever falls into political and economic reductionism is wrong. The situation in which a racist attack and a massacre in a school by armed individuals take place in the same week has very specific cultural conditions of possibility. It is not enough to single out a handful of politicians, lobbyists and merchants, although that vision connects well with certain ideological positions. Carrying weapons is not only a legal possibility and a business, it is also a cultural symbol, often conveyed by Hollywood. In a country without a distant past from which to articulate its national identity, cowboys, armed individuals in hostile environments without state roots, have fulfilled the role of almost legendary heroes. Along with them were settlers and explorers on their way to the Far West, for whom rifles were as essential as maps. Later came the gangsters and mobsters with their revolvers and machine guns, at first represented as crystallizations of evil, but soon turned into anti-heroes with an aura capable of overshadowing their moral failings and captivating audiences young and not so young. Firearms have thus become a symbol of self-defense, but also of authority and fearlessness. Perhaps that is why it connects so clearly with masculine desires for self-affirmation. After all, it cannot be a coincidence that 98% of shootings are the work of men.

In a quote that has probably been muddled on several occasions, Baruch Spinoza said something like that in the face of the unknowns that assail us we should not laugh or cry, but rather try to understand. It is crucial to glimpse that behind the image of a teenager carrying a semi-automatic rifle in the direction of an institute that causes us so much astonishment, there is a whole historical and political residue. The desires that fuel the perpetrators of the Buffalo and Uvalde massacres are not unique to American culture. Yes, it is the entire framework that has been outlined here and that from time to time serves as the foundation for a series of assumptions that James Madison could not imagine. The mobilization (political, cultural, civil) required to overcome this network is monumental (and should be as polyhedral as what it faces) and will despair those who want to cut the knot instead of undoing the threads, but it is the only alternative to horror. Otherwise, the country will be doomed to endless violence.