And so, the killings continue apace. In the month of August alone, 53 people died in mass shootings in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The final carnage last month took place in Texas, when, after a traffic stop, a gunman began shooting randomly at cars, killing seven innocent people and injuring 22. Once again, it was a man who carried out the madness, which was the 38th mass killing by firearms in the nation this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The shooter was not female, nor was he African-American, Muslim, or Hispanic. The shooter was an angry, hate-filled white man. Nearly all modern mass shootings in this country \u2014at least 170 at last count\u2014have been carried out by men, almost always white men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the latest mass shooting occurs in the U.S., we talk about mental health issues (although studies of mass killers have found that only 20 percent had a psychotic illness) and we talk about guns and gun laws. But why don\u2019t we talk about the connection between guns and \u201ctoxic masculinity?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s what researchers suggest we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being a male, says writer Laura Kiesel in Politico, \u201cis often listed as one of the top two predictive risk factors for committing serious violence\u201d \u2014more than any definitive mental health diagnosis. (A history of alleged or convicted domestic abuse is another top predictive factor.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearly half of white men in the U.S. own guns, say Nicki DeMarco and Erin Patrick O\u2019Connor of the Washington Post, and nearly one-quarter of non-white men say they own firearms. American men are five times more likely to own a gun than a woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most firearms are designed for men\u2019s hands and bodies. Most gun advertisements are geared toward men, too. A semiautomatic rifle manufactured by Bushmaster, the large North Carolina-based manufacturer and distributor of firearms, was advertised under the slogan \u201cConsider Your Man Card Reissued.\u201d Adam Lanza used it to kill 26 people, mostly children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now consider the stereotypical view of masculinity in this country. Men are supposed to be capable breadwinners for their families, and also be their protectors. (Think John Wayne and Tony Soprano.) If men can\u2019t adequately fill those roles in today\u2019s America, can guns help fill the gap? If they haven\u2019t achieved financial and romantic success, can guns help them feel \u201cmanly?\u201d Can guns assure these men that they\u2019re still relevant in today\u2019s society? Can guns help them regain control?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the conventional view of the 21st-century American male, the answer to these questions seems to be yes, yes, yes, and yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Contemplate also about what it means to be a boy or man in modern America. Boys and men are supposed to be strong. They are supposed to bottle up their emotions and hide their feelings\u2014and never, ever cry. They are supposed to be invulnerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The upshot? \u201cWhen we expect boys and men to be dominant, powerful, in charge, to not give in,\u201d explains Scott Melzer, an author and professor of sociology at Albion College in Michigan, \u201cwe\u2019re coaching them, training them to commit violence when they feel like they\u2019ve lost control.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now mix in the culture of violence that is endemic in today\u2019s America. Violence inhabits our entertainment media, our video games, our sports, our schools, our military, our criminal justice system. Violence inhabits the Internet, too. So, why should we be surprised at the unrelenting savagery that plays out in the United States almost daily?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are many solutions to America\u2019s gun crisis, the most obvious of which are instituting universal, more effective background checks; enacting a federal assault weapons ban and limit on high-capacity magazines; and passing red-flag laws that would keep dangerous weapons temporarily out of the hands of troubled people. Heavy majorities of Americans favor all three of these actions, yet we remain paralyzed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the question remains: Why do men\u2014 almost always white men \u2014 overwhelmingly commit mass murders in this country?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
And so, the killings continue apace. In the month of August alone, 53 people died in mass shootings in the United States. The final carnage last month took place in Texas, when, after a traffic stop, a gunman began shooting randomly at cars, killing seven innocent people and injuring 22. Once again, it was a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jan-collins.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}