The Fudge family mourns the loss of Derrick Fudge, a victim of the mass shooting took place on August 4 in Dayton. Photo: AFP

 

Two mass shootings within less than 24 hours in Texas and Ohio have sent the whole US society into shock.

US President Donald Trump flew to El Paso, Texas, where a self-declared white supremacist killed at least 22 people at a Walmart heavily frequented by customers of Hispanic origin. Trump condemned racism and white supremacy, but many people criticized him for avoiding the important and dwelling on the trivial - he did not talk about gun control. Some people say the US has become a "cradle" for mass shootings.

It seems there are grounds for those concerns with no constructive progress in gun control in the US. Many people have lived in shadows of frequent gun shootings. Some of them say they are afraid to go out in public.

Uneasy society

An article titled "'It Feels Like Being Hunted': Latinos Across US in Fear After El Paso Massacre" was published in the New York Times on August 6, describing a daughter of Ecuadorean immigrants crying alone in her car and a Texas lawyer buying a gun to defend his family.

The article said that whether they are liberal or conservative, speakers of English or Spanish, recent immigrants or descendants of pioneers who put down stakes in the Southwest 400 years ago, many Latinos in interviews this week said they felt deeply shaken at the idea that radicalized white nationalism seemed to have placed them in its crosshairs.

There were about 59.9 million Latinos in the United States as of July 2018, accounting for 18 percent of the population — nearly one in five people in the country. That was up from 14.8 million in 1980, or just 6.5 percent of the population, according to the Pew Research Center. 

Nowadays, in El Paso, residents talk about how it feels dangerous to go out to eat or to the movies. Gun shops in the city are bustling with customers, many of them Latino, the report said.

It's not just Latinos who are scared, there are more ordinary people. On Tuesday night August 6 just before 10 pm, chaos erupted in Times Square after the crowd mistook backfiring vehicles for a possible mass shooter.

A tweet by a US woman on August 4, saying "Whenever I'm in a public space, I think about what would happen if a mass shooting broke out. It's a constant, low-level anxiety that follows me everywhere. I wonder if it's just me. I don't think it is," triggered nearly 40,000 tweets. Obviously, this topic has resonated.

A USA Today/Ipsos poll shows that many say fear of mass shootings has changed the way they live their lives. "About one in five, 21%, say they have skipped public events where a lot of people will gather. Nearly as many, 18%, say they have avoided shopping in crowded places. One in four, 25%, have talked with family members about what to do if a shooting happened in a place where they were," USA Today reported. 

The foregoing is not an isolated case. On May 31, a group of mischievous teenagers ignited firecrackers on a New York subway during the morning rush hour. As a result, people thought that there was a shooting, and they were unable to take their belongings and fled. Afterwards, the head of the New York commuter department angrily called the group "idiots" and "must be brought to justice."

One incident in August 2016 almost caused the Los Angeles airport to close. People mistook some noise as gunshots and panic spread fast. People ran in every direction heading out of the terminal.

Reporting the latest shootings, the Associated Press raised the question that is the US entering an era where people have to think twice or thrice before stepping outside of their home. "You still have to go to the grocery store to get dinner. You can't just not go."

Horrific cycle

"Choose the news you read," "Think more about the beautiful things in your life." These are some advice experts give the US public to release their psychological pressure. "Mass shootings have become so common in our country that doctors are calling gun violence a public health epidemic," read the US medical news website prevention.com.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), mass shootings could cause severe trauma and can trigger feelings of shock, sorrow, numbness, anger, and grief. It could also cause sleep, concentration, eating or memory troubles. Some US citizens the Global Times reporter reached expressed their complex feeling toward mass shooting.

Ed and his wife, both retired, just came back from visiting relatives in Texas. The couple said that the mass shooting in Texas was unexpected. It was disastrous and shameful for the US. They thought citizens carrying guns showed the guarding of liberty, but now it has become the culprit that hurts innocent people. They wondered if one day they could also become victims of guns. The couple said that they have less confidence about the country in these times.

It is summer holiday. Christine and Joanna, who are African Americans, often hang out with friends. But they admitted that they are afraid of going to crowded places anymore, especially shopping malls, as criminals often target such spots. Christine said that she hears about shootings every day, and the government and police seem numb to the news. "This is the worst news of the summer holiday."

The Jones couple have three children under 10. They go to the community pool every day in summer. They said that they have been numb to the mass shooting news. As normal people, it is not enough for them to be just careful, and they are unable to move to other countries where guns are strictly controlled.

Other countries have concerns about security in the US.

Recently, Venezuela and Uruguay published travel warnings for their citizens traveling to the US because "people could own guns in the US." Before that, Germany, Ireland and Canada also suggested their citizens should consider the gun and crime problems.

The Small Arms Survey reveals that US civilians in total own 393 million firearms, accounting for 46 percent of the worldwide total of civilian-held firearms, the most in the world. On average, every 100 people has 120.5 firearms, also the most in the world.

Gun Violence Archive, a website in the US, said that there had been 251 mass shootings in the US in 216 days of the year with the latest being the one in Dayton, Ohio on August 4, which killed 10. 

"America's nightmare may have just begun," read an editorial of German Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Mass shootings are so frequent in the US because firearms are easy to get in the country. Also, racist voices are common here. The two things have deeply permeated into US society. With the two, the US is now in a horrific cycle.

Photo: VCG

'US is sick'

From many experts' views, firearms have become totems of freedom in the US. Every time a gun-related crime happens, society always attaches hope of change to the two parties' fierce debates in Congress. However, economic profits and the pursuit of power mean that neither Democrats nor Republicans will forcefully push forward firearms control.

The Global Times has spoken to a number of researchers in the US, most of whom believe that the biggest obstacle to gun control is that there are too many Republican Congressmen who have been "kidnapped" by gun associations. A few conservative Congressmen view the issue from the perspective of the Second Amendment of the Constitution, and due to political donations from some political organizations, they have lost interest in seriously considering the opposition's opinions. The five gun associations spent nearly $12 million last year on lobbying, compared with merely $2 million spent by gun control organizations in lobbying.

Trump's advisors including Steve Bannon have said that advocating gun control would mean giving up on re-election for Trump. Previously the Democrats learned their lessons. Democrats made breakthroughs in gun control during the Clinton era, however, the radical policies caused loss of votes and eventually resulted in Republicans ending the Democrats' 40-year grip on the House of Representatives in 1994.

Yuan Zheng, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that people in big cities like New York and Los Angeles care more about gun-related safety issues. But in sparsely populated central and western areas, more people oppose gun control, and even appalling gun crimes could not change this situation. "At a time when the 2020 general election is around the corner, Trump will have to seek support from the NRA. So, society's push for gun control won't achieve anything more than a Congressional debate."

Ironically, the two parties in the US are still arguing about who is responsible for the shooting incidents. Most Democrats blame Republican lawmakers and vice versa. Marc A. Thiessen, a research fellow at the Conservative think tank - the American Enterprise Institute, wrote in the Washington Post on August 7 that "If Trump is responsible for El Paso, then Democrats are responsible for Dayton." The logic is that the suspect in the previous shooting was a white supremacist, and the gunman in the latter case was suspected of being a left-wing militant.

Yuan said that racial discrimination, economic downturn and the jobs situation of people with extreme emotions have all laid the seeds for the intensification of contradictions at all levels of American society. Meanwhile, the economic and equity issues behind gun management have greatly hindered the US from taking substantial steps in the issue of gun control. The factors are intertwined, and the American people are constantly shrouded in the shadow of gun crimes.

"US is sick," a German news TV station said that many people believe that the main cause of frequent shootings in the US is that there are too many weapons, but the truth turns out to be the opposite. About 30 percent of people in the US say they have guns, compared with 50 percent in the 1970s, according to a new Pew Research survey. Frequent shootings are a reaction to high-pressure emotions in society. The widening gap between the rich and the poor and the rise of racism have led to an increase in the internal division of the US. "America First" foreign policy reflects American isolationism and lack of self-confidence. The US government needs to look for reasons inside the country and society.

Global Times