Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D. 7-18-24

The attempted assassination of Mr. Trump should give us pause, but it should not frighten us, and it was not an attack on our democracy.  You would think it was apocalyptic from looking at our media, but this is an example of over-hype by the media, who are in constant “arouse you by exaggerating” mode.  The shooter appears to be a “lone wolf” and not acting for any political party or other group.  America periodically has assassinations of major figures, though the number is actually quite few per year.  This is just the latest one.  Congress will get as much mileage out of this as they can, by “investigating” and claiming that it could have been prevented and that it should never happen again, but this is mostly political posturing.  The assassinations that we have are because of who we are.

The Secret Service will be the scapegoat here, because they “should” never allow such a thing to happen, but, of course, they cannot (and no one could) prevent these shootings totally—there is simply too much opportunity for shooters.  Think of the manpower (at least 20 agents (?) and many support personnel) that was present.  They can’t see everything all the time (and if the local policeman who got his head over the rooftop and saw the shooter had managed to get his own gun out, the shooting would probably not have happened at all).  We will no doubt have more of these shootings, every once in a while, and the Secret Service will continue to foil many more attempts than are successful.

What do I mean that we have shootings because of who we are?  We let everyone believe and think whatever they want to, and I agree with this value position, but it makes it easier for unhappy or disturbed individuals to see themselves as avenging angels, potentially famous assassins, or saviors of the civilized world and not have their delusions challenged by other people.

We give people their privacy, and I agree with this position, but this has the effect of allowing thoughts and plans to brew unchecked.  For this, it would be better if people were more “in each other’s business” than now—something that could be true if we interacted more face-to-face instead of doing most of our social business on-line.

We expect people to take care of themselves, and we make it relatively hard for desperately unhappy people to find a friendly ear or a helpful co-worker.  We don’t want to “interfere,” and, of course, we are too busy to listen.

We are free with our guns, thinking that crime is rampant and that the government will probably try to herd us all into concentration camps if everyone did not have their own guns.  Take a look at nations who have few guns among the citizenry (Japan, England).  Are their government’s ignoring their citizens’ freedoms or putting them into concentration camps?  No.  Do they have the murder rates that we have?  No, they don’t.

We encourage obsessions with violence by making it so available, in video games where killing people is a winning strategy and in movies where violence is always justified for the good guys because the bad guys have to be stopped or because revenge is necessary.  Take a look at the proportion of movies that have major violence in them—it’s big.

We allow, even enjoy, the overblown rhetoric and lies that our politicians feed us.  We like to get excited about the sins of those who have different ideas than ours and be assured that someone in authority will make it all OK again.  We like to think that we are morally superior to those who think differently.  The rhetoric on both sides (though considerably worse with Mr. Trump) in this campaign acts to inflame passions, and as a result, a few people in every party will feel like they have to act.  Illegal aliens are not vermin (Trump) and Mr. Trump’s candidacy is probably not an existential threat to our nation (Biden).

Having some assassinations is the cost of the above freedoms and factors, just as a higher murder and injury rate from gun use is a cost of our “freedom” to have guns.  I don’t hear any other candidates or politicians offering to change any of these factors so as to lower the rate of assassinations.  Do you?  We make our choices and then live with the consequences.

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