I've been looking through a number of reports and comparing the attitudes of the writers. For some it is the wide availability of guns, some wanting tighter rules for registration. Others want a total ban on sales. Others are content to punch down on people who fall into certain demographics. For some people the problem is republicans, for others it is 'loners', or maybe 'people with autism', or 'resentful gays', or 'transgenders'.
It's interesting to me that some ignore the fact that the majority of the offenders are cis and male, but more importantly it seems that each writer is keen to pin the cause as a single cause. America is keen to look to deny that they have a gun-ho culture despite the fact that is how they love to portray themselves in books, films, video games and even within their porn culture.
The bullying, harassment, and victimisation is prevalent in American schools, and fighting back tends to be the stock answer to prevention. American culture perpetuates a circle of violent behaviour. America wishes to deny these obvious influences on their culture. It is unfortunate that this is coupled with such religious belief that moral indignation becomes the self-justification for the brutality in this culture.
At the moment, many are saying in answer to some questions, 'it's too early to say'. Others are rabbiting including in this place about the effects of testosterone on trans men. The details are such that we are even given the make and model of the car they arrived in, but as a person who was only just very recently coming out as a trans person, that likelihood of HRT use may be low.
When I sum the known facts, I arrive not at a conclusion, but a suspicion of the events that may have later given motive.
Audrey Hale had high-functioning autism. This may have been better ameliorated in a school with some specialist arrangements. Instead, parents who themselves were church ministers paid for private education in a church school. Audrey had told their parents that they were gay. This led to to huge fall out. One can imagine the fall out when they found that Audrey now identifies as a different gender.
It is reported that Audrey Hale had the school under observation. When the attack took place, it was not the school itself that was under attack, it was the church attached to the school which is why there was such a low number of children there. Audrey may have expected to met none. The first room to be visited was the church office indicating that it is likely she had specific targets, but not children.
While the availability of guns is a very large problem is USA culture, so is the toxic macho culture making the preparedness to use guns is another.
To me America is a paradox. It is a rights-centred and rights-driven culture, that places greater impetus and imperative on the right to religious belief, right to absolute free speech, and right to bear arms, with limited responsibility for consequence coupled with a high litigation culture. And yet, these rights seem to trump the right to life.
There are aggravating factors, particularly the Republican favouring media in the hands of billionaires such a Murdoch and Musk who see profit in the kind of controversy that causes division.
The gun culture may not be coming to the UK soon but much else is, especially the lie that the UK has absolute free speech without consequence; it hasn't. In the UK this lie is now not only defended by Conservatives, but parliamentarians in opposition parties.
It isn't just a time for the USA to reflect on their culture issues, it's time for the UK too. At the moment we are undergoing a culture shift where we justify punching down on the vulnerable, people with disabilities, those with poor mental health, those without work, those without homes, those who are refugees, those people who are sit somewhere in the LGBTiQ community. The UK is reaching towards the kind of culture of unkindness to others being witnessed in the USA. We may not have the gun culture, but guns are not the only weapons. We are trending towards a more violent society with less resources allocated to counter it. As humans we need to change or else be in danger of losing our humanity.
