At 8:30am on Tuesday, an African American man wearing a neon orange and green construction vest released two smoke grenades as the N train New York subway pulled into the 36th Street station in Sunset Park. He proceeded to open fire using a 9mm semi automatic Glock, hitting 10 victims and leaving at least 19 others wounded (included two teens, a pregnant woman, seven men and three women). Luckily, the gun jammed, preventing the man from firing more. Police identified Frank James as the primary suspect and have yet to catch him as of Tuesday night.
The incident has once again brought up the issue of gun control and how America’s lenient gun laws allows for mass shootings to occur. There was also a recent shooting in Sacramento as well. Gov. Kathy Hochul declared that these shootings have to stop and that she would commit full resources to cut down on crime. With all these recent shootings, I believe it only adds to the urgency to create new gun control laws that make it harder for people to gain guns. However, new laws will only lead to fierce pushback from the NRA and people claiming their Second Amendment rights. This is what makes it difficult to create new gun laws.
The person of interest, Frank James, was also posting racist content on YouTube before the shooting. He was “ranting about Mayor Adams, homeless people in the subway system, gun violence, and how out reach workers are ‘homosexual predators’”. He also has a history of being treated for mental-health issues which bring up the question of how he was able to get his hands on a gun and smoke bombs. He for sure shouldn’t have been able to access a gun and the incident demonstrates a great flaw within our gun control system. Another interesting issue is that of social media regulation and if his videos beforehand warranted a possible arrest or something that could’ve prevented the shooting from occurring. NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell stated that the videos James posted were “concerning posts” but not “threats” which probably wouldn’t have led to any action beforehand.
Questions:
How do you think this shooting could’ve been prevented?
Do we need tighter gun laws?
Is social media regulation necessary to stop crime and violence? This connects to the January 6th insurrection last year where much of the organizing came from social media.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/04/12/nyregion/brooklyn-subway-shooting
https://nypost.com/2022/04/12/nypd-investigating-possible-explosion-in-brooklyn-subway-station/
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/12/us/brooklyn-subway-shooting/
5 comments:
Continually, as a blog, I believe many of us (including myself) have been on the side of "we need tighter gun laws." This incident is another call for more gun regulation. I hope people have not become numb to this need as more and more incidents unfortunately happen.
Although, I'd like to more specifically bring up the issue of a person with history of mental-health struggles having possession of a gun. After doing a bit of research, there is a federal law (and many laws in states) that prohibit the possession of a gun by people with mental illnesses. There is regulation in place for this, but perhaps we need to focus on the enforcement of this much needed regulation.
I think the main way we could have prevented this incident was to enforce stricter gun control laws. As Katie mentioned, this is a recurring issue, and we will only see change with gun violence if we make an effort to change the laws and regulations surrounding guns. Although there is a gun law in place prohibiting people with mental-health issues from possessing a gun, this man was obviously able to get around this rule. I think that not only do we need tighter gun laws, but we also need to enforce the ones already in place.
As for the role social media played in this, I think that we should start to use social media as a tool to stop crime and violence. However, I say this with caution, because we know that not everything posted online is factual or reliable. I think that social media posts can be used as evidence to a certain extent, but should be backed up with more concrete evidence.
I agree with both Caitlin and Katie that these kind of events can be prevented by stricter gun control laws, especially when it comes to restricting those with severe mental illness from owning a gun (both for their own protection and for the protection of others). Mental illness seems to be a common factor amongst many of the tragic shootings that we see. It also seems that many Americans are becoming desensitized to these shootings-- I have definitely lost track of the amount that we hear about, but there seems to be no significant change in gun regulation. Our country is certainly an anomaly when it comes to gun control, even though it might seem normal to us who have lived in the United States for our entire lives. 79% of 2020 US homicides are a result of gun - related killings, compared to 4% in the UK and 13% in Australia.
Additionally, related to the topic of mental illness, "[f]igures from the CDC show there were a total of more than 45,000 gun deaths in 2020 - of which more than 24,200 were suicides" (Source at bottom). This is another reason why it is important to strengthen restrictions on those with mental illnesses owning a firearm.
However, despite the amount of gun violence, support for stricter gun laws does not seem to be increasing. Americans seem to be set on their 2A rights, no matter the cost. While this is a two-sided issue, I think that looking at the events such as this one it is clear that we need more restrictive and effective gun control. And, relating to the social media part of the shooting, sites like 4chan and 8chan have been linked to several shootings. Online radicalization often preys on the most isolated and at-risk individuals, and while the individuals are absolutely at fault, these sites are too. Mental illness is often blamed as the root cause for shootings like this, despite the fact that the the real issue is the lack of treatment for these mental illnesses. Mental health care is expensive and may be difficult to access for many individuals. Making these services more accessible would also be a way to prevent incidents like these.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081
If there are guns anywhere in the United States, then the whole country will have access to them. This is not a new thing, the "iron pipeline" has existed for decades. Individuals purchase guns in states with relaxed gun laws (think the Deep South), load them on trucks, and move them to the coasts or the North, fueling gun violence. This is why a sizable portion of crime in cities with alarmingly high murder rates like Baltimore or Chicago comes from guns purchased out of state. That's why gun violence is still such a huge problem in California cities like LA or Oakland. The only way to really make a difference with gun reform is to ban them nationwide. Will a hunting rifle be maneuverable enough to take into a train station or sporting event? Probably not, but in the hands of the right person it could get pretty close. Even for sport shooting, mental health and prior felony convictions still need to be watertight, background checks can't be lax. The other alternative is super strict checkpoints at state lines, but that's expensive and impossible to implement. If there are guns anywhere, then they could get to everywhere. I wonder where the gun used in this event was purchased/registered, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't a New York gun.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/12/us/gun-traffickers-smuggling-state-gun-laws.html
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