Missing Submersibles and Mass Shootings

By Bobby Neal Winters

A few weeks ago, a small submersible vehicle went missing in the North Atlantic.  Aboard were a few people who were very rich, at least most of them.  At about the same time, a boat filled with migrant workers sank in the Mediterranean.

Guess which of these got the most intense coverage.

You don’t have to.  Even someone who pays as little attention to the news as I do couldn’t miss the coverage on the missing submersible.

There were many reasons for the asymmetric coverage of the two events.  One of these is that it is interesting when bad things happen to rich people.  Two camps separate out from the crowd immediately: Those to hate rich people and those who hold them in awe.

Another reason is that the missing sub had very dramatic connections such as cutting edge technology and the Titanic.  Had they been trapped on the bottom of the sea and rescued, one could imagine a movie.

But I think that the overriding reason it got more attention than the boat in the Mediterranean was the number of people.  We have the capacity to worry about a small group of people. Five or six people in a submersible; three people in an Apollo capsule; 30 men in a mine.

But Stalin was right about one thing: “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.”

Once the number of people involved in a tragedy passes a certain threshold, we lose our ability to fully connect, to empathize.

When I thought about the folks in the submersible, I could imagine myself in there with them, being a part of that small group.  I could do this even though I am not rich--though to quote Dorothy Parker, I think I would be quite good at it. I could imagine myself being there because we humans are good at attaching ourselves to small groups.

To restate this, each of us can more easily see ourselves as a part of the story if the story has a particular character to it.  This is something that has been brought to bear on the problem of gun violence.

Before I go any further, I want to make it clear: gun violence is a problem; mass shootings are a problem; school shootings are a tragic problem.  All of that said, the political movement to reduce gun violence is being structured in a way that makes use of the way we emote.

When there is a school shooting, it is inevitably accompanied by discussion of gun control versus Second Amendment Rights.  Discussing things is good.  It’s better when they are discussed intelligently.

In recent years, there have been between 40 thousand and 50 thousand people a year killed by guns in the United States.  

This is a problem.

Only about a 10th of those are people under the age of 19.  Don’t get me wrong.  Even one dead child is too many.  But school shootings are not where the bulk of the deaths are.

Of the 48 thousand gun killings in 2021, 26 thousand of them were suicides.

This is a problem.

Now we don’t hear much about this from the press on a case by case basis and for good reason: Suicide is catching.  People in the wrong frame of mind hear about a suicide and it gives them ideas.  They see how to make themselves a part of a story.  This is especially a problem with young people.

Instead, we have chosen to have our conversation on gun violence whenever a school shooting or another mass shooting happens.

And we do need to talk about this because it is a problem, but as with suicides, this gives some people who are in the wrong frame of mind a story they can put themselves into.  You get more school shootings.

Given the density of guns in this country, I would despair of ever reducing the number to a safer level.

But there is most definitely a problem. 

I am one to try to light a candle as opposed to cursing the darkness.  Let me offer two ideas.

The first one is gun safety education.  It should be required before licensing for gun ownership.  Having a license to have a gun should be viewed as being as normal as having one to drive a car.  And before you go all Second Amendment on me, it says “A Well-Regulated militia.”  Having a license based on taking a class like driver’s ed is a part of being well-regulated.

The second one is that we need to do more with mental healthcare.  We need to normalize counseling. Having a healthy mind will lead to having a healthier body too.  But more to my point, it would reduce the number of people who are in a frame of mind that would make them more liable to commit either suicide or a mass shooting.

I don’t look for either of these to happen anytime soon because the political parties are more interested in short-time fundraising than long-term solutions.

But that is just my opinion, of course.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.