Michael Cohen posted a piece yesterday in The Observer on the US's emotional and overreaching reaction to terror attacks. Though I think he misses a broader connection to our long-standing freedom from domestic, large-scale attacks (read: 9/11 is the only modern mass attack on US soil; and Civil War as the second major violence on US soil...which NONE of us experienced); his commentary on our valuation of terror attacks in relationship to gun rights and daily violence is spot on.
Why are we immune to daily gun violence? Why do we accept the daily deaths as a cost of freedom? I saw an annoying post this week that calls to question our persecution of guns as the cause of gun violence when in a terror bomb attack we blame the bomber, and in a drunk driving accident we blame the driver....why blame the gun?
Connecting these two thoughts, we don't just blame the driver or the bomber. Alcohol consumption is heavily regulated, and there are consequences to related parties that contribute to drunk driving accidents (serving a clearly intoxicated person...locally a bartender is facing prison time for serving a minor who later died as a result of a drunk driving accident). I also remember the last decade of war in the middle east targeting groups and parties connected to the mass terror attacks on the US.
We cannot just target the individual perpetrators behind events. Doing so would signal isolation from the societal causes and contributions to these events. We work in coordination with the resources and tools we have to eliminate the threat they pose to our safety and security. As a parent, this is the source of control and influence that enables me to sleep at night.
A little snarky, but poignant nonetheless, Cohen concludes, "the lurking dangers all around us -- the guns, our unhealthy diets, the workplaces that kill 14 Americans every single day -- these are just accepted as part of life, the price of freedom, if you will. And so the violence goes, with more Americans dying preventable deaths. But hey, look the bright side -- we got those sons of bitches who blew up the marathon."
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