Ending Mass Shootings: It Takes More than Laws
Joe Moncarz, March 2019
People are shocked that the Christchurch killer live-streamed and that countless people around the world willingly chose to watch. You can be sure it will not be the last time it will happen. (Nor is it the first. It's just rare in New Zealand.) But if we are really concerned with creating a healthy society, we'll have to widen our thinking. There are two main reasons why these violent acts will continue, neither of which we are raised or “educated” to consider. To understand these reasons requires historical intelligence, critical thinking, ecological intelligence and a strong sense of responsibility - all crucial parts of the Deep Green Bush-School learning process.
The first reason is that we think the answer to everything is to pass another law. This is better known as “reform”. Reform means accepting all existing institutions (like courts, banks, police, taxation, armies, corporations, etc.), accepting this destructive and violent social arrangement, but just trying to make things a little bit “less bad”. It doesn't work. Historical intelligence would tell us that passing laws hasn't worked in six thousand years. The reason is that law-makers don't live for the benefit of the people, and that the legal system is a game created by the elite to protect their wealth and which we're forced to play – with the threat of police bullets and prison bars to force us. Did we choose it? No, and we could do a lot better if we put our heads together. We know better what would be sensible and fair, but that's not allowed in the Game of Laws, because the aim of the game is not to be sensible and fair – it's to increase elite power!
Gun control laws will not solve the problem. That is because racism and xenophobia are not a matter of legislation, but rather a creation of the elite for the purpose of distracting and dividing us so that we can be more easily controlled. This is achieved through an economic system which creates inequality, poverty and forces people to work for greedy psychopaths, in jobs they hate (also known as slavery). We call this system capitalism today, but that's just the current flavour of a condition found within every single civilisation over the entirety of the six-thousand year history of civilisations. We've been taught to equate civilisation with something positive, but it's only ever been positive for the elite. Historical intelligence.
The other reason the violence will continue is our addiction to modern technology and total unwillingness to critically analyse just what modern technology is, what it takes to make, why it exists, who benefits most from it, and what it has done to our lives. Essentially, modern technology alienates us from each other and from nature, and the unavoidable result is that we become more violent.
Like all industrial products, modern technology is not made for our benefit. First and foremost, modern technology is used by the state to increase control and surveillance over its inmates (us) and increase its ability to wage war and add to the wealth of the elite – through the ever-present threat of violence. Second, modern technology is sold so that corporations can make a profit. No gadget exists to make our lives “better”. Are we really that stupid?
Now, in order to make all these products, the Earth has to be mined, destroying and polluting the planet, people have to be killed and their land stolen (on which to do the mining) and any survivors are told that they are now “poor” and must work in the mines for money, always at gunpoint. The same goes for the factories in which all these products are made. Thus, modern technology is only possible through enormous amounts of violence.
The sum result of this wonderful world of modern technology is an overpopulated planet with billions of people hungry and/or malnourished, billions of lives of struggling to barely stay alive, wilderness and wildlife being wiped out, and among the richer nations, widespread and increasing depression, mental illness and suicide. Not to mention the ever-present threat of nuclear war and nuclear meltdowns. It takes years and years of media and school indoctrination to call this “progress”. Modern technology comes from violence and increases violence, whether we're talking about a cell phone or a semi-automatic assault rifle, mining or mass shootings. Our entire way of life is based on violence, and we seem shocked only when it happens close to home.
Life doesn't have to be this way! If we want a blueprint for a healthy, meaningful and sustainable way of living, we must look at the previous two million years before the creation of civilisations, in which human societies were based on sustainable and democratic technologies. Such technologies are those that anyone can learn to make from locally available materials, those which do not require destroying or polluting the ability of ecological communities to support life, and those which do not promote violence and destruction. The interesting thing is that these societies were also egalitarian, the people were physically and emotionally healthy, there was no concept of 'work' (all of life was a form of play), they had enormous amounts of leisure time, they considered themselves kin with all of the natural world – and there was no such thing as corporations, CEOs, armies, nuclear bombs or mass shootings.
How much do we really care about the world we leave to our children? Violence is increasing all around us. It's time to stop doing what we've been doing - and stop educating the same way - since it doesn't work. Question the unquestionable, and act. This is our last chance.