Mass Shootings
This week, Public Seminar tackled America's latest mass shootings
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This week one feature writer and two Public Seminar columnists honed in two massacres—and what they mean. If you know someone who wants to explore these issues, please:
Nadia Y. Kim explores why racism matters to the Atlanta shootings: “As gender scholars have long established, sexual violence is not solely about men satisfying their “natural” urges; it is also about men satisfying their need for power over women. For instance, the sexual assault and rape of (East) Asian American women stems from `China Doll’ objectifications as well as the view that the power of the dragon lady must be vanquished, taken away.” Read the rest of the story here.
Claire Potter addresses the collapse of gun control: “We have done nothing about this for almost thirty years except devise new ways to get ever-more weapons to ever-more people. In 2013, the average gun-owning household had eight weapons; so-called “super-owners” had 17. Today, they have more. Before the 2016 election, a friend in the American Southwest told me that he knew people who were preparing for a Democratic presidency by purchasing burial plots to stockpile semi-automatic weapons and ammunition in coffins.” But it could be different: find out why.
John Stoehr argues that Second Amendment defenders are reducing our freedom: “We must concede this free republic of ours is not free. To be sure, some within it believe they are free—white men, for the most part, who make a fetish of stockpiling as many weapons of destruction as they can. But these people are not free. They are not only trapped by their own delusions, paranoia and fear, they are trapped in the same paralyzed republic the rest of us are trapped in. They are subject to the same risk of carnage, injury and death. The difference? They choose to make-believe they are free.” Find out more by clicking here.
Next week? NSSR historian and peace activist Jeremy Varon on why we must close Guantanamo and London School of Economics’ Birgan Gokmenoglu on the crisis of academic freedom at Boğaziçi University and the Turkish AKP’s broader attack on higher education.