A pro-gun rally in Washington. Credit: JASON REDMOND/AFP/Getty Images
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If there is anything even more predictable than a new mass shooting in the United States, it is the outraged response of Europeans in general, and the UK media in particular. Expressions of shock, horror and tearful compassion for the families and friends of victims are laced with a high-minded censoriousness about permissive US gun laws and exasperated cries of “when will these trigger-happy Americans ever learn?”
And here we go again. This weekend, the UK news, from TV to the press to social media, was dominated by reports of the shootings at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas (21 dead), and outside a nightclub in Dayton, Ohio (death toll nine).
Saturation coverage of these US atrocities largely blotted out anything that was happening closer to home, whether in the new political landscape of Borisland or the town of Whaley Bridge, which is threatened by a collapsing dam.
Mass shootings on the other side of the Atlantic tend to command a level of attention quite out of proportion to the relevance of these atrocities for us (not much) – perhaps it’s because of the simultaneous loss of life, perhaps because they just seem so alien. This time, the El Paso shooting also seemed to fit into a broader narrative – that of President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric and support for gun rights – which kept it in the headlines even longer.
As predictable as the initial European response is the misplaced hope that follows. Surely, now, Americans and those who govern them will understand that their gun laws (or the lack of them) must be addressed? An eloquent table of mass-shootings worldwide is produced to show precisely how out of order the US is: this year’s lists most European countries with zero such events, then the United States at the top, or the bottom, as you choose, with a huge 249. If other countries can eliminate, or almost eliminate, mass shootings, shouldn’t the US be able, even be morally obliged, to do the same?
It does not work like that. The public response in the United States to last year’s shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida created an impression that the tide might be turning, at least the tide of public opinion, with a new generation – of pupils and parents – leading the way. El Paso and Dayton may not completely discredit that argument, but they hardly suggest that radical change is around the corner. The gunman in El Paso was 21.
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