Orlando massacre, gun culture and Trump phenomena

S P SETH

The massacre of 49 people, with 53 wounded, at a gay bar in Orlando, Florida, by a self-proclaimed supporter of the IS highlighted multiple issues that plague the United States. The first and foremost, of course, is the reality and fear of terrorist violence since the 9/11 tragedy, which changed the psyche and politics of the US and indeed, in so many ways, of the world. The subsequent military operations against Afghanistan and the 2003 invasion of Iraq and its aftermath to this day is a testimony to this. What has made the Orlando attack distinct is a professed combination by the killer, Omar Mateen, of religion (Islam—more pointedly his loyalty to IS) and his choice of the venue, a thriving gay club having a fun party. Even more confusing are reports that Mateen had visited the gay club over time and showed some interest in gay sex.

Indeed, a Latino guy reportedly told a Spanish-language television network in the US that he was Mateen’s lover for a time and claiming that Mateen acted out “of revenge” after finding out that one of his gay partners was HIV positive. In an interview with the television network, this guy, who called himself Miguel, said that, “…the thing that makes me want to tell the truth is that he didn’t do it for terrorism. In my opinion he did it for revenge.” Mateen was “terrified” after he found out that one of the Puerto Rican guys he had sex with was HIV positive. Miguel also reportedly said that Mateen hated gay Puerto Ricans because he had  experienced rejection at their hands. Incidentally, Puerto Ricans bore the brunt of casualties at the Orlando gay club massacre.

If Mateen was gay, it must have been terribly confusing and, possibly self-loathing, growing up with his Muslim/Afghan culture. His father was an Afghan immigrant but Mateen was born in the United States. Soon after the Orlando tragedy, his father had suggested his son was very upset by seeing two men kissing each other in a shopping mall, suggesting that this might have been the trigger for the mass shooting; though he wasn’t so sure about it in subsequent reporting. Such confusion and self-loathing likely created in him a split personality of not knowing who he was and wrestling with his inner self. And at the time of the tragedy, he seemed to be reaching a crisis point of wanting to resolve it on a high ‘moral’ and religious note, as he saw it, by proclaiming his loyalty to IS. However, the FBI has reportedly found no evidence so far that Mateen was gay in any way, which only adds to the confusion.

The Orlando massacre once again highlighted the inability/incapacity of the US political establishment to curb easy access to guns, especially the high caliber weapons like the one used by Mateen. Because the lethality of such weapons, whether used by an Islamic terrorist in a gay club, or a white supremist who targeted parishoners in a black church and the one who mostly killed children in a school shooting, is horrendous. President Obama has seen in his two terms, what looks like, an avalanche of mass shootings, with him repeatedly urging the need for sensible background checks for the sale of guns. But the country’s legislature has repeatedly rejected such calls, including the latest after the Orlando shooting.  The basic argument for such rejection is that it will violate the Second Amendment of the constitution that guarantees the right to bear arms-- even for those on FBI’s watch list and on flight watch lists-- because they might be innocent.

In a country where there are multiple agencies geared to prevent terrorist attacks, a very basic measure to restrict the availability of guns, even if this were to prevent only one incident of mass shooting, is beyond the comprehension of many people in the world. This Second Amendment right to bear arms to shoot people doesn’t make any sense unless the US was imaging itself in a continuing war with itself, as probably it did in the days of the Cowboys and Indians kind of world. But that world is long gone and the US is no longer fighting an organized enemy within. In other words, this obsession with guns and gun culture is propped up by the powerful National Rifles Association (NRA) with many in the Republican Party, as well Democrats, beholden to the NRA for its patronage. The NRA is virtually holding a gun to the US political establishment and they are petrified that it might kill their political prospects.

In the US’s toxic political culture where many people feel a pervasive sense of anxiety and fear for all sorts of reasons, the country’s love affair with guns is  constant as a defensive mechanism of sorts. And with Republican presumptive candidate Donald Trump fuelling this pervasive sense of threat from Muslims/Mexicans and immigrants in general and even the African-Americans, this kind of siege mentality tends to be reinforced with any mass shooting, even more so if it is the work of a Muslim terrorist/nutter like the San Bernardino shooting last December and now the Orlando massacre. Trump felt vindicated and congratulated himself that his injunction to ban Muslims from entering the US had somehow come true with the Orlando tragedy.

A tweet from him on the Orlando killings read: “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness and vigilance.” And he said, as if puffed up: “Because our leaders are weak, I said this was going to happen—and it is only going to get worse.” And he added, “What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning…” Because: “Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough.” Making a case for gun ownership, he mimicked how if people in the Orlando gay club had guns, the killer Omar Mateen would have been taken down before he did massive damage. In other words, Trump and other like-minded people, and there are so many of them, believe that guns are not the problem; they most likely are the solution in the Orlando kind of massacre.

Trump represents a wide section of the Republican constituency and it is amazing that he “reflected the views of likely Republican voters extremely well”, according to a study by three American academics, Ronald B. Rapoport, Alan I. Abramowitz, and Walter J. Stone. Writing in the New York Review of Books, their conclusion is that, “On all three issues [with his extreme views] overwhelming majorities of likely Republican voters supported his positions: almost three quarters (73 percent) favoured banning Muslims from entering the US, 90 percent favoured identifying and deporting illegal immigrants as quickly as possible, and 85 percent favoured building a wall on the Mexican border.” With Trump’s extreme position finding such overwhelming support among likely Republican voters and the generally toxic political culture in the country, it is no wonder that the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) advocacy of the right to bear arms is so receptive and the country’s political establishment, by and large, is supportive of it. 

Note: This article first appeared in the Daily Times.