Gun Control: War Against Racism
Victims of the El Paso Walmart Shooting, Our Prayers go out to you
Jordan, Andre, Dave, Arturio, Leo, Maribel, Angie, Javier, Jorge, Juan, Adolfo, Sara, Elsa, Gloria, Maria, Ivan, Maria Flores, Raul, Alexander, Luis, Teresa.
(CNN, 2019)
10 A.M on Sunday August 3rd, 2019, 21-year-old man took a ten-hour trip to his hometown El Paso, TX. Armed with an assault-style riffle, at random open fire at Walmart targeting Mexicans is now being charged with domestic terrorism
(Gowen, Berman, Craig, & Natanson, 2019).
Nationalism and Fascism have created a divide in the United States. Leading to violence, have introduce fear to non-whites in America. Donald Trump encourages this and continues to support the white nationalist and the National Rifle Association (NRA) (Schwartz, 2019). Although nationalism and fascism are used interchangeably, they both have different meaning.
According to Daniele Conversi (2007), nationalism is considered humans organizing into distinct groups. White nationalist is among this group, a small vocal minority group who believes white Americans are superior to non-whites (Conversi, 2007). As they are the voices of white citizens, they are under the impression that non-whites contaminate the country. Born in the 19th century, nationalism set the groundwork for many subsequent analyses had been laid (Lawrence, 2004). This meant that nationalism opened the door to people creating hate groups, which is allowed under the constitution Amendment 1 which states:
As a democracy, we must respect the views of others and allow them the freedom of speech, unless violence is initiated. The Walmart shooting was terrorist attack on one group of people and led to 22 people losing their life. Yes, the shooter has rights to feel hate towards Mexicans, but he had no right to act on this group of people. Because Donald Trump is reassuring white nationalist they are within their right to freedom of speech. Examples of his support include Trump's rally in Cincinnati, his supports were chanting “send her back” in reference to Rep. Ilhan Omar ("CBS News," 2019). I can agree they had the right to freedom of speech, but Trump should have denounced this melody, instead he allowed it to go on for 13 seconds. Trump trying to homogenize by approving white nationalist hostility and now its leading to bloodshed.
After the shooting in El Paso. TX the shooter admitted to police by stating “I’m the shooter” (Gowen et al., 2019). The shooter is cooperating with authorities, and not holding any information about his actions (Lawrence, 2004). Authorities believe that shortly before the attack, the shooter posted a racist screed online that railed against an influx of Hispanics into the U.S. The document parrots some of President Donald Trump’s divisive rhetoric about immigration, but the writer said his views predate Trump’s rise and that any attempt to blame the president for his actions (Lawrence, 2004). Trump is creating internal conflict within our democracy, by kicking off totalitarianism (Conversi, 2007). Under this process, Trump want to be in full control over the people equitable to North Korea and Russian dictatorship rule. Fascism acknowledges the nation of nationalism marked by dictatorship, suppression and racism which leads to violence towards others (Conversi, 2007). The perpetrator in the shooting wanted to suppress Mexicans from entering in the U.S. This ideology as created fear with non-white Americans.
Nationalism and fascism open the conflict about gun control in America (Kaser, 2019). The NRA is one of Trump’s supporters and lobbyist are against background checks by contributing 1.6 billon dollars. Brian Schwartz (2019), states the lack of tougher laws for gun control has led to more mass shootings. On August 6th, 2019, Trump condemned violence towards others, yet passed the blame on video games and mental illness. The controversy here is, in order to find out is someone has a mental illness background checks would be necessary (Schwartz, 2019). I also argue, teenagers are the ones mostly playing video games. As the shooter in El Paso stated he was encouraged by Trump’s words and was not afraid to admit it. America has loss many due to unnecessary actions by white nationalist using fascism to try and suppress non-whites to be inferior. Under the Trump administration, the country is more divided and will continue is the people does not take a stand.
References
Amanda Jackson, Emanualla Grinberg and Nicole Chavez. (2019). Police believe the El Paso shooter targeted Latinos. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/04/us/el-paso-shooting-victims/index.html
Conversi, D. (2007). Democracy, Nationalism, and Culture A Social Critique of Liberal Monoculturalism. Sociology Compass, 1. https://doi.org/101111/j.1751-9020.2007.00063
Gowen, A., Berman, M., Craig, T., & Natanson, H. (2019). El Paso shooting suspect could face federal hate crime charges. Retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com
Kaser, R. (2019). President Donald Trump blames video games again for mass shooting. Retrieved from https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2019/08/05/president-donald-trump-video-games-el-paso-dayton-shooting/
Lawrence, P. (2004). Nationalism History and Theory. [https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/waldenu/detail.action?docID=4692118]. Retrieved from
No new Send her back chants at Trump rally. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-rally-cincinnati-2020-campaign-no-new-send-her-back-chants/
Schwartz, B. (2019). NRA spent $1.6 million lobbying against background check expansion laws in months leading up to latest mass shootings. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/05/nra-spent-1point6-million-lobbying-against-expanded-background-check-laws.html
United States Senate. (n.d.). https://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm#a2
