How to prevent hate from fueling the next mass shoot – Mother Jones

A young boy holds a sign in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh during a commemorative vigil in honor of the victims of the shooting at the Synagogue of the Tree of Life on Saturday, October 27, 2018.Gene J. Puskar / AP

At the announcement of the death of eleven people shot dead Saturday morning in the Pittsburgh Synagogue during a religious ceremony, I called Shannon Watts, founder of the National Prevention Organization. Armed violence at the base Moms Demand Action, which played a leading role in the firearms reform massacre of a primary school in 2012 in Newtown, Connecticut. I asked Watts what she had to say about another mass shot – an exercise that became a routine.

Instead of answering my question, Watts wanted to talk about a shootout that had not happened yet: she told me the story of a mother who denounced a white man to police after sending him a private message on Facebook telling him that he hoped "Black children are hanged. The man had intended to shoot one school against two school districts in Kentucky.

Watts, of course, spoke about this to illustrate the tragic trend of shootings targeting minority communities in the United States this week. The attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh – when the shooter allegedly entered the building shouting "All Jews must die!" – occurs a few days after a white man killed two Black shoppers at a Kroger grocery store near Louisville, Kentucky. The FBI is investigating this incident, along with the Pittsburgh Massacre, as a potential hate crime, a category of criminal acts strongly associated with the mass shootout epidemic in America.

"People are fed up with the hateful violence in this country and the rampant gun violence," said Watts. "If you look at all the tentacles that contribute to these heinous acts, easy access to arsenals and ammunition in bulk plays a major role."

A gunman who maintained white nationalist sympathies killed nine people in a church basement in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. A year later, an armed gunman opened fire in the Orlando & Disco. Pulse in 2016, leaving 102 mostly brown, gay victims.

There is not much data on the importance of hatred for gun violence. According to an analysis of Everytown's FBI crime statistics for gun safety, more than 10,000 hate crimes each year – of which 20% are religiously motivated – involve a firearm. This could be undercoverage: A 2017 report from the Brady Campaign for the Prevention of Gun Violence estimates that two-thirds of hate crimes are never reported, possibly because of historically fatalities. marginalized communities may not be comfortable reporting their cases to law enforcement. A report published in 2018 by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University in San Bernardino revealed that hate crimes had increased by 12% in the 10 largest cities from the country. of 2017.

Armed violence prevention experts say that concrete steps can be taken to protect firearms from racist or hate killers. Although six states have banned people convicted of hate crimes from buying firearms, the federally mandated background check does not determine whether the alleged owner of the firearm has been charged. or convicted. "It's a gaping hole in our gun laws," said Avery Gardiner, co-chair of the Brady campaign for the prevention of gun violence. "The people we know hate others because of their immutable characteristics, which is pretty dangerous."

Gardner also pointed out that "red flag" laws – which keep firearms from those who pose a risk to themselves or others – could be used to disarm a person likely to commit a hate crime. . Judges already in charge of making such decisions could determine if a person with access to a firearm is liable to acts of "bigotry". A federal red flag law has been pending in Congress since Parkland's shooting, but, like all other federal laws against gun violence, languished without a vote. (More than 10 states have passed red flag laws in recent years.)

Before leaving for campaign events in the Midwest, President Donald Trump told reporters that gun laws had "very little to do" with the attack on Tree of Life, and had suggested that the gunman, who shot four police officers, was reportedly arrested by a journalist. Armed guard.