There is more than one kind of tragedy. They have a taxonomy, a scale.

We can zoom out from them and see an ever-growing pattern of tragedy. Depending on how we view it, one event may be understandable as more than a single tragedy. In fact, rarely if ever do we see a truly isolated example.

What has happened in Las Vegas is one of these. It is an atrocity in its magnitude, but the horror is just as great when you zoom in as when you zoom out. Each individual death is a tragedy. The whole set of events is a tragedy. The circumstances that brought it about and the response to it are just a parts of a much larger story, itself tragic.

At the time of writing this, it still isn’t known what provoked Stephen Paddock to devastate a Las Vegas music festival. It may not ever be known. In many ways, it doesn’t matter. Of course, in many other ways it does matter. I’m not dismissing those ways. But for now at least, I could offer only unhelpful speculation.

In the ways it doesn’t matter, there’s more to be said. In one area in particular, I think there’s too little being said, too quietly. This is thanks to the NRA’s favourite political chaff; it’s not the time to talk about politics, we shouldn’t seek political capital from such horrible circumstances, let’s just come together while feelings subside. Don’t politicise their deaths.

It’s a singularly unpleasant and dishonest argument.

What it does is shut down debate at the time debate would most likely harm the NRA’s interests. It is an indirect admission that if the question is asked when people are looking at it most keenly, the conclusions they’ll reach aren’t one the gun lobby like very much. It uses what is decent in people against themselves. It’s like retroviral evil.

Of course, they will come back later and shamelessly politicise it themselves. One of their favourite arguments at this point is the ‘good guy with a gun’. The attack in Vegas is another example of a good guy with a gun failing to stop an attack. As are all the previous attacks. There’s a notable lack of examples where a good guy with a gun actually ever has stopped an attack. I’d have thought the NRA would be shouting these from the rooftops, so their absence strikes me as suspicious.

The absurdity of that should be obvious to anyone who isn’t outright brainwashed by far-right propaganda. The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough guns in the right hands. The problem is there are too many guns in the wrong hands. That’s why more US citizens have been killed by domestic gun violence than every war the country has ever fought. It’s why after 275 days of 2017, there had been 273 mass shootings in the US. It’s why there have been half a million Americans killed by domestic gun violence in the past 18 years.

But we shouldn’t be getting to that stage of the argument. The arguments are still bad, but they should never get the chance to be taken off the shelf. The debate shouldn’t be shut down by virtue-signalling shills for the firearms industry in the first place. Yes, now is exactly the time to discuss it. We absolutely should be politicising it. Why? Because that is what politics is for.

The US is a country born of violent revolution. That was the capitalising of political power off the back of many deaths. It is a country united following a very bloody civil war. Should the north have won the war and then left the Confederate states to continue undisturbed, out of respect for the dead? Maybe slavery should have been allowed to continue, as it wasn’t the time to talk politics.

If it isn’t to bring about changes that protect its people, why should governments have any political power at all? If preventing genocidal levels* of deaths isn’t a good reason to act, what is? Looking at the evidence, the answers seem to be things like “gay marriage”. I wish I hadn’t asked. Maybe the terrible illiteracy amongst the far right has conjured up tales of the fearsome Unabummer.

For some context, let’s look at 2014 – recent enough for relevance, long enough ago for accurate data. In this year there were 4,605 deaths from influenza. Isn’t it grossly offensive to discuss healthcare changes in light of all those people who’re dying from flu?

For the same year, there were 12,571 gun deaths. Some might say that 2014 wasn’t an outbreak year and we spend to prevent those. Well it wasn’t an outbreak year for gun deaths, either.

Over 100,000 people seek medical treatment for gunshot-related injuries every year. It costs nearly $2.5 billion dollars in healthcare to treat them.

During 2016, the NRA spent just over $50 million in political donations. For every $1 they spent, Americans with health insurance pay at least $50 on increased premiums. Yet NRA members are up in arms – often literally – when they’re asked to pick up the tab for others. Usually for being selfishly poor or born with health problems.

This level of violence isn’t normal. None of these attacks have been prevented by other people having guns. None of these people have been brought back by respectful silence on the cause of their death.

Allowing lobbyists to influence politics to protect their own profits, all at the cost of the country at large, isn’t normal. Those profits don’t go to the victims or their families. It’s laughable to think they ever will.

So yes, we should be talking about it now. Right now. There should be a screaming match in Congress over it. Laws should be changed. Not just to restrict access to guns, but to restrict access to politicians. If lunatics find it harder to get guns, there will be less heavily armed lunatics on the streets. If lobbyists find it harder to reach politicians, there will be less heavily bribed lunatics in government.

The true believers won’t understand or even consciously process a single word of this. They don’t care.

And while they continue not caring, tens of thousands more people will die.

 

*If this sounds hyperbolic, it isn’t. Estimates of the deaths attributable to the Armenian Genocide sit between 600,000 and 1,500,000 over around a decade. This isn’t all that far from the 500,000 over 18 years referenced earlier.