Since May 24, the whole world has been mourning the 21 victims who were cruelly shot at a school in Uvalde, Texas. In the wave of emotion raised by this umpteenth mass killing in the United States, we are once again forced to ask this necessary question: why does this kind of event occur more in the United States than elsewhere?
Because the numbers leave no doubt. Since 1er January 2022, 27 shootings took place in American schools. More than 200 mass shootings — in which more than three people were injured or killed each time — have taken place. Incidentally, they have been on the rise there since the 1970s. Nowhere else do we observe so many events of this kind as in the United States. What’s the cause ?
Legislating would not solve everything
In the media, we talk a lot about the accessibility of firearms. And with good reason: in 2020, the weapon fire has become the leading cause of deaths among American children and adolescents. That’s probably why TV analysts, journalists, citizens and politicians like Beto O’Rourke (Democratic candidate for governor of Texas) or President Joe Biden talk about it so much, the latter being elsewhere taken last Wednesday to “those who prevent, push back or block gun laws”.
Several studies indicate the presence of a strong correlation between the rate of adults having a firearm and the number of firearm deaths. On the other hand, we note that a second track of explanation is relegated to silence each time a mass killing occurs in the United States – a track which seems to completely escape the current debate: that of social inequalities.
Inequality fuels violence
As we know, the United States is the country where income inequalities are the most pronounced among OECD countries. To put it roughly, it is in the United States that we find the greatest wealth gaps between rich and poor. And to understand why mass killings are so numerous there, it is towards this risk factor that our eyes should turn.
In their work, sociologists Roy Kwon and Joseph F. Cabrera have found that the growing number of mass killings in the United States is intimately linked to rising income inequality in the country, even after taking into account factors such as gun laws or poverty. By studying data from 3,144 US counties, they also showed that the regions with the most shootings are those with the highest inequalities.
Why is this so? In their work Equality is better, epidemiologists Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson explain that material inequality exacerbates the importance we place on social status. The more unequal a society, the more its inhabitants value their social position — and the more they feel shame and humiliation if they feel they are socially unsuccessful.
If American men are so numerous to commit mass killings, it is partly because they are more frequent to feel this painful feeling. The recourse to violence is then a privileged means of transforming the feeling of failure into pride — the pride of having a hold on their life and that of others, thus showing to the face of the world that they finally exist. This would also explain why the inhabitants of societies marked by deep income disparities are significantly more likely — as UN data show — to suffer homicides or assaults than those of societies more egalitarian.
A slippery slope to take
Now what about mental health issues? Obviously, we could not understand the phenomenon of mass killings without taking them into account. However, we must remain cautious: researchers recently indicated that less than 5% of homicides by firearms perpetrated in the United States were attributable to people diagnosed with a mental disorder. Other variables have a much greater impact on the phenomenon.
And above all, we must ensure that the focus on mental health does not have the effect of reducing mass killings to a strictly individual phenomenon, thereby evacuating any political reflection that would aim to change things. This is what several elected members of the Republican Party are tending to do right now, not to mention members of the National Rifle Association.
The latter also presented her condolences to the families of the victims of the Uvalde massacre, denouncing “the act of an isolated and disturbed criminal”. In addition, making the shortcut between mental health problems and violent crimes contributes to stigmatizing people who are already vulnerable.
Faced with the proponents of the lone wolf thesis with a mental health problem, a question must be asked: why do we find this kind of “isolated and deranged crime” more in the United States than in more egalitarian countries? , such as France, Greece or Canada? At a time when we find it hard to recognize the ravages of social inequalities, this is the kind of reflection that we should also push.