A10 THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2019 LATIMES.COM/OPINION
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s he headed offWednesday
morning to Dayton and El Paso
to console the most recent
American communities ravaged
by mass shootings, President
Trump paused on the White House lawn to
talk with reporters. He told them that while
there might be political support for federal
legislation mandating more stringent back-
ground checks for gun buyers, he did not be-
lieve there was an “appetite” in Congress for
a ban on civilian possession of high-capacity
magazines and combat-style weapons. “So
far,” he said, “I have not seen that.”
May we suggest that he ask the Ameri-
can people — nearly two-thirds of whom
support such a ban — instead of Congress,
which remains under the thumb of the Na-
tional Rifle Assn.? The NRA, as everybody
knows, won’t be happy until babies come
out of the womb packing sidearms.
Pardon our cynicism, but the blood is
barely dry in Ohio and Texas — 31 dead,
more than 50 wounded or injured — and
Trump and his Republican enablers in Con-
gress are already back to pooh-poohing rea-
sonable proposals for confronting our now-
routine mass shootings.
As usual, guns are not the problem, in
their view. “Mental illness and hatred pulls
the trigger,” Trump said, “not the gun.” Ne-
ver mind that absent the gun, people with
“mental illness and hatred” would have a lot
more trouble killing large numbers in a
short period of time. Our rates of mental ill-
ness are not significantly different from
those in other nations, yet our access to fire-
arms and our levels of gun violence most
certainly are.
To be fair, there are finally some Republi-
cans who are now, under the pressure of day
after day of senseless violence, talking about
some small steps that could be taken on gun
control, such as passing so-called red flag
laws. But really it is almost an insult to the
dead to call for something so rudimentary
and inadequate at a moment like this.
Red flag laws, such as the ones in Cali-
fornia and 16 other states, are fine policy.
But frankly, it’s flabbergasting that they ar-
en’t already the law all across the country.
Of coursea judge should be able to order
guns temporarily removed from people
whose own families believe are unstable and
might endanger themselves or others. Even
many gun enthusiasts recognize the logic of
that. These laws are carefully constructed to
preserve the gun owner’s due process
rights. By all means, let’s pass them — but
let’s not then pat ourselves on the back for
having solved the problem.
Besides, it’s a bit of a red herring. Adopt-
ing red flag laws is not within the purview of
Congress; states establish such laws. Sen.
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), along with Sen.
Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), is pushing
a measure to make grants available to
states to develop such policies. Lovely. Do it.
Meanwhile, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.), who has been one of the
biggest obstacles in Washington to the
adoption of sensible gun laws, issued one of
the most tepid statements imaginable after
speaking to three Senate committee chairs.
“I asked them to reflect on the subjects
the president raised within their jurisdic-
tions and encouraged them to engage in bi-
partisan discussions of potential solutions
to help protect our communities without in-
fringing on Americans’ constitutional
rights,” McConnell said.
“Reflect on” is hardly a call to action. “Bi-
partisan discussions” are not action either.
That sounds like just another “refer it to
committee” response to a pervasive and dis-
turbing aspect of contemporary American
life: Too many people with too easy access to
firearms killing themselves, family mem-
bers, neighbors, coworkers and strangers.
It’s not as though the nation is flum-
moxed over what Congress needs to do.
Mandating universal background checks is
a minimal step — there’s nothing onerous in
having to prove that you are eligible to own a
firearm before being allowed to buy one. A
federal ban on assault weapons is another
rational step. There is no legitimate reason
for civilians to own semi-automatic rifles us-
ing high-capacity magazines. Just because
some people have fun blasting away with
them at firing ranges isn’t sufficient cause to
keep them legal. More than 1 in 4 mass
shooting incidents since 1982 involved com-
bat-style rifles.
But for the moment, it seems, nothing of
substance will happen. Again. As has been
noted too many times before, when Washing-
ton failed to respond with meaningful gun
laws in the wake of the massacre of children
at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, it
became distressingly clear that the NRA —
and a bizarre belief that Americans need to
be armed to stop tyranny — carry more
weight than the dead bodies of slaughtered
children. Apparently, that is still the case.‘Red flag’ laws are not enough
President Trump, top Republicans
in Congress offer an inadequate
response to recent mass killings.
T
he fear that hoveredover Los
Angeles in the wake of the Au-
gust 1969 killings of actress Shar-
on Tate and six others has, with
the passage of a half-century,
evolved into an odd and unseemly nostalgia.
Charles Manson and his pathetic band of
hangers-on have sparked a cottage industry
of tours, books and films that recount or re-
jigger the two nights of horror, the lives of
the perpetrators and victims leading up to
that point, and the trials and punishments
that followed. It’s as if we just can’t let go of
our morbid fascination with what seemed at
the time to be a defining moment in history.
Or maybe, as sick and bizarre as it may
sound, the memory of the cruel, senseless
and cold-blooded Manson killings sparks a
yearning for some long-ago time when multi-
ple random killings seemed unusual, and
when a killer like Manson destroyed compar-
atively fewer lives than today’s mass murder-
ers — the angry young men, the grudge-fu-
eled middle-aged men, the racist hate mon-
gers, the spiteful teenagers, armed with guns.
In the 1960s, violent crime was beginning
a steady climb that was to persist for a quar-
ter century, and perhaps the Manson
killings symbolize that frightful era. Today,
the nation’s crime rate continues its plunge
notwithstanding an occasional spike. Yet
this is the heyday of wholesale slaughter.
A gunman killed nine people in Dayton,
Ohio, on Sunday, the day after another
shooter killed 22 in El Paso, and a week after
another killed three in Gilroy, Calif. — al-
though the Gilroy killings are no longer
mentioned in news reports because the
number of dead is too small in comparison
and last week was so long ago.
So commonplace are killings by the hate-
filled or the deranged that the single fatality
at a Poway synagogue in April is often for-
gotten when recounting hate killings, be-
cause the gunman’s rifle jammed and he
couldn’t keep shooting.
But don’t forget — 12 died in Virginia
Beach in May. And the last decade has in-
cluded the 2017 Las Vegas shooting (
dead), the 2016 Orlando nightclub killings
(49 dead), the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary
School shooting (27 dead, including 20 chil-
dren age 7 and younger). There were also
mass killings at a church in Sutherland
Springs, Texas, a synagogue in Pittsburgh,
and on and on.
In comparison, the members of Man-
son’s “family” were — although brutal —
rank amateurs.
On the night of Aug. 8, 1969, several of
them drove to Tate’s home at Manson’s in-
struction for the first night of killing in order
to — take your pick — launch Manson’s plan
for race war or frighten a man who failed to
launch Manson’s music career.
Charles “Tex” Watson shot 18-year-old
Steven Parent. Susan Atkins, Patricia Kren-
winkel and Watson then shot or stabbed hair-
stylist Jay Sebring, heiress Abigail Folger,
their friend Wojciech Frykowski and Tate.
The next night, Watson, Krenwinkel and
Leslie Van Houten tortured and killed Leno
and Rosemary LaBianca.
Prosecutors argued that Manson
planned to blame the killings on African
Americans in order to start a race war that
blacks would win. But then they supposedly
would be unable to govern themselves, and
Manson would somehow take over.
He was reportedly inspired by bizarre
misinterpretations of Beatles lyrics.
Today, self-described Manson experts of-
fer their interpretations and market new
theories or purported bits of evidence, often
referring to the killer simply as “Charlie” to
claim some intimacy or understanding of
the murderer.
For the rest of us, it may be tempting to
seek some meaning in Manson and his aco-
lytes, perhaps as precursors for today’s
mass murderers, or at least those who align
themselves with racist or white supremacist
ideology, or who harbor some ludicrous no-
tion about their own role in history.
Let it go. If there was any lesson to be
learned from the Manson killings 50 years
ago, our society failed to learn it.
Manson’s victims deserve to be remem-
bered, as do all murder victims, but Manson
and his sorry followers do not. Enough Man-
son reminiscing. Enough murder nostalgia.
We have our own mass murder problem, and
we can ill afford to indulge in wistful or lurid
looks back to a time when senseless mass
killing was so rare that we could remember
the names of the killers.Manson nostalgia, 50 years on
Part of what Trump is
doing in attacking Ameri-
can cities is cementing the
idea that a minority of the
“right” people should rule
this country.
With his feral sense of an
opponent’s weakness, he
knows that a system that
gives Wyoming — a state
with about the same
amount of people as the
city of Fresno — three
electoral votes, Republi-
cans can win national
elections with much lower
vote tallies than Demo-
crats.
Renee Leask
Glendale::This front-page article
on Trump targeting large
cities is an opinion piece,
not a news story. It should
have been printed in the
op-ed section.
The idea that pointing
out Baltimore’s problems
and criticizing Rep. Elijah
E. Cummings (D-Md.) are
part of some cynical politi-
cal strategy is only a hy-
pothesis. Comments simi-
lar to the president’s re-
garding the terrible condi-
tions in Baltimore were
previously uttered by Sen.
Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and
that city’s former African
American mayor.
Richard Friedman
Culver CityThe men who
are mass shooters
Re “Who are the mass
shooters?” Opinion, Aug. 6Criminology research-
ers Jillian Peterson and
James Densley built a
database on mass shooters
going back to 1966, yet they
do not mention the one
characteristic that links
almost every one: They are
white men.
Why is there no discus-
sion at all about white
nationalism or toxic mas-
culinity, rather than exclu-
sive focus on abusive child-
hoods, bullying at school
and mental illness? Clearly
these last factors are im-
portant, but to ignore the
shooters’ shared identities
as white males is to miss
what may be the most
important one.
Our culture certainly
glorifies violence, especially
among young men, who are
expected to be strong and
macho. With our current
president encouraging
hate for “others,” it is
hardly surprising that
these young men could be
persuaded to resort to
violence.
With easy access to
weapons of war, they can
accomplish maximum
killing with minimal effort
and have their names am-
plified by the media.
Linda Light
Huntington Beach::I am glad for this re-
search. Still, I worry about
the problem’s presentation.
I wonder how people
reading this piece might
respond to “mental
health.” How do we thinkabout what can and can’t
be done, since we often
cede “health” to medical
experts, and minds (the
“mental” part) are notori-
ously hard to change?
The early contributing
factors identified are first
and foremost “social be-
haviors” that have critical
effect on developing “men-
tal” functions. The expo-
sure to violence in child-
hood that the authors
mention is a social issue
that leaves a legacy across
generations.
We need to intervene
when a shooter is about the
pull the trigger, but we
must also have interven-
tions early in a child’s de-
velopment. Children must
be protected from interper-
sonal violence, perpetrated
by those who are supposed
to lovingly care for them.
The sources of violence
need early moral and ethi-
cal interventions so late
interventions become
unnecessary.
Barbara
Eurich-Rascoe
Pasadena
The writer is a clinical
psychologist.::We should be grateful
for this very important
research on factors associ-
ated with mass shootings.
It’s crystal clear that this is
a complex problem defying
simplistic solutions.
But simplistic solutions
— or more accurately, no
solutions — are what we get
in these hyper-partisan
times that seem to block
anything approaching
subtlety and nuance.
Is the problem mental
illness or the availability of
guns? Well, as this research
shows, both play a role. But
then so do childhood expo-
sure to violence and other
trauma, a crisis or trigger-
ing event, and 24-hour
news and social media that
stoke both fear and fascina-
tion.
Sadly, we can’t count on
our political leaders to
come up with rational
responses. They live and
die by scoring political
points. Nuance and sub-
tlety play no role.
Claude Goldenberg
Seal BeachWill public and
private co-exist?
Re “Value of private cov-
erage is up for debate,”
Aug. 2Beware the law of unin-
tended consequences.
Several of the Democrat
presidential candidates
suggest that “Medicare for
all” can coexist with em-
ployer-provided health
insurance. That assumes
employers would continue
to offer insurance.
I remember when Presi-
dent Reagan said the
American worker is smart
enough to manage his own
retirement plan, with em-
ployers continuing to fund
pensions. Great idea! Prob-
lem was, employers began
offering 401(k) plans, and
eventually they got rid of
their pension programs.Skip forward to today. If
Medicare for all becomes a
reality, will employers
continue to offer health
insurance? Will they hap-
pily agree to shell out bil-
lions of dollars to fund
private programs when a
public program is easily
available?
As economist Milton
Friedman famously said,
corporations exist solely to
enhance profitability. What
better way to do that than
by cutting health insur-
ance?
The Affordable Care Act
was a good start. Instead of
repealing and replacing it,
it should be refined and
enhanced. Let’s not throw
out the good for the hoped-
for perfect.
John Goodman
Oak Park::Twenty or so Demo-
cratic candidates cannot
agree on what type of
health plan to support. The
fact is that none of us vot-
ers cares.
What we want is to be
able to get whatever care
we need and not pay more
than a minimal amount. We
do not want to be penalized
for preexisting conditions,
and we do not want to wait
months for care.
Let the new Congress
work out the details.
John Laguna
Dana PointHidden danger
at the beach
Re “Cliff collapse is fatal
wake-up call,” Aug. 5I walk on the beach very
often.
When I encounter peo-
ple sitting under the lee of
the bluff, I walk up to them
and ask if it would be OK if I
took a “before photo-
graph.” After a few mo-
ments they ask why I would
want a “before” photo of
them.
I keep a handy photo on
my phone of a 5-ton col-
lapse of rock, clay, sand and
vegetation that had re-
cently fallen. I explain some
of the interesting layers of
clay and sand and black
bands of oil spills over eons.
People love to learn how to
“read” geology.
Walking back a few
minutes later, I notice that
none of the people are
sitting near the bluff.
Kenneth Warfield
Isla Vista::Much of our native
cliffside flora in coastal
California has been killed
off and taken over by ice
plant, an invasive plant
from South Africa. This
problem is evident in pho-
tos of the collapsed bluff in
Encinitas.
Native California cliff-
side plants create a deep
web-like root system that
holds the soil in place far
better than the ice plant,
which has shallow roots
and heavy foliage that can
actually drag the soil down-
ward.
Native plant restoration
won’t eliminate the prob-
lem entirely, but it would be
a mitigating factor.
Leah Corry
Santa MonicaAlabama’s cash
Re “Luxury cinema chain
iPic in bankruptcy,” Busi-
ness, Aug. 6What?! The bankrupt
iPic Entertainment luxury
theater chain has secured
$16 million in debt financ-
ing from the Teachers’
Retirement System of
Alabama and the Employ-
ees’ Retirement System of
Alabama to fund its opera-
tions.
Do the teachers and
employees of the state of
Alabama know this? How
can this happen?
Should not these funds
be invested in the absolute
safest businesses? How
does a bankrupt movie
theater chain qualify?
Kenneth Cantwell
Yorba LindaTrump’s cities too
Re “Cities a proxy for Trump’s message,” Aug. 3I’m glad that President Trump is suddenly concerned
about crime, homelessness and filth in America’s large
cities.
So why hasn’t he ordered the U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development to fight homelessness?
Why hasn’t he ordered the commissioned military officers
of the U.S. Public Health Service to help fight rat
infestation and disease and address homeless people’s
health problems? These agencies are in the executive
branch of government and are directly under his control.
If he needs Congress’ cooperation to help solve these
problems, he had a chance to ask the Republican
majorities that controlled the House and the Senate
during his first two years in office.
Dominick Falzone
Los AngelesMichael ReynoldsEPA/Shutterstock
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FOUNDED DECEMBER 4, 1881 Sue Horton OP-ED ANDSUNDAYOPINIONEDITOR