Gun control is an obsolete idea. Damage control is all we have left.

The Newtown, Connecticut incident brings the total to sixteen US Mass Shootings in 2012, leaving at least 88 dead.  But even after so many repetitions we remain equally divided about the causes and solutions.

From Donald Braman — associate professor at George Washington University Law School — and Dan Kahan — professor at Yale Law School:

“For one segment of American society, guns symbolize honor, human mastery over nature, and individual self-sufficiency. By opposing gun control, individuals affirm the value of these meanings and the vision of the good society that they construct. For another segment of American society, however, guns connote something else: the perpetuation of illicit social hierarchies, the elevation of force over reason, and the expression of collective indifference to the well-being of strangers.

These individuals instinctively support gun control as a means of repudiating these significations and of promoting an alternative vision of the good society that features equality, social solidarity, and civilized nonagression.  These competing cultural visions, we will argue, are what drive the gun control debate.”

So gun control is exactly like so many other issues; our country is split down the middle because we ascribe to different moral models.  Unfortunately, the horror and destruction caused by guns in the wrong hands continues and the pain is shared equally.

At a time like this it is tempting to blame the senseless killings on the plethora of guns at our disposal.  Although that’s a major contributor, the problem is more complex.  We are a society with sociopathic tendencies  being reinforced in our young by our movies, TV shows, video games and comic books.  Add to this the stigmatization of mental illness and the healthcare insurance industry’s restriction of payment for treatment and we have another perfect storm of mayhem.

I hesitate to write this but I don’t believe we are capable of solving this problem.  Sadly, I expect to see or hear of another Sandy Hook incident any day now. And there will be the usual outpouring of sympathy and outrage.  The usual blaming and posturing.  The usual promises to fix the problem.  And the usual next news cycle.  Because we will focus on the guns – too many – not enough.  And while this cacophony goes on we won’t see the torn fabric of our societal ills.

These horrendous incidents are not isolated events.  They are symptoms of the sickness in our culture.  And at the core of that sickness is money.  The entertainment industry promotes its glorified pathology  for profit.  The health insurance industry restricts mental health treatment because it costs too much. And this from Daniel Gross on The Daily Beast, “Freedom Group is having a pretty good year. The economy may be stuck in a low gear, but the company's sales are growing rapidly—up 20%, to $237.9 million, in the third quarter of 2012 compared to the same period last year. Thanks to a “considerable increase” in demand for Freedom Group’s core products, the company told investors, “the market is expanding quicker than the industry can increase production.”  Those core products? Guns and ammo.”

As a nation, we have no enemy strong enough to overcome our military might.  But in more recent times I’ve seen the destruction of the sources of many of our internal strengths.  I’ve watched the middle class slowly shrink over the last few decades.  Virtually every human interaction other than friends and family has become based on economics.  I’ve seen the limits of human greed explode.  Our moral center is collapsing into the single question “what’s in it for me.”  We are becoming a country at war with itself.

So it’s no wonder that with over 300 million guns and an unknown number of unstable, and untreated individuals, the Columbines, Auroras, and Newtowns are now as much a part of America’s story as the disappearance of small town Main Streets.

Robert DeFilippis