Over the previous weekend, I headed back to my hometown of Brookfield to pick up some hours at my job and spend some time with the family. I just so happened to take a shift on Sunday, and was understandably shocked when I heard from management that the mall across the street had been locked down, and even more so when I heard that there had been a shooting at the Azana spa not two blocks from my place of employment.
The events of this weekend in Brookfield have once again left Wisconsin with some questions to ask itself. As the second mass shooting in southeast Wisconsin in three months, the confusion and anger over why these seemingly preventable tragedies are still occurring seems to be at an all-time high. This confusion inevitably reverts back to the old debate over gun control laws and whether or not it’s a good idea to allow people to carry weapons that could very well be used to perpetrate similar acts in the future.
It seems to be all that most people can talk about is the fact that the shooter, Radcliff Haughton, was in possession of a gun while under a restraining order issued not three days prior to the event. On the topic of preventing shootings from taking lives, there are several positions one could take. The first of these is to offer greater deterrents. Anti-gun proponents say the best deterrent is harsher penalties for using a firearm, such as extended prison sentences or even the death penalty. Pro-gun activists of course take the opposite side, claiming that any prospective shooter would think twice about their actions if there was a good chance that someone else was in the room carrying a gun.
The most ludicrous solution I’ve heard was to equip everyone with a mandatory firearm and train them from the age of six in its use. The fact remains, however, that none of these would likely have stopped Haughton from going into the spa and taking the lives of three innocent women. In case these extreme people didn’t see the later reports, he eventually killed himself after killing or injuring seven people. In addition, the man was an ex-Marine with extensive arms training himself. It would seem that death was not one of his fears at that time.
So what should have been done instead? While making guns harder to obtain through extensive background checks or waiting periods may have made the shooting less likely, no system is foolproof. This can be seen through the fact that Haughton bought his gun from a private dealer, who did not require these provisions, not two days after receiving a restraining order that included the stipulation that he was not allowed to own a firearm. Banning guns entirely would have likely resulted in a different method of killing, though the lives of two others may have been spared. I would argue that gun laws have relatively little to do with the incident at all.
Most shooters we see nowadays have some history of mental instability and/or violence. Haughton exhibited both of these, and yet nothing was done until a restraining order was filed. Apparently he had a twenty-year history of domestic violence against his wife and daughter, though this was not acted on until it was too late. The issue at hand would seem to me to be a system that is too comfortable with the concept of domestic abuse. Why was it that Haughton’s mental health was not investigated after an incident in 2011 when he locked himself up in his home while pointing a gun at his wife? Of course, it’s all very well to throw around how people should have acted as opposed to how they did act, but nothing really seems to be done about it. What is needed is a reform in the legal system to take domestic abuse cases more seriously, and a more active program for treating the mental problems of former soldiers like Haughton.
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