San Diego’s Gun Violence Prevention Program is Working. Next, We Need to Address Toxic Masculinity
In the past year San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott has secured 100 civil restraining orders preventing people determined by a court who may be a danger to themselves or others from controlling, accessing, purchasing, and possessing firearms and ammunition.
More than 260 firearms, including more than a dozen assault rifles, and thousands of rounds of ammunition have been either confiscated or voluntarily surrendered as a result of these Gun Violence Restraining Orders (GRVOs).
These restraining orders are enabled by California’s Red Flag law, which went into effect in 2016, empowering family members and law enforcement to take action to stop warning signs from escalating into tragedies. Sadly, San Diego is one of just a few jurisdictions in California utilizing this tool.
A statement from the City Attorney’s office breaks down the underlying causes leading to the past year’s restraining orders:
More than one-third of the cases related to domestic violence or stalking
About one-fourth of the cases involved some form of substance abuse
About one-fourth of the GVROs resulted in the removal of guns from individuals threatening suicide.
Eighteen GVROs were obtained against individuals struggling with mental health issues, including dementia and PTSD
Fourteen GVROs were obtained against individuals who threatened violence in the workplace or at a school
Ten GVROs were obtained against juveniles or individuals who used social media to make threats
GVROs are granted in open court hearings, offering respondents the opportunity to be represented by counsel. They remain in effect for one year, during which time the gun owner has an opportunity to remedy the circumstances posing a danger to self or others.
I know it’s not a perfect system, but as the nation’s gun violence continues to ramp up, I’m glad to see somebody offering up more than thoughts and prayers to address the issue.
The stats regarding gun violence in the U.S. are horrifying. More than 36,000 Americans shot and killed every year, and approximately 100,000 more shot and injured.
So far this year (January 31), there have been 27 mass shootings in the U.S. according to the gun violence archive. Historically, more than 54% of mass shootings involve shooting a current or former intimate partner or family member.
In an average year, over 10,300 violent hate crimes involve a gun – more than 28 each day. The vast majority of hate crimes are directed against communities of color, religious minorities, and LGBTQ people,
More than 36,000 Americans shot and killed every year, and approximately 100,000 more shot and injured.
And women are being increasingly targeted.
From a recent article in Vogue:
Last week, a 21-year-old man, armed with a 9mm handgun and ammunition he had legally purchased just five days prior, walked into a SunTrust bank in Sebring, Florida. He then forced the five women inside to lie down on the lobby floor before shooting them each in the back of the head. Police—who are still trying to determine the gunman’s motive—say he wasn’t planning to rob the bank. It appears he had a different and straightforward motive—simply to kill women.
The horrific execution of five women inside a bank in Florida should have made more headlines, but it became just another instance of misogyny leading to gun violence in America. In the first month of 2019, a Louisiana man shot and killedhis girlfriend, his parents, and two others with a handgun he stole from his father. A New Jersey man opened fire at a UPS facility and took two women—one of whom was an ex-girlfriend—hostage. A Pennsylvania man went on a shooting spree near Penn State University, killing four people and wounding his ex-girlfriend. And in Oregon, a 36-year-old man shot and killed a woman on their first date; they had just returned to her apartment after hiking.
Shootings that target women and are born out of misogyny and sexual violence are pervasive. As a result of this uniquely American crisis, women in the U.S. are 16 times more likely to be killed with a firearm than women in other high-income countries. Nearly 1 million women have been shot or shot at by an intimate partner, and approximately 4.5 million American women have been threatened with a gun by an intimate partner.
I could go on. And on. And on.
Guns, as any serious advocate of the second Amendment will tell you, are merely a tool. And I’m glad our city attorney is taking steps to reduce gun violence in San Diego. Now we need to go further.
https://twitter.com/CityAttorneySD/status/1091032170381008896
For local activism combating Gun Violence, visit the Facebook page of San Diegans for Gun Violence Prevention
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But… an underlying problem, particularly when it comes to mass shootings, involves men, their perceptions of the world, and the roles they play in society. To be blunt, we’re looking at the most extreme manifestation of masculinity in a world where gender norms have changed.
From Harper’s Bazaar:
Shootings, whether they’re in Parkland, Orlando, Las Vegas or Sutherland Springs, all tend have one thing in common. It’s not that they’re done by mentally ill people (there is no true connection between people with a mental health diagnosis and mass shootings, according to experts), or that they’re radicalized minorities we should place travel bans on (white men have committed more mass shootings than any other group), or any of the other rhetoric we often hear from leaders.
It’s that they’re almost always perpetrated by men.
Of all the mass shootings since 1982, only three have been committed by women. While women comprise about 50 percent of the victims of mass shootings, female mass killers are “so rare that it just hasn’t been studied,” according to James Garbarino, a psychologist at Loyola University Chicago.
Toxic masculinity in the era of Trump has been elevated into a cause, where men who do not have the coping skills to deal with the fact that everyone does not think they are special or dominant are banding together to cast themselves as victims.
The American Psychological Association has finally recognized this as a problem (for decades white male behavior was considered the ‘norm'.)
From the New York Times:
...in August, the A.P.A. approved its first set of official guidelines for working with boys and men.
The guidelines, 10 in all, posit that males who are socialized to conform to “traditional masculinity ideology” are often negatively affected in terms of mental and physical health.
They acknowledge that ideas about masculinity vary across cultures, age groups and ethnicities. But they point to common themes like “anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence.”
Reactionary political figures weren’t happy with this change, with the National Review’s David French and Fox News’ Laura Ingraham leading the charge.
From Fox News:
“Traditional masculinity seems to be, in this report at least, conflated with being a pig, or a creep, or a Harvey Weinstein kind of person.”
The razor company Gillette released an advertisement titled “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be,” a spin on its longtime slogan “The Best a Man Can Get” recently, challenging viewers to confront #MeToo and issues of “toxic masculinity” that manifest in acts like bullying and catcalling. It suggests that men abandon the “boys will be boys” mentality and instead hold other men accountable for misogynistic attitudes and behavior.
It was viewed more than 25 million times on YouTube and 40 million times on Twitter. And then the push back came, including calls to boycott Gillette.
Finally from Teen Vogue:
What is desperately needed is a widely accepted version of manhood that does not measure itself by how to dominate and exert will over other people. Though the Gillette ad is only that, an advertisement, the angry responses say a lot about how much work there is to do to eliminate toxicity from masculinity and to create a healthier world for future generations of boys and men, as well as women, girls, transgender people, and non-binary people.
I’m not suggesting all macho men (or wanna be macho men) are gun violence prone. It’s just that the evidence strongly suggests those who commit gun violence have issued with their masculinity.
In case you haven’t noticed, most of the sources I’ve quoted in this post are from woman-oriented publications.
That’s not a coincidence. Women, who have to live in this reality, get it. Too many men are simply oblivious.
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https://twitter.com/RockTheVote/status/1091358355090751489