The Tucson, Arizona Shooting 2011: The Interaction of Mental Health Problems and the Language of the Gun

David Brooks and some of the letter writers capture the reaction to this tragic incident well with their sentiment that “the political opportunism occasioned by this tragedy has ranged from the completely irrelevant to the shamelessly irresponsible.” Looking ahead and more calmly, it will be important to think about several dimensions of the tragedy, including first the provision of mental health care post-deinstitutionalization, second the regulation of dangerous weapons, third the nature of political discourse and political resistance, and fourth our intense culture and love of guns in this country. These factors interact, and it is important to understand how, exactly. Mental health problems interact with our culture of guns in such a way as to produce these exceptional killings. In the Southwest, in a city like Tucson, there is what I would call a “language of the gun” that has become the very way in which many individuals express themselves, their identities, their desires, their difficulties, and their emotions, including rage. It is, in my opinion, unlikely that we will be able to properly address the issues of mental health provision or regulate guns more effectively unless and until we come to grips with the lust for guns that permeates so much of our culture.

A few years ago in Tucson, I interviewed a number of young men and boys at the Catalina Mountain School, a juvenile correctional facility and, more than anything, I was deeply struck by their fascination with guns, their attraction to firearms, their lust for the weapons. The interviews revealed rich sensual, moral and political, and economic dimensions of guns and gun carrying among these youths. I came away from the experience convinced that it will be impossible to deal with the problems of handgun possession or to impose effective gun control measures unless we get a handle, first, on the deeply seductive and complex nature of guns. We need to focus on the interactions. Just as different factors may interact in China to produce the recent rash of knife killings in elementary schools, it’s crucial to explore in this country how mental health issues relate to guns.

In Tucson, I began all the interviews with a display of the three pictures of guns that I had taken out of a magazine, the American Handgunner — a 9 millimeter, a .45 semi-automatic, and a Colt .45 revolver—and asked a free associational prompt. A very few of the youths expressed visceral opposition to the guns (some preferred knives), but the vast majority were filled with lust at the very sight. The very image of the handguns inspired a deep sense of awe and desire. They would fixate on the photos and, with expressions of slight laughter or giggling or quiet moaning, would manifest a kind of yearning for the guns. Many of the youths wanted to go shoot the guns, or touch them, or smell them. “They’re cool. I want to play with them. I want to go out and shoot them.” “Guns are nice. They just, I don’t know, I just, I just like guns a lot.” “I would like to have one of these. . . . I always want, I always like, I always like guns. . . . Yeah, I always like to have one.” “I want to go shoot them. I want to see how they handle.” “They look tight. They look nice.” “They’re nice looking guns.” “I kind of like how they look. I just want to go shoot them.” “Those are some tight guns. I like them. I like the way they look.” “I love guns. Hell yeah, I love guns. [I love] everything about a gun.” “Those are some pretty tight guns.” “I think they’re cool. I like them. They’re nice. Someday I want a gun collection.” “(Smiling) It’s just tight right there. . . I like it. . . . It’s just tight like the way it looks. The way you can shoot. Those can shoot like ten rounds, huh? But they get jammed a lot. I had one.” “I’d say they look pretty tight. . . . They look cool.” As a 17-year-old explained, “Everybody likes guns these days, dude. Hell yea. They’re exciting. I mean what the hell. You feel powerful when you have a gun. You get respect.”

It is difficult to express in words the richness of emotions that the pictures evoked in these youths. The fact is, these (images of) guns were deeply seductive objects of desire. They held a surprisingly powerful and passionate grip over many youths. At the same time, carrying a gun had a strong moral dimension to many youths. Most of the youths I interviewed associated guns with a form of aggressive, pre-emptive self protection, and many of them felt self-righteous about the need for self-protection. In other cases, youths invoked notions of “enemies” and conceptions of warfare. Youth gun carrying also had an economic dimension to it. For many youths, handguns had important exchange value. They represented a commodity to be traded or sold for cash or drugs or sexual favors.

All in all, the interviews revealed a rich set of experiences with guns. The vast majority of the Catalina youths, twenty-six or 87 percent of them, had possessed guns at some point in their lives. And the firearms they carried were often high-caliber semi-automatic pistols. The nine millimeter was, in the words of a 17-year-old Tucson youth, “the size of the moment.” “It’s just going to be more powerful,” a 14-year-old student impatiently explains, “and it’s kind of just gonna go pretty much right through you.” Or, as a 17-year-old gang member states, semi-automatics “look nicer,” they’re better “if you want to let off quick rounds,” and “they’ll just put a hole in somebody’s ass.”

I came away from the experience in Tucson thinking that it is absolutely crucial to explore the different appeal and seduction of guns, and their relationships to issues like mental health, wealth distribution, and family ties. I have the same feeling when I read about the accused shooter, Jared Loughner, and his relationship to guns. I’m left thinking that we need to better understand this culture and language of the gun if we are to make any headway in making guns less dangerous and helping to avoid future tragedies like the one in Tucson.