No End in Sight for Our Recurring National Nightmare

The horrific and tragic mass shooting that occurred in Buffalo, New York, on a quiet Saturday afternoon in a supermarket in a predominantly Black community once again has highlighted how the intersection of racial hatred fomented by the internet and the easy availability of assault weapons of mass destruction are causing carnage in communities all across America.

The reality is this: There is no place in the United States that is free from the spectre of gun violence.

The small community of Winthrop is coming up on the one-year anniversary of the shooting death of two Black residents by a young white man armed with a high-capacity handgun on an early-summer Saturday afternoon on a peaceful residential street.

And, similar to the shooter in Buffalo, the white gunman in Winthrop espoused white supremacist views with Nazi emblems among his personal belongings and, it is believed, was en route to a nearby synagogue, though fortunately he was stopped by a Winthrop police sergeant who shot him dead just a few blocks away.

As usual, the aftermath of the tragedy in Buffalo brought calls for regulation of the internet to stop the spread of hate movements and for the regulation of the sale of the military-grade weaponry that makes such incidents possible.

But as usual, it’s all just a lot of talk. Meaningful gun control by Congress never will happen because of the stranglehold upon the Republican party (and some Democrats) by the gun lobby, despite overwhelming public support for such measures.

And the internet only grows more toxic day-by-day and lurks as a haven for white supremacists to spread their hateful messages on the Dark Web.

America is trapped in a recurring nightmare of a reality of our own creation that, no matter how many times we replay it, we are unable to change.