经济学人社论||为何其他富裕国家不像美国那样频繁发生枪击案？

Mass shootings

大规模枪击案

It’s the guns

枪支作祟

Other rich countries do not have frequent mass shootings.

其他富裕国家枪击案并不频繁

There is a simple reason for that

原因十分简单

The two mass shootings within 24 hours of each other last weekend, one in El Paso, Texas, the other in Dayton, Ohio, were horrifying. Yet at the same time they were not surprising—at least in a purely statistical sense. So far this year America has averaged one shooting in which four or more people are killed or injured every single day. The death toll at the El Paso Walmart was 22. And that awful number made it only the fifth-deadliest shooting this decade. The ten people killed in Dayton put the murder spree there down at number 11 on the same list.

上周，美国一天之内发生了两起枪击案。一起发生在德克萨斯州埃尔帕索，另一起在俄亥俄州代顿市。两起案件接连发生，骇人听闻。恐怖之余，却并不令人感到意外，至少从统计数据上看是这样。从年初至今，美国平均每天都会发生一起至少有四人丧生或受伤的枪击案。埃尔帕索沃尔玛超市发生的枪击案死亡人数为22人，这个数字令人毛骨悚然，而这起案件在美国近10年死亡人数最多的枪击案件中仅排第五位；造成10人死亡的代顿市枪击案，则排第十一位。

注：美国历史上大规模枪击案

When police officers are trying to solve a murder they look at motive and opportunity. That framework is useful for thinking about mass murders, too. The shooter in Dayton left no explanation for his actions. His social-media accounts show he was a misogynist with an interest in leftish causes. The El Paso killer posted a manifesto filled with racist anxiety about the replacement of whites by Hispanics, as well as language that could have been drawn from a Trump rally (see article).

警官试图侦破谋杀案时，他们会调查作案者的动机和机会。这种破案思路对于侦破大规模谋杀案来说同样适用。代顿市枪击案的凶手被击毙前没有为自己的行为留下任何解释，但其社交账号显示他厌恶女性，并对左派理念感兴趣。埃尔帕索的枪手作案前曾在网上晒出了一份“宣言书”，字里行间充满了种族主义者（此处为白人至上观念人士）对于西班牙裔取代白人所表现出的焦躁不安，也充斥着可能是从特朗普集会中援引的话语。

注:

1. 美国枪击：13小时两场屠杀 白人国家主义和枪支改革再引关注

https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/world-49243135

2. 美国24小时发生两起严重枪击案仇恨源自哪里？_凤凰网军事

https://mil.ifeng.com/c/7osyqC4tMdI

After the killings, people have blamed any number of causes—from mental illness and video games to the internet and the social alienation of young men. Yet cause and effect are hard to pin down, as shown by the row about Donald Trump’s culpability for what happened in El Paso. His role matters not just because, as president, he has a responsibility to unite the country, but also because America’s biggest mass shootings come in patterns. In the 1980s there was a wave of post-office shootings. Later, shootings at schools and universities became a way for a certain type of young man to achieve fame. More recently there has been an increase in acts of terrorism perpetrated by white men who believe they are locked in a struggle against non-whites and Jews. This thread connects the shooting at a Charleston church in 2015 to the one at a Pittsburgh synagogue last year and to the El Paso Walmart shooting.

两起枪击案发生后，民众将其归咎于多种原因，从精神疾病、电子游戏，到互联网、年轻男性的社会异化问题。然而，因果关系很难准确界定，一如人们争辩特朗普在埃尔帕索事件中是否负有罪责，这很难得出结论。特朗普角色的重要性不仅源于他是总统，故而他有责任将这个国家团结起来，更是因为美国大型枪击事件的发生有规律可循。20世纪80年代，邮局枪击事件涌现。随后，校园枪击屡见不鲜，有类年轻人想借此一夜"成名”。近日，白人男性实施的恐怖主义案件数量见增，他们坚信自身深陷于与非白人和犹太人的斗争中。这个理由可以将2015年查尔斯顿教堂枪击案、去年匹兹堡犹太教堂枪击案以及埃尔帕索沃尔玛枪击案串联起来。

注：

1. Row (about/over sth) : a serious disagreement between people, organizations, etc. about sth 严重分歧；纠纷

2. 枪击案介绍和原因分析：

https://mq.mbd.baidu.com/lkrha4m?f=cp&u=865be09623590862

3.奥巴马在推特中写道：

There are indications that El Paso shooting follows a dangerous trend：

troubled individuals who embrace racist ideologies and see themselves obligated to act violently to preserve white supremacy. 但有迹象表明，埃尔帕索市枪击案遵循了一种危险趋势：陷入困境的个人信奉种族主义的意识形态，认为自己有义务采取暴力行动，以维护白人至高无上的地位。

http://world.huanqiu.com/exclusive/2019-08/15258336.html?agt=15422

That is where Mr Trump’s language comes in. His presidential campaign began with an impromptu speech in which he said Mexico was sending rapists across the border, and it continued in that vein. The White House has not changed him. At a rally in Florida in May, where he denounced migrants at the southern border, someone in the crowd shouted that the solution was to shoot them. “That’s only in the Panhandle you can get away with that kind of statement,” responded Mr Trump, to laughter and cheers. After the El Paso shootings, as after Charlottesville, the president, reading from a teleprompter, condemned white supremacists and bigots. Yet the next time he is in front of a big crowd he will be at it again.

讨论到这里，特朗普的言辞便与这些案件有了些关系。他的总统竞选活动起始于一场即兴演讲，在这次演讲中，他声称墨西哥正把强奸犯送过边境，并且他在竞选过程中延续了这样的论调。当选总统没能改变特朗普。今年5月，在佛罗里达州的一次集会上，他谴责了南部边境的移民。人群中有人大喊：“解决办法就是开枪崩了他们”。特朗普回应道 ：“只有在这里（注：那次集会发生在巴拿马城，位于佛罗里达西北部，是佛罗里达狭长地带的一部分，故使用Panhandle指代），你说这种话才能安然无恙。”笑声和欢呼声此起彼落。就像在夏洛茨维尔事件后一样，总统在埃尔帕索枪击事件发生之后照本宣科地发言，谴责白人至上主义者和顽固迷信者。然而，当他下次在一大群人前发表演讲时仍口不择言。（此处应是反讽，因为特朗普本人并不承认他是白人至上主义者，事实上他的诸多言论表明他确实是白人至上。）

注：

1. Panhandle : N. [often in place names], a narrow strip of territory projecting from the main territory of one state into another.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/trump-getting-worse/595453/

2. 【竞选言论】特朗普：美国有很多很坏很坏的人 必须先把他们都赶出去！】

https://m.v.qq.com/cover/5/5ex0zbcfhm3ui7x.html?ptag=sp3.baidu.com%23v.play.adaptor%232&vid=f0338kehfou

3. 【美国大选首场辩论:特朗普称不能让墨西哥人抢走我们的工作】

https://dwz.cn/od5mh8vB?u=478b5a8904d9e41b

4. 【选后采访】特朗普当选后首次谈论自己的承诺：没错，我要建墙！】

https://m.v.qq.com/cover/5/5ex0zbcfhm3ui7x.html?ptag=sp3.baidu.com%23v.play.adaptor%232&vid=e0345x8khg9

5. 2017年美国弗吉尼亚州的Charlottesville市发生10年来最大的“白人至上”示威游行！右翼团体与反对者发生严重的冲突。后一名俄亥俄州的男子驾车飞速冲撞至该市中心，导致一名32岁的妇女死亡，至少19人受伤。矛盾升级！

If you accept that the words people say have some effect, then the words that a president says must matter more. There is no way to calculate the probability of such racially divisive language encouraging someone to act out violent racist fantasies, but it is not one and it is not zero. Run the experiment enough times with enough people and at some point it becomes lethal.

假如你承认，人们说的话会影响他人，那么总统说的话必然分量更重。当然，我们没有办法真的去计算出不法分子做出种族分裂性的暴力行为在多大程度上受到了总统的“种族分裂言论”唆使。但是我们确信，种族分裂言论与暴力行为并非完全无关，但也没有必然联系。若是实验样本足够大、次数足够多，那么某个时刻，这种言论将会是致命的。

Yet it is also true that mass shootings were common before Mr Trump took office and will continue after he has gone. The El Paso shooter’s main fixation was immigration, but he also wrote in his manifesto about excessive corporate power and environmental damage. The Dayton shooter was not a Trump supporter at all. In such cases it is impossible to know whether the ideology makes the person violent, or whether the violent desires come first and the half-baked justification follows after.

然而毋庸置疑的是，大规模枪击案在特朗普上任前就已层出不穷，而特朗普离任之后，枪击案也仍会发生。厄尔巴索枪击案凶手的主要执念是移民问题，但在其所写的“宣言书”中，他也提到了企业权利过大和环境破坏等问题。此外，代顿枪击案的凶手压根不是特朗普的支持者。人们无法摸清楚这两起案件到底是意识形态使人变得暴戾还是凶手先产生了暴力欲望而后产生不正当犯罪理由。

注：
Half-baked: If you describe an idea or plan as half-baked, you mean that it has not been properly thought out, and so is stupid or impractical. (collins)

If motive can be hard to attribute precisely, and policy correspondingly hard to design, the same is not true of opportunity. White nationalists can be found in many Western countries, as can politicians who exploit racial divisions. But in a society where someone with murderous intent can wield >the harm he can do is limited. When such a person has access to a semi-automatic weapon, which can hold 100 rounds of ammunition and discharge them in under a minute, it is grievous—and hence, lamentably, more seductive.

如果犯罪动机难以准确归因，相应地，也很难制定政策。然而能够使用枪支杀人的机会却并非如此。虽然许多西方国家都有白人民族主义者和利用种族分裂的政客，但是在只能使用菜刀和棒球棒进行谋杀的国家中，一个具有谋杀意图的歹徒所能造成的伤害是有限的。而如果这样的歹徒可以使用能够容纳100发子弹并在一分钟内将其全部射出的半自动武器时，后果将十分严重，更可悲的是，这种杀戮也更为诱人。

The answer is obvious:restrict the ownership of certain types of guns, as New Zealand did after the shootings in Christchurch, and introduce proper background checks. Such measures will not prevent all gun deaths. The constitution will not be rewritten and too many weapons are in circulation. Yet given the number of fatalities, even a 5% reduction would save many innocent lives. Mass shootings in America have become like deforestation in Brazil or air pollution in China—a man-made environmental hazard that is hard to stop. Such hazards are not cleaned up overnight. That should not prevent people from making a start.

解决方案显而易见: 限制某些枪支的持有权，如新西兰在基督城枪击事件后所做的那样，并引入适当的背景调查。这些措施并不能避免所有的枪杀问题。宪法并不会被改写，而且流通的武器过多。然而鉴于死亡人数，即使减少5%的枪击事件也能挽救许多无辜的生命。想要控制美国大规模枪击事件是很困难的，这如同很难阻挡巴西滥砍滥伐或中国空气污染这类人为环境危害事件一样，这种危害并不会在一夜之内消失殆尽，但这不应成为人们不开始行动的借口。

注:

“与世无争”的新西兰为何爆发惊人枪击案

https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/59685141