Are we angry enough yet? Haven’t our hearts been broken enough times? Are we ready to act now? How many more children do we have to lose?
These are just some of the questions in the aftermath of more children being gunned down at another school, this time in Bend, Oregon, on Oct 15. By a 16-year-old boy. Are we so numb that it barely registers? Do we just go back to watching the game and following the midterms? We can’t. It’s madness if we do.
If we care at all about the families of those slain in Oregon, including a 5-year-old, we have to act.
What is the matter with a society that, on the one hand, seems to be waking up to the scourge of men gang-raping women, but is nearsighted, if not blind, to the gender of angry, disaffected men gunning down people praying in houses of worship, shopping in big-box stores, going to the movies, sitting in classrooms? Only in America, land of the freedom to bear arms, home of the slave to the gun lobby.
There have been more than 360 mass shootings so far this year in the United States of Ammunition, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Can we reach 500 by year’s end? USA! USA!
Between August 1982 and March 2026, male shooters carried out 153 of the 159 public mass shootings tracked by Mother Jones. Only six were carried out by, or involved, a woman. The truth is, roughly 96 to 98 percent of mass shootings are committed by men, most often white. It’s a fact so taken for granted that most news media reports don’t even remark on it. That’s outrageous. Many of these men and young men if not in crisis were struggling with their mental health, often in ways that were well known but inadequately addressed, if addressed at all.
Who is attending to teenage boys and young men struggling?
Strengthening mental health services for boys and young men, beginning as early as elementary school, must become a priority of a rehabilitated post-RFK Jr. Department of Health and Human Services. That’s part of the story.
For decades, polls have consistently shown that an overwhelming percentage of voters support stricter gun laws, including stronger background checks (Gallup found 96 percent support for requiring them on all gun purchases) and barring anyone with a history of domestic violence from having access to guns. Congress, though, refuses to act. The Federal Assault Weapons Ban, signed by President Clinton as part of the 1994 crime bill, had a built-in 10-year sunset and expired in 2004. For more than 20 years, Congress has failed to renew — or strengthen — the law. Despicable.
Let’s get back to the gender of the shooters. A crack has opened — and is widening — in the aftermath of Jane Doe’s courageous demand that the Cornell frat boys be held to account for allegedly gang-raping her. Pressure is building. Could the focus on the Cornell Seven’s twisted expression of male entitlement help make the connection to angry men, usually white, being the perpetrators of mass shootings?
Men, we must join women in insisting we hold to account all men who are credibly accused of rape. If we do so, society may begin to connect the dots and stand up to the gun lobby, led primarily by, you guessed it, powerful white men. Will we finally place the gender of the shooter at the center of the national conversation about mass shootings, rather than it remaining in its usual place on the periphery?
Yes, we have to dramatically strengthen gun laws. Remember what Australia did after a gunman killed 35 people at Port Arthur, Tasmania, in April 1996. Within 12 days, the country’s conservative government had secured a nationwide agreement to ban automatic and semiautomatic rifles and pump-action shotguns, buy back and destroy about 650,000 guns, and require licensing and registration. Twelve days! If Democrats control the next Congress, they must pass tough new gun legislation the way the Aussies did. Then, they’ll need to secure the votes to override Trump’s inevitable, politically tone-deaf veto.
What can we do now to connect the dots that underlie this ongoing crisis in masculinity? Let’s start with preschool boys. For two decades I have been advocating that we pay attention to how we raise our sons, how boys are socialized. Imagine how different our country could be if we emphasized raising emotionally aware, caring, sensitive, compassionate boys, brought up to see vulnerability as a strength.
If (when) Democrats take control of Congress next year, it’s imperative they fast-track legislation empowering a financially rejuvenated Head Start to pilot a program that socializes boys to soften, not harden, their hearts, and to cultivate their innate capacity to nurture. (The program must include training for preschool teachers not to get caught in the pink/blue trap.) And it must be expanded to include all preschools and kindergartens.
It’s going to take a while to harvest a new crop of boys and young men, but the alternative — another yield from the poisoned forest of conventional masculinity — is unacceptable. For the sake of all those we’ve lost, we cannot wait another minute to sow new seeds of compassion, courage and love.
Rob Okun (robokun50@gmail.com), syndicated by Peace Voice, is editor emeritus of Voice Male, which has been chronicling the profeminist men’s movement for more than three decades. The magazine is now published by the Canadian NGO, Next Gen Men. He lives in Amherst.