7 AUGUST

When 'enough is enough' isn't enough

Americans are once again facing the reality of mass violence playing on a recurring loop following two shootings in less than 24 hours, leaving more than 30 people dead and dozens injured. This time, they took place in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio – the former believed to have been perpetrated by a suspected white supremacist who feared a "Hispanic invasion".

In an address following the shootings, President Donald Trump condemned racism, bigotry and white supremacy, but also placed the blame the violence on the media, video games, and the mental health of the alleged shooters.

So far this year there have been 255 mass shootings in the United States. 

NEWS WRAP

A rematch in Michigan

• Democratic presidential hopefuls faced off in the second round of live debates over two nights in Detroit, Michigan last week. It offered a rematch for Senator Kamala Harris and former Vice President Joe Biden, and saw progressive senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on the debate stage together for the first time. Research Associate Elliott Brennan joined the 2020Vision podcast to break down all the big moments. LISTEN HERE.
   

• Senator Bernie Sanders has a huge lead over other Democratic presidential candidates in the number of individual donors they have each accumulated so far. The New York Times has created detailed maps of the donors powering the 2020 Democratic campaigns. The map also shows that Elizabeth Warren's strategy of relying on grass-roots donors, and refraining from holding high-dollar fundraisers, is working. VIEW HERE.
   

• The annual AUSMIN meetings took place in Sydney over the weekend. Writing for The Australian Financial Review today, Non-Resident Fellow Georgie Skipper notes that enhancing the long-term economic opportunities for the Indo-Pacific region was at the core of the agenda. Both countries are looking at ways to achieve greater presence and impact in the region by leveraging stronger country groupings, private sector engagement and by identifying very specific and focused streams of work. READ MORE HERE.
   

• The Chinese Communist Party is facing diabolic dilemmas and problems of its own making, writes Senior Fellow John Lee for The Australian this week. Lee says the Communist Party has blamed Western forces and foreign ideas for fomenting trouble in Hong Kong, but that it needs a new narrative, a new approach to national cohesion, and a different approach to winning the hearts and minds of those it seeks to rule. READ MORE HERE.
   
• It has long been feared that Cambodia’s growing dependence on China—its largest aid donor, investor and creditor—would lead to a Chinese military presence in the country. According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, those fears are now coming true. Senior Fellow Charles Edel spoke to ASPI's The Strategist about the potential for deep-water ports to serve Chinese naval expansion and restrict Western access to key parts of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. READ MORE HERE.

They're all of a pattern, and they all follow what this president has said from that maiden speech when he ran for the highest office of the land.

Presidential contender and former El Paso Democratic congressman Beto O'Rourke links President Trump's words with attacks on minority communities.
(Cuomo Prime Time, CNN)
5 August 2019

ANALYSIS

Trump has once again missed the target when it comes to America's gun problem

Bruce Wolpe
Non-Resident Senior Fellow

It was hard enough to go to sleep — safely — on Saturday night here in the US following the day-long, non-stop coverage of the gun massacre in El Paso, Texas where 20 people were murdered and scores injured in a Walmart packed with shoppers ahead of the new school year. 

We heard the usual litany of "thoughts and prayers" from political leaders for the victims, and praise — so deserved — for the first responders. All too little, too late, coming just six days after a massacre that killed three, including two children, in California.

But to wake up Sunday morning to news of the overnight atrocity in Dayton, Ohio, with nine more killed and dozens injured, the realisation hits — again: there is no stopping this.

With more than one gun for each of the 330 million Americans, the issue is plain. The easy access to guns places America as the world's outlier in gun violence; the easy resort to firearms means the killings will continue on any day, in any city.

The authorities always search for motive, and the cause. But the oft-cited triggers — mental illness, white nationalist domestic terrorism, video games, personal trauma and desperation — have outlets because of the easy access to guns. Yes, those triggers exist. But they are expressed through guns — far more lethal than any other weapon.

The first reports of the shootings in El Paso indicated there was more than one shooter. That report was incorrect, because what witnesses saw were other Texans with firearms pulling them out in response to the attack. In America, you never know, as you walk down the street, how many other people within your eyesight are carrying weapons. There are fewer unarmed passers-by on that street than you might think. El Paso is also in Texas, where Governor Greg Abbott in 2015 said he was "embarrassed" that Texas had fallen behind California in gun purchases.

The issue is not criminals pouring across the border or Islamic terrorists or immigrants from choose-your-obscenity countries. It is too many guns.

Then-president Barack Obama felt the killings in Newtown Connecticut in 2012 that claimed 26 lives — including those of 20 children — constituted the worst day of his presidency. And he could not recapture the souls lost, in a lost America, even when singing Amazing Grace in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015 at the funeral of the pastor killed in his church — along with eight others — at the hand of a white supremacist.

One would have thought that in a vigorous democracy, when communities across the nation, and their leaders say: "Enough is Enough," that something would be done. But the power of the National Rifle Association (NRA), and the DNA of the Republican Party, simply find the Second Amendment untouchable.

The right to life proclaimed by so many American leaders does not enjoy any parity under the Second Amendment. Only last week, days after the California massacre, at his rally in Cincinnati, Ohio — the state where nine would die two nights later — Mr Trump said:

"We will defend privacy, free speech, religious liberty, and the right to keep and bear arms. And just remember, with the Democrats, there is no Second Amendment. You can forget about 'keep and bear arms'."

In his remarks to the nation on Monday, Mr Trump missed the target of what needs to be done. Condemning white supremacy and hate crimes, addressing mental health, video games and the internet — all necessary but not sufficient. 

The only thing that would have truly begun to make a difference in the trajectory of gun violence is if the president directs his officials to work with Speaker Pelosi and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell to craft a gun control package — and McConnell agrees. The House already passed a mandatory background-check bill last February. But Trump failed to make that call on Monday.

Read Bruce Wolpe's full piece on ABC News.

DIARY

The week ahead

• Thursday, 8 August: The National Association of Black Journalists' Presidential Candidates Forum in Miami, Florida with Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Bill Weld.
   

• August 12-14: USSC/State Department Indo-Pacific Strategic Futures: Dialogue and Simulation held in Sydney.
   

• Until September 3: The US House and Senate have broken for summer recess.

STUDENT EVENT

Indo-Pacific Strategic Futures Next Gen Leaders Workshop​

VIDEO

President Trump's national address on shootings

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

#GunViolence

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