Editor's note: Keith Lamb has a Master's degree in Contemporary Chinese Studies. His primary research interests are China's international relations and socialism with Chinese characteristics. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The strong emotion in the wake of the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in which a teen killed 21 people in an elementary school, is understandable. So is the knee-jerk reaction asking to ban guns or tighten up gun laws. However, considering the reality of U.S., what isn't understandable is the incredulity to the barbaric act in what is otherwise considered a civilized society. The basic contradiction is that these "one-off events by a lone shooter" keep happening. 

The Texas shooting isn't a one-off that can only be rationalized by describing the shooter as psychologically deranged. What is needed is an overview of this uniquely American contradiction, which can then be used as a roadmap to resolve the problem of mass shootings and violence.

As a non-U.S. citizen, it is easy for me to call for laws to make guns illegal, which might diminish such crimes. However, it's not the gun that kills but the person holding it. Many U.S. citizens see the right to bear arms as a defense against a system that is utterly corrupt and can be countered only through the use of force.

Here lies the catch-22 because the U.S. has been captured by an oligarchy that acts undemocratically both domestically and in the international realm. Therefore the corollary is that if the right to bear arms is here to stay, then we have an even greater responsibility to focus on the sociopolitical roots of mass shootings.

According to the World Population Review, in 2019, the U.S. came second in the number of gun deaths globally, after Brazil. Even if the figures were adjusted per capita, the U.S. would still be in the top 10. It makes you wonder whether the U.S. is really a developed civilized country. Perhaps there is a certain amount of barbarism within the social political reality of America that leads to extreme events.

The growing homeless population, rising inequality, and a system that places Wall Street over people-centered development create the conditions for rising anomie. There is an African proverb, "The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth". Notably, the Uvalde shooting took place in a disadvantaged Hispanic community.

Clearly, the youth of America need more than the sops of consumer pop culture – they need good examples. However, the U.S. actions abroad expose it as a hyper-aggressive power continuously at war in every corner of the globe. President Joe Biden can lament all he wants about what drives an 18-year-old to buy assault weapons but do U.S. administrations "feel their soul ripped away" when they send their children to fight abroad?

Why is it that Biden is apparently willing to oppose the gun lobby and the domestic military industrial-complex and curtail their profits, but when it comes to the international gun lobby, there's no such compunction? It was reported last month that Biden's $813-billion security budget proposal is a 4 percent increase for the Pentagon, which already spends more on security than the security spending of nearly a dozen countries combined, including China, Germany, France and the UK.

To come to terms with its unique contradiction, the U.S. must do more than enact "stricter" gun control policies.  It needs people-centered economic policies that work for all; it needs to reflect on the inordinate destructive power of capital within its system. Furthermore, the U.S. needs to be conscious of its own extreme aggression that leaves both citizens and non-citizens in a state of mourning, anger and disbelief over the loss of their children.

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