Kudos to California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom for finding something upon which to blame mass shootings other than President Trump or the Second Amendment. Unfortunately, Newsom’s scapegoat is just as ridiculous.
During an emergency meeting on gun violence on Monday, Newsom said that the conversation on mass shootings should focus on toxic masculinity, given that such shootings “overwhelmingly, almost exclusively, are [committed by] males, boys, men.”
“I do think that is missing in the national conversation,” Newsom said, according to HuffPost. “If there was anything more obvious, I don’t know what is, why it is that we’ve just come to accept that, that it’s been so normalized and sort of baked in, that it’s not even debated any longer. Why does it have to be, why is it men, dominantly, always?”
Indeed, the overwhelming number of mass shootings have been perpetrated by men — which could spark a conversation about parenting, child-rearing, and family values. Instead, Newsom said the conversation should focus on curtailing traditional masculinity.
“And I think that goes deep to the issue of how we raise our boys to be men, goes deeply to values that we tend to hold dear — power, dominance and aggression, over empathy, care, collaboration,” he continued. “That is a deeper conversation — forgive me — a more difficult one to have, but I want to just introduce that into this debate.”
Newsom, and the leftists who agree with him, fail to understand that traits like aggression and dominance can be deeply important for young men, when correctly directed. For instance, male aggression could be transformed into the courage required to face off against the kinds of toxic men that enact mass shootings. It’s the sort of courage that leads a man to lay down his life for others. Dominance could be transformed into leadership, providing young males an example to follow. Allie Stuckey put it well in a video for PragerU in which she proclaimed that society needs more masculinity to curtail violence — not less of it:
When you try to make men more like women, you don’t get less “toxic masculinity,” you get more.
Why? Because bad men don’t become good when they stop being men; they become good when they stop being bad. Aggression, violence, and unbridled ambition can’t be eliminated from the male psyche; they can only be harnessed. And when they are harnessed, they are tools for good, not for harm.
The same masculine traits that bring destruction also defeat tyranny. The traits that foster greed also build economies. The traits that drive men to take foolish risks also drive men to take heroic risks.
The answer to toxic masculinity isn’t less masculinity; it’s better masculinity. And we know what that looks like.
It’s a young man opening the door for a girl on their first date. It’s a father working long hours to provide for his family. It’s a soldier risking his life to defend his country.
The growing problem in today’s society isn’t that men are too masculine; it’s that they’re not masculine enough. When men embrace their masculinity in a way that is healthy and productive, they are leaders, warriors and heroes. When they deny their masculinity, they run away from responsibilities, leaving destruction and despair in their wake.