People who love soft methods and hate iniquity forget this — that reform consists in taking a bone from a dog. Philosophy will not do it.” — John Jay Chapman
I’m also reminded of the struggle to end slavery. Slave owners didn’t see themselves as a participant in evil. To the contrary, they believed slavery was a part of God’s plan, so much so that they were willing to die to perpetuate it. It cost a lot of blood to take that bone from the dog.
Slavery cast its shadow into the 20th century with a legacy of racism and oppression, which gave rise to a new struggle for civil rights. Some racists were determined not to relinquish their positions of privilege, and they used lynching, murder, and church-bombing as tools to combat change. We’ve come far but it has been a long struggle.
Now we are faced with the “gun problem”. Guns kill or injure over 100,000 Americans annually. In 2013, there were 73,505 nonfatal firearm injuries and 33,636 deaths due to "injury by firearms". To the extent that they oppose a solution, gun advocates are a part of the problem. They justify an unacceptable status quo because they feel entitled. They are unable or unwilling to see the role they play in America’s gun affliction.
Guns kill or injure over 100,000 Americans annually. In 2013, there were 73,505 nonfatal firearm injuries and 33,636 deaths due to "injury by firearms". — CDC
The gun advocates’ motto, popularized by the NRA on a series of bumper stickers, is “I'll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.” But gun advocates are not the people with cold, dead hands. Those belong to the innocent thousands that are buried every year in cemeteries across America: school children, teachers, and thousands of other ordinary citizens caught in the crossfire of the nation’s shooting binge. According to a Wikipedia article:
- Firearms were used to kill 13,286 people in the U.S. in 2015, excluding suicide and accidents.
- Approximately 1.4 million people have been killed using firearms in the U.S. between 1968 and 2011 — enough people to fill a city that, in size, falls between Dallas and San Antonio.
- Compared to 22 other high-income nations, the U.S. gun-related murder rate is 25 times higher. With just half the population of the other 22 nations combined, the U.S. had 82 percent of all gun deaths, 90 percent of all women killed by guns, 91 percent of children under 14 and 92 percent of young people between ages 15 and 24 killed by guns.
- In 2010, gun violence cost U.S. taxpayers approximately $516 million in direct hospital costs.
Approximately 1.4 million people have been killed using firearms in the U.S. between 1968 and 2011.” — BBC News
In the UK, there are 50 to 60 gun deaths per year. After adjusting for population difference, the US has 160 times as many gun homicides as the UK. In Japan, the year 2006 saw 2 firearm deaths, and when that number jumped to 22 in 2007, it became a national scandal.
Deaths in the US from firearms have increased over decades to a point that few would have tolerated in an earlier time. But the increase has been gradual enough to become a “new normal”. Our cities and campuses are the new “Old West”. Only when a particularly egregious crime occurs do we sit up and take notice. But soon after, we shrug our shoulders, mutter a few words about how “something needs to change”, and go back to our daily routine, giving the problem no more thought — until the inevitable next mass shooting happens.
It’s not just mass shootings that are the problem. Those are just the most visible aspect of gun violence. I live in central Virginia, where the morning news reported that a man in rural Sussex County was severely wounded by bullets that came through the wall of his house. Three hours later in the small community of Waverly, a gunman walked up to the bedroom window of a woman’s house and opened fire, hitting her.
A part of the problem is the violence that permeates our culture. We are entertained by violent movies, violent video games, and violent sports. We have become numb to some degree of violence in our culture. At the same time, civility has declined. Road rage is a fairly recent phenomenon which illustrates that many people seem to exist in a state of anger, waiting for some trigger event to set them off.
Another part of the problem is ignorance of gun safety rules. Pointing a supposedly “unloaded” gun at someone and pulling the trigger has been the cause of many tragic accidents. Several years ago, a bullet hit a 7 year old local boy in the top of his head and killed him. He had been walking to a July 4th fireworks show with his father. Police said the bullet was likely fired into the air from as many as 5 miles away.
What shall we do? What can we do? After every mass shooting, useful ideas are offered and promptly rejected with the excuse that they wouldn’t have prevented this particular shooting or that it is too soon to talk about gun restrictions.
There has been discussion about banning assault weapons, bump stocks, high capacity ammo clips, and ghost guns. I doubt these bans are likely to be very effective at preventing school shootings and other mass shootings, but I think such bans would be wise as part of a bigger solution. No single proposal is likely to be a complete solution.
There has been discussion about mental health resources. Detection and treatment of mental disorders will be an important part of a gun violence solution. But like assault weapon bans or bump stock bans, more mental health resources will be only a part of a bigger solution.
Arming teachers is a big topic now. It’s a sad state of affairs when people who have been trained to teach children must now be trained to kill a shooter who might be a child. There’s also the problem of collateral damage. Facing a life-or-death situation, will a teacher have the calmness to anticipate where her bullets might end up, what walls might the bullets penetrate — or ricochet off? Who will have more firepower — the teacher with a concealed-carry pistol or the shooter armed with an assault weapon and with months to plan and prepare? The shooter might have a fully automatic weapon. The shooter might be wearing body armor. I'm not saying armed teachers are useless — I'm saying that when you only treat the symptom of a problem, the problem evolves in a different direction.
Arming teachers might be helpful if schools were the only soft target. But if you harden the targets of school shooters, they will move on to another soft target. You can’t harden everything. There is a gut-level appeal to arming teachers, but it doesn't address the underlying problem.
How do we define this gun problem? Essentially, we have too many guns in the hands of the wrong people. We have too many weapons of war. We are far too lenient about gun sales. In the days when the Second Amendment was penned, a firearm was a musket — a single-shot firearm that took many seconds to reload. If the framers of the Constitution could have foreseen the evolution of guns and the havoc and mass killings that today’s high-tech guns are capable of, I think they would have been appalled. It is highly questionable if they would have protected the right of civilians to own firearms of the kind available today.
In my next post I will share some ideas that I believe will go a long way to fixing the shooting problem. My proposals may ruffle some feathers, but gun owners get to keep their guns and the rest of us get to live in a safer country.
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