Once again, we’re shocked at the carnage, and we get
teary-eyed over the pictures of grief-stricken students. And we send our
thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims.
That done, we’ll get back to our lives until the next
shooting.
Newtown, Aurora, Charleston, Rochester, Roseburg…. As President
Obama said after last week’s shooting, this has become routine. And as he
said, sending our thoughts and prayers isn’t enough.
And as he also said, this is a political issue. It has to be
a political issue. It’s not dishonoring the victims to bring their deaths into
the realm of politics. We dishonor them if we don’t.
But the more this horror goes on, the less we seem willing
to deal with it. It’s as if an alien force were abroad in the land, striking
without provocation or reason.
We find “reasons,” of course. It’s bad people with illegal
guns. It’s people with mental illness with guns. It’s not the guns themselves.
I don’t know how long we can continue fooling ourselves. But
we’ll keep trying, and finding something else to blame, anything but guns.
If the early reports are accurate, the gunman in Roseburg
seems to have had mental health problems. And so there’ll be more calls for
help for those with mental illness. Fine. We do need
to provide more help for those with mental illness – more funding for research,
more funding for treatment, more medical training, more public awareness and
understanding.
But that’s not enough. And focusing on mental illness is an
easy, cruel distraction. The vast majority of people with mental illness are
not violent.
As the president said, we’re not the only country with
people suffering from mental illness, but we’re the only advanced country “that
sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.”
The reason is the availability of guns in the United States.
It’s also an easy, cruel distraction to focus on “bad guys
with illegal guns.” Some of the most horrific mass shootings have been by
people with guns bought legally. A high percentage of Rochester’s murders are
committed with stolen guns that were originally bought legally. Many others
were with guns that came from Virginia, Georgia, and other states with lax gun
sale restrictions.
And, by the way, while the mass shootings are horrible,
focusing on those events can itself be a distraction. Because they represent a
tiny fraction of the gun violence in this country: less than one-tenth of one
percent between 1983 and 2013, says a March report by the New York State Bar Association.
More than 30,000 people die from gunshots every year, the
Bar Association report notes. And, says the report: “More than twice that
number are shot each year but do not die from their wounds – some 66,000 to
78,000 people annually.”
In the face of all that, are Americans appalled? Only kinda. A large majority
consistently have favored things like expanded background checks, according to
the Pew
Research Center. But asked whether it is more important to protect the
rights of people to own guns than to control gun ownership, we’re far more
closely divided, with just 50 percent favoring controls.
Some states have weakened gun control. And gun-rights
advocates have continued to push insanities like concealed carry and the arming
of teachers.
There are lots of reasons for that, of course, the NRA’s
effectiveness being high on the list. I’m glad to see Obama pledging to stick
with this issue. And I’ll keep coming back to it in this column. But I can’t
imagine that we’ll make much headway in this struggle until we change the
culture of this violence-loving, increasingly angry society.
That culture is showing up in politics, in elected officials
who favor military spending over education and health care, fist-shaking over
diplomacy. It is showing up in the public enthusiasm for swaggering, braggarts
as candidates.
And that, to me, is as scary as the mass shootings. It’s all
of a piece, yes?
This story appears in our
print version with the headline “Guns cause these deaths.”
This article appears in Oct 7-13, 2015.
It’s really an amazing thing how guns, bombs, knives, or any other kind of weaponry can jump, by some mystical power, into the hands of those who have no regard for human life.
Maybe we need more laws to control that mystical power harbored in these weapons to make everyone feel safer.
Maybe the weapon manufacturers should issue warnings that their products have levitational powers and to beware that handling them may cause harm; but fear not, user, you won’t be at fault..
We live in a country in which our government since 1978 has both allowed and conspired to transfer vast wealth from the middle-class to the super-rich.
If we think that a candidate’s position on guns is more important than this, then we’ll deserve what we’ll get.
Guns, especially automatic weapons, empower and enable cowards to carry out mass killings. Picture Columbine or Sandy Hook but now the weapon is a knife or baseball bat. The number killed would be much smaller.
ok…so lets outlaw guns. What then? Outlaw hammers, knives, bats? Gun permit applications have been going through the roof because our government can’t protect us. The criminal element know their rights, and are back on the street ASAP to commit more crimes. There are far more good people in the world than bad. If people armed themselves, how could one bad person take out so many people? I never read about mass shootings in Texas. Why not? Probably because the perp would be dead after 30 seconds. No trial, just eliminated from society. If making owning a gun illegal is the solution, why not make heroin, meth, and cocaine illegal? Oh…..wait.
Mitch…how exactly is our government supposed to protect us?
Good question Tom. I guess our government needs to enforce what’s already a law. For example, if you are caught with a gun, and you don’t have a permit, pay the price! Also, a felon can’t have access to a weapon. Supposed to be a prison term if caught. The police do what they can but it’s becoming more of managing, than arresting because they know the criminal element will be back on the streets in 24 hours. So why bother? Problem is with lenient judges and good lawyers. Why can’t we get aggressive with handling this situation? Would love to see road checks set up, similar to DWI, but for illegal guns. If you have a permit…have a nice day. No permit…bye bye. Lets build a prison in every town to house criminals who are a danger to society. And let the produce goods and services for the community. I’m really tired about hearing about rights for those that don’t deserve them. Bring back the chain gangs. Hard time might help, or if it doesn’t, no problem, produce for the community, and no food if you don’t! Things won’t change, until the good citizens say enough is enough. The community should hold a parade for anyone that defends his property with delay force, if it was warranted. Each individual should thank every police officer they come in contact with. Buy them a coffee! Shake their hand for the tough job they have! Respect! Tom…I do agree with your thoughts on assault rifles. These should only be in the hands of police and military. Needs to be a cutoff somewhere. Otherwise people will want RPG’s and tanks too.