I’ve found it nearly impossible to avoid thinking about gun control as the stories kept coming over the past few weeks: 12 people killed and 58 wounded in Aurora, Colorado; six killed, three wounded at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin; a security guard shot and wounded at a Family Research Council headquarters in Washington DC….
And then Friday morning, a few short blocks from the New York City hotel in which we were staying, a gunman shot and killed a former co-worker and, as he calmly walked away, police shot and killed him and wounded nine bystanders.
Friday’s shooting, outside the Empire State Building during a pedestrian-heavy morning rush hour, was simply the most spectacular of that city’s recent shootings. Tucked inside the Times the morning of the shooting was a report that the previous day, a street vendor had shot two other vendors near Yankee Stadium. Yet another case of a personal dispute, some witnesses said. The two victims were reported to be in stable condition with stomach wounds, having survived thanks to the bad marksmanship of the shooter, presumably. Certainly no thanks to the weapon.
And near that story, on the same page: a report of the death of a livery-cab passenger shot during a failed robbery attempt a week earlier.
“Once again, there’s an awful lot of guns out there,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has been urging stricter gun-control laws, said after Friday’s shooting. An awful lot of guns out there in New York City and around the country, including in Rochester, where shootings can seem like a daily occurrence.
Calls for stricter gun control will continue to be flicked away by politicians too timid to go up against the NRA, gun manufacturers, and others. So odds are, Governor Andrew Cuomo won’t get far with the push he says he’ll make next year.
Some New York legislators want to tighten the state’s gun-control laws, and Cuomo says it’ll be a priority for him. The reaction from gun manufacturers in New York State? Remington officials in Ilion threaten to move to “a more sympathetic state,” the Times reported on Friday.
The loudest voices against gun control, of course, are those of gun owners and the NRA. Their concern: that any form of gun control leads to more control, and then more, and ultimately to a ban on gun ownership of all kinds.
So let me go ahead and suggest the unmentionable:
Why don’t we ban private ownership of guns?
Can we not create jobs in towns like Ilion, New York, without basing them on instruments of death?
Oh, but if guns were banned, bad people with bad intentions would have guns and law-abiding citizens wouldn’t. Of course, for a little while. That’s the situation now. But ban guns – shut down the gun shows and the gun shops, shut down the sales of guns to people not involved in police work or the military, and you’ll reduce the availability of guns, to law-abiding and non-law-abiding citizens alike.
There are, of course, gun-control opponents who warn that Americans must arm ourselves so we can resist a tyrannical government. But surely, even in this day of Tea Party ascendancy, those people are a small minority. The majority, surely, fall into two groups: people who believe they need guns for protection against intruders and people who want to own guns for pleasure: hunting, target shooting.
But if there were no guns, intruders wouldn’t have them. And yes, outlawing guns would mean that you couldn’t hunt with guns. People who find pleasure in perfecting their aim could no longer go to shooting ranges. But are those pleasures worth the cost of the repeated carnage – on streets, in homes, in offices, by mentally stable and mentally ill alike?
Isn’t it time to stop pretending that it is?
Can’t we have a rational discussion about this? Don’t we owe that much to the victims in Aurora and Manhattan, Oak Creek and Washington and Rochester?
This article appears in Aug 29 – Sep 4, 2012.
On Garrison Keillor’s Writers Almanac show this morning on WXXI-FM, he read a brief piece by writer Molly Ivins that reminded me of your column this week: “I am not anti-gun. I’m pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We’d turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don’t ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.”
Hmmm, I believe the last time I checked gun ownership was a protected Constitutional right, rather like equal rights, the right to assemble and the right to free speech. And you know, each of these rights has lead to violence and sometimes death as well. So why not suggest we end the right of free speech while we are at it.? It would end all those troublesome arguments, protests and political conventions that so often lead to violence, And that darned right to freely assemble, once again it just leads to those violent parties, soccer games , protests and political events that turn violent. And equal rights? why, throw that out too, After all, we’ve been bickering and fighting over those rights as well, why I even remember something about a Civil War where hundreds of thousands died to secure and protect theses rights, You know, you may be on to something, just think of how safe and quiet it will be if no one is armed, or free to leave their homes, or speak to each other…
After reading this article, it reminded me of a few things I read recently in a book called “The Hidden Brain.” One of them was– “The issue (concerning guns) is whether people who live in homes with guns are safer as a result of owning guns, and the answer, unequivocally, is no.” The book describes how simply having a gun in your home makes you and your family members much more likely to be killed or injured by that gun than if you didn’t own it. Whereas, the positive result of gun ownership (ie. using that gun to stop an intruder), is so small and unlikely, you’re much better off playing the odds of a “gun free home” if safety is your primary concern. Guns might make people “feel” safer, but overall, they clearly don’t make people “actually” safer. – Mark Penner
In response to Mr. Penner. Mark, so what you are saying is that actually having a gun puts my family in more danger? As a city resident for almost 30 years I beg to differ. I carry a gun as personal protection. Over the years I have had to use my gun several times to protect myself, my family, my friends and my neighbors from various individuals, Some of these individuals actually brandished and threatened the use of firearms, prompting my armed response. And of course I’m sure, like me and all legally licensed carry permit holder’s, these thugs took the time to properly license and register their guns. Sure they did. When my wife was pregnant with our daughter I accidentally drove on to the scene of an armed robbery in progress at the end of my street, a few feet from my home. A local restaurant was being beaten, pistol whipped and robbed by two armed thugs. As soon as I stopped (at the stop sign, there I go again, obeying the law) and before I realized what was going on, my car door was thrown open and a gun at my throat. Fortunately for my wife, unborn child, my neighbor and myself, I was fully armed and before he could react there was a gun under his the carjackers throat. He realized he had met his match and left me…and went back to assist his friend in the assault on the unarmed victim! Needless to say, a “reminder” from me that I had not left, caused them to run. In the same neighborhood I have had, on more than one occasion, had individuals literally walk into my front door in a menacing manner, only to be shocked to find me prepared to assist in their exit, again persuaded by a barrel. I have had to again brandish my personal protection to convince the owners (yes plural) of pitbulls on two occasions to control their dogs that were loose and literally had tree’d or threatening an attack on children in broad daylight. I had to threaten to shoot the dogs to convince the owners to comply. All of these incidents were reported to the police. My point? In a perfect world you and Ms. Towler may be right, but we (especially in the City) do live in a perfect world. There are thugs who are indifferent to the law and especially to your safety, The police cannot protect you from these predators simply because they cannot be everywhere at all times looking over your shoulder to protect you. and if they could, would we want to live in such a “Police State”? It takes several minutes, even in cases of extreme emergency for any officer to respond. It takes a millisecond for a thug to act. You cannot disarm a law abiding population to “protect” them from themselves as long as an armed threat from that small percentage of the population that ignores the law remains. And they will always be among us.
The statistics say there are 90 guns for every 100 people in the USA. Most of those guns are owned for the purpose of hunting or target shooting, maybe someone who likes to collect them. You will find that stating they have guns for protection is added by most of those people. Of course thats the one statement most projected by the media and ridiculed by non-gun people, thats the one that realistically makes the least amount of sense. As a gun owner and hunter I see that, unless your “packing” 24/7 thats not going to happen much. In 2011, there were 8775 murders using a gun in the USA. Now there are over 300 million people in this country and even if you say only 1 million of them own guns, your going to take away the right of 1 million people because of the deaths of 8775? Those seem like pretty good odds to me! Especially when you throw in the fact that events like the ones in Colorado, both the movie shootings or the Columbine shooting, all could have easily been prevented if people, many times paid for by taxpayers, had done their jobs. The psychiatrist reported her concerns to the university authorities. What was done? Nothing. Teachers and school administrators observed and were told about bullying many times. What used to be done? Nothing. And according to many, many stories we read in the news, a lot of times today, nothing is still being done about it in many places. NO, do NOT take away the rights of atleast a million people because of the preventable deaths of a few thousand. Do something about the sick minded people who put their finger around a trigger and pull it, taking a human life. And somehow in this country, get people to have more respect for themselves and their jobs and do them!
Don Murphy – I submit that when you talk about gun ownership as a “Constitutional right” and then you state that in the Civil War, “hundreds of thousands died to secure and protect theses rights” you’re inadvertently shooting yourself in the foot (you’ll excuse the expression).
Prior to 1865 the ownership of human beings was also a “Constitutional right” in the United States,. And that single “right” was the one which triggered (no pun intended) the Civil War because the leaders and populace of 11 states believed that such a “right” was more important than the Union or the Constitution or the lives of those hundreds of thousands you referred to. Those fighting for the other side initially fought to maintain the Union and not for any Constitutional right as you mistakenly believe .
Subsequently with the passage and adoption of the 13th. Amendment the “Constitutional right” of slavery was dispensed with as an unnecessary and immoral hold over from an earlier day. The Second Amendment, or rather the Supreme Court’s intentionally incorrect reading of it, can be amended in the same way once society comes to accept that the price for maintaining that “Constitutional right” is also no longer justifiable.
Why don’t we ban abortion?
After all, it would be more rational than going after guns. You’re vastly more likely to be an abortion victim than a gun victim. (For females, the odds are even more skewed, since they’re underrepresented among gun victims. And that’s before you consider the likelihood of sex-selective abortions.)
Is privacy worth the cost of the repeated carnage?
Isn’t it time to stop pretending that it is?
Can’t we have a rational discussion about this? Don’t we owe that much to the victims?
“The majority, surely, fall into two groups: people who believe they need guns for protection against intruders and people who want to own guns for pleasure: hunting, target shooting.
But if there were no guns, intruders wouldn’t have them.”
That’s great logic – when a 240 lb criminal breaks into my house my 115 pound wife can take solace in the fact that even though she doesn’t have a way to protect herself, he won’t have a gun either.
“The Second Amendment, or rather the Supreme Court’s intentionally incorrect reading of it,…” Interesting and fairly outlandish and unsubstantiated allegation that the Supreme Court “incorrectly read” the Second Amendment, and even more that there was an intentional misinterpretation. What do you base that statement on?
Wasn’t the movie theater shooting a “gun free zone”? How did taking guns away from the law abiding people make them safer?
And having the police protect us worked out so well in NYC where all 9 bystanders shot were shot by police. Do we take away their guns too?
And will Bloomberg give up his armed security guards? Or are some people more deserving of protection than others?
“With the corporate take over of our government, and the militarization of our police forces around the country, do you really think that making the second amendment null and void will in anyway contribute to the observance of the other amendments in the Bill of Rights? The Bill of Rights is constantly under attack by our government and the second amendment is meant as a safe guard against government tyranny. The second amendment ensures the rest of our civil liberties.”
– Drew Beeman, Board member of the GVCLU and Chair of the Greater Rochester Libertarian Party