I am almost too tired of the whole issue to write any more words about it. My entire career in journalism I have periodically been forced to compose some outraged paragraphs about the latest massacre or “normal” gun violence in Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Camden ... you name it (how many children died last week because of handguns in America’s cities? How little was that death toll remarked upon?) and then inevitably the complete lack of response from our elected officials. We all know the statistics. We know what can easily be done to reduce, if not completely contain the bloodletting. We simply lack the will to do it.
The first graders and school teachers and administrators of Newtown, Ct., God bless these poor children, these educators and their families, maybe will become the final martyrs to the cause of gun control, but I find myself doubting it. If Columbine weren’t enough or Virginia Tech or a Portland mall or the tragic deaths each year of children whose parents did not properly secure their weapons is not enough, could this finally be enough, this unexpected, what shall I call it, “tragedy”? No, tragedy suggests an incident that could not have been foreseen, and sad to say we have come to expect such occasional explosions of depravity in American life. This is the collateral damage of our absolutist interpretation of the second amendment and the price the gun lovers in our culture, with their unhealthy obsession with weapons of intimate destruction, are quite willing to allow the rest of us to pay while they nurture warped fantasies of liberal fascism and the heroic virtues of personal defense.
We will hear now the familiar rebuttals to common sense responses to contain gun violence in the U.S. We have already heard the moronic “regret” expressed that more people weren’t armed when Adam Lanza stormed an elementary school; we have even, remarkably, heard some claim that it is the public school’s paucity of prayer that opened up the world to this tragedy. I encourage any who have expressed this violently diminished understanding of the great mercy of God to devote the rest of their days to absolutely silent contemplation. (First they should personally apologize to the parents of the Newtown children, and anyone else they meet on the way over.)
The gun absolutists will argue that if handguns and automatic weapons are outlawed then only criminals will have access to them. Fine, let the criminals have them. The criminals out there are not quite so likely to storm elementary schools to prove to the world how much they hate themselves. Their gun possession will just offer an additional offense to charge them with when they are caught. The simple arithmetic is that there are too many guns in circulation in the United States and that virtually all of the guns used in crime in the United States begin their lethal careers legally and that reducing that pile of weapons will inevitably reduce the death toll. I will worry about how to respond to a fascist, left-wing takeover of America AFTER I am confident my kids can come home from school safely.
We will in the aftermath of this mayhem be told that we do not spend enough on mental health interdiction and treatment, that, with one in 88 children (one and 54 boys) coming of age diagnosed to some degree with Autism, we are not devoting enough energy and attention to Autism Spectrum Disorder. That is all certainly true. (And please let's not allow this awfulness to further estrange young people with Asperger's and ASD; they are your friends and neighbors and family.) It is also certainly true that no mental health system, however well resourced and widespread, can be foolproof, that some will seek to exhibit their alienation and rage in the most hurtful ways imaginable. In China, that happened last week when a lone man also attacked schoolchildren. He was armed with a knife and wounded 22 of them. He did not have a gun at his disposal and no fatalities resulted from his lapse into rage and insanity. We cannot control all violence in the world, but we can limit the damage.
We can require training and liability insurance for gun owners; we can force them to take responsibility under penalty of law to properly secure their weapons; we can enforce high-tech registration and trigger-lock mechanisms that prevent non-owners from using weapons; we can control the nature of the weapons and ammunition we allow into our society; we can simply reread that part of the second amendment that acknowledges our collective responsibility to maintain a “well-regulated” militia and ask ourselves how well-regulated our militia seems. If we did maintain a formal militia, empowered to carry weapons, would we tolerate its continued presence among us if every so often individuals among it lit out for a mall, schoolroom or Amish community center to shoot the place up? Not likely.
We can also ask God and these children to forgive us our indifference and fatigue. Everyone who has blindly supported gun owners’ privileges over the right of these children to life and the pursuit of happiness share some responsibility for this catastrophe; everyone who argues that the solution to gun violence is more guns, ..., I don’t know, perhaps they deserve a good thump on the head to see if that reboots the system. And the rest of us, like me, who merely add more piles of words to this ongoing crisis perhaps likewise require a good thump or two.
This week I dreaded having “the” conversation with my oldest about human sexuality (some lifeless if logistically accurate descriptions have been moving around his classroom of late). Instead of that talk, however, I have been forced to have another conversation with my son and his three siblings today. This one will concern the nature of evil, the problem of mental illness and how to survive if an intruder blasts his way into their school. I would like to tell them that they will be safe, that I can guarantee that they will be safe, that such a thing would be unimaginable at their little school in the Westchester woods, but I would be lying and I dislike lying to my children.
"How many children died last week because of handguns in America’s cities?" Probably about 50.According to the CDC, 5740 children were killed by guns in the US during 2008 and 2009 (the latest years for which there is data). That's an average of 55 per week. We tolerate the equivalent of two of these tragedies a week. What would happen if we plastered the photos of <strong>all</strong> those childrens' parents each and every week on the front page of the paper? or ran them as a ticker along the bottom of the news? We let this plague of violence disguise itself as a trickle, when in fact it is a river of blood.The data on death by assault in the US is both troubling (the rate here is far, far higher than in other developed nations) and hopeful -- deadly assaults are becoming less likely. See data from OECD and CDC here: http://www.kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2012/07/20/america-is-a-violen…
Keep writing and talking Kevin.Over the last few years I notice that I have become likely to speak up about gun violence. I got tired of the arguments from those who insist on their "rights" to carry a gun, and the problem not being the gun but the person, etc. When I would write to my congressmen I would get robotic responses, soundbites right from the NRA. They seemed so sure of themselves, so powerful.But now I am realizing that the children of America need our voices, our protest. Silence is not an option anymore.
"This is the collateral damage of our absolutist interpretation of the second amendment and the price the gun lovers in our culture, with their unhealthy obsession with weapons of intimate destruction, are quite willing to allow the rest of us to pay while they nurture warped fantasies of liberal fascism and the heroic virtues of personal defense."Well said Mr. Clarke, well said.
No matter what one thinks about gun ownership, the status quo will not do.
The second amendment is attached to the militia concept. Perhaps ownership of a military grade weapon should make one eligible for a draft, no matter the age.
Mr. McParland is engaging in a regular sleight of hand deployed by gun rightists, a sophist's trick known as the fallacy of false equivalence. This is not a serious argument.
It is interesing, nevertheless, to note that we indeed do much via federal regulation to contain the accidental violence that can occur from the use of cars, including the requirement that car users are tested and maintain liability insurance as part of the trade-off for using them. And car safety standards are regularly reviewed and updated. If Mr. McParland would be willing to carry his comparison over the to real world and allow the gun industry and gun use to be as thoroughly vetted I would have no complaint.
Mr. McParland joins other gun rightists of late who have dregged up this 1927 school bombing incident to prove, ... what, exactly is not clear to me. No one is demanding that we find a way to make the world perpetually, magically safe from all threats. I suppose it is possible that some deranged person, unable to lay their hands on guns in a future presumably safer because of better controls on firearms, will turn to other means to exorcise their demons. We do what we can to prevent such things with the tools and conditions before us, but no one expects man's inhumanity to man to end simply because we get tougher on things like assault rifle sales.
I think it is also noteworthy that all of Mr. McPartland's examples of the morally correct use of a military grade assault rifle pertain to their actual use by acutal military professionals on acutal critical military missions, not to the weekend joyriding of gun "enthusiasts."
Mr. McPartland suggests that I am being simplistic and emotional and that this is a complex set of problems. It's true I can be emotional; that's because I have emotions.
As far as being simplistic, I can't think of anything more simplistic than what I heard from the NRA this morning advocating armed guards in every school or from Gov. Perry the other day advocating armed teachers. The answer to our problem with guns is not more guns.
Hmm, I guess I am being simplistic. Is it possible that the NRA and its supporters want to make this thing more complicated than it needs to be?
Mr. McParland:
You came in with some typical talking points from the NRA. I presumed therefore that you are among the folks who believe strongly in gun ownership rights and suggested as much. I don't perceive how that translates into calling you names. Now you seem to have gone the other way. Color me delighted, whatever you think of my argument. Maybe you just like to argue. I don't.
Sorry I misspelled your name.
KC