Guns Yet Again

I am truly tired of blogging about guns--and Americans should be more than tired of this never-ending series of mass shootings. But this will never change until and unless America gets over its love affair with guns, abandons the idea that everybody is entitled to own a gun, and gets some resolve to rein in the NRA (National Rifle Association) and somehow diminish its influence over our legislators. Maybe this will happen at the state level first--but then the Supreme Court, now more conservative than ever, will rule the state law unconstitutional because of the Second Amendment.

When I think this, I think it's hopeless. Meanwhile I am sure Europeans (and people everywhere else in the world) shake their heads about those crazy Americans who go on killing one another.

Copyright (c) 2019.

Yet Another Shooting

Yet another shooting.

It just goes on, even getting more frequent. And the National Rifle Association, which has lots of members, lots of money, and a very effective lobbying apparatus, nips in the bud any talk about imposing new restrictions on gun ownership.

Donald Trump said, "It's a mental health issue, not a gun issue."  Speaking from Tokyo, he said, "We have mental health issues, just like any other country." Yes, Mr. Trump, but have you thought at all about the fact that most other countries don't have these mass shootings? If every country has mental health issues, and mental health problems in the population cause these shootings, then why don't those other countries have numerous and frequent mass shootings similar to ours? Simple logic shows that Trump is wrong.

In Great Britain, just as an example, it is illegal to own a gun. There are still a few guns anyway, and no doubt guns are sometimes used in the commission of a crime. But do we hear about mass shootings in Great Britain? If my rhetorical question needs an answer, No, we do not.

In fairness, it must be admitted that it's not quite so simple as just widespread ownership of guns. I understand that, on a per capita basis, there are a lot of guns in Canada. There are a lot of guns in Switzerland. But those countries don't seem have the equivalent gun use in shootings.

One thing that may make a difference: I have said before, the United States has a gun culture. Possibly this is as simplistic as some other comments on our mass shooting problem, but I think that Western movies glorified, and normalized, using guns to shoot people. Some people in other countries think all of America is the Wild West; and to some extent that's true.

If we look at other countries' experience with gun control laws, it looks like they do work. Australia had a problem with mass shootings. For example, motorcycle gangs were engaging in wars with guns. A turning point came in 1996. "The Port Arthur massacre in 1996 transformed gun control legislation in Australia. 35 people were killed and 23 wounded when the gunman opened fire on shop owners and tourists with two semi-automatic rifles. This mass killing horrified the Australian public [Wikipedia, s.v. Gun laws in Australia]."

Under Australia's new laws, no one may own a gun without showing a good reason. With money raised from a levy, a million guns were bought back by the government. The result?

Between 2010-2014, gun related homicides across all of Australia had dropped to 30-40 per year. Firearms in 2014 were used in less than 15% of homicides, less than 0.1% of sexual assaults, less than 6% of kidnapping/abductions and 8% of robberies.
Since the 1996 legislation the risk of dying by gunshots was reduced by 50% in the following years and has stayed on that lower level since then [Wikipedia, s.v. Gun laws in Australia].

I don't understand why no one in the US Congress calls the attention of the public and the rest of the government to the experience of Australia.


Copyright © 2017

Tired of Hearing about Mass Shootings

I am really, really tired of blogging about the problem of gun violence in America. Of course it's much more strain, pain, etc., for those whom it has touched more directly.

Let me simply say, once more and maybe for the last time, that I cannot understand how anybody (e.g., the NRA and Republican congressmen and senators) cannot see, or refuse to admit, that there should not be such easy access to assault weapons as we have in the US. It's just ridiculous. In Great Britain it is not permitted to own guns, period.

Copyright (c) 2017.

Guns Yet Again

Yet another mass shooting in the news today. Frankly, I am tired of blogging about these things.

I will state, very simply yet confidently, what the cause of these events is: the prevalence of guns. There are too many guns made, sold, bought, and owned in the US.

Ask yourself this: Will these shootings still be going on 100 years from now? I don't propose an answer because I am not in the business of predicting the future. I will only say that I hope that 100 years is enough time for a cultural change, for a nation to come to its senses and do something.

I don't know whether majority public sentiment supports tougher gun laws; but even if it does, the strong--very, very strong--influence of the NRA (National Rifle Association) in preventing any restrictions or regulation of gun ownership from being enacted is a major obstacle to reform.

Copyright © 2015.

Guns--Yet Again

I have blogged about the problem in the US of gun violence a number of times. But the shootings just go on, so I go on thinking and writing about this same subject.

In England (or, to be more accurate, the United Kingdom, thus including Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales), they do not have large numbers of people killing one another with guns. 

Why? Maybe it's because it's illegal to own firearms in England. Remarkably (to us Americans), even the police in England do not routinely carry guns.
 

People in American who own guns often say that their gun ownership is a matter of their "freedom," expressing some sort of freedom and independence, or maybe self-reliance--even protection of themselves against a tyrannical government (and, after all, that is in keeping with the spirit of the very founding of the United States).
 

I think it's part of a lingering "wild west" mentality that we have in the US. In the nineteenth century, law enforcement in the West was often weak or ineffectual, so a man's owning a gun might in fact be necessary for his self-defense.
 

Today people who own guns say they want them for self-defense. The chief (and very powerful) gun lobby organization in the US, the NRA (National Rifle Association), believes the solution is more guns, not less; they want to see more people owning guns. Their argument is that people who currently don't own guns need to acquire guns to protect themselves against the bad guys.

 

Well, first of all, we have stronger law enforcement, nowadays, than they had in the days of the Old West, and I, for one, hope to rely on the police to protect me against the "bad guys." And I feel that, when everyone owns guns, we are less safe, rather than more safe. I think we see this every day in the US: people being shot during drunken rages in bars. Children getting their hands on their parents' guns and accidentally shooting themselves or others.

Are people in England, barred from owning guns, less safe than Americans?  Well, they have a much lower rate of homicides. In a decade, they have fewer than the US has in one year. Are they somehow less free? I'm not sure what the metric is to determine that, but I suspect not.

 

The legal/constitutional difference between the two countries is that we in the US have the Second Amendment to the Constitution, which says,

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

For quite a while jurisprudence generally held that some restrictions on gun ownership were permissible under the Constitution and the Second Amendment. However, recent decisions by the US Supreme Court, which these days is frequently dominated by conservatives, have overturned many gun-regulation or -restriction laws. And, regardless of what issues of interpretation the Amendment may raise, the pro–gun ownership lobby feels that the Amendment confers an absolute right and admits of no abridgements whatsoever.
 

Interpreting the law is never as simple and clear-cut as some people want to believe. So, some rulings that guns may be restricted might help. Even better, it is in principle possible to amend the Constitution with a new amendment that would basically repeal the Second Amendment. But I doubt that this will happen any time soon.

Note added 8/26/2015: Please check out this link to some interesting statistics on gun violence in America. 

Copyright © 2015.