Guns Yet Again (Maybe One Last Time)

I have blogged about guns so many times that I am sick of the subject--and any faithful followers that I might have are probably sick of it, too.

So this is kind of a summation.

I don't understand how many shootings it's going to take before the American populace demands that something be done about the problem.

I also don't understand why this is not apparent to people: that the problem is one of the prevalence of guns and the easy availability of guns.

As to the first: According to statistics available on the Internet, in 2017 and 2018, 42% and 43% of American households owned one or more firearm.

When guns are prevalent, there will be accidents such as children shooting themselves or other children, or accidentally being shot by their parents or other adults. Also, episodes of anger, such as an argument in a bar or road rage, all too often mean that someone whips out a gun and shoots someone else. If you pay attention to the news, you know that these things are in fact happening, and at a rate of several per week, with hundreds being murdered by guns annually.

And easy availability of guns in America has given us the school shootings and other mass shootings where someone mentally or emotionally unstable kills numerous innocent people--children and others.

America mourns these occurrences but at the same time seems to accept them as a fact of life in the US. (If I were Donald Trump writing a tweet, I'd summarize with a term like "sad" or "tragic" or "shameful" or "disgusting.") I'm about to become cynical and conclude that nothing will be done any time soon.

Copyright © 2019.

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.

What to Do about All the Shootings

Today there was news of two school shootings. How many people are tired--no, beyond tired--of hearing of these things? And how long will they go on? What will it take to stop the murder of our children? Some people would say, Well, no one really knows how to solve this problem.

Well, how's this for one thought? Contrary to what the NRA (National Rifle Association) wants America to believe, more guns do not make us all safer. If anyone thinks that is logical, rather than the contrary--that is, the fewer guns out there, the fewer shootings--just look at the experience of Australia. Australia banned guns, a few years ago, after a rash of shootings worthy of America. People were given inducements--monetary, I believe--to turn in their guns. And--guess what? Homicides by gunshot dropped dramatically.

Yes, it's that simple.

Or it should be. I'd be a whopping big fool if I believed it really was simple. The fact--the problem--is that Americans love their guns and aren't going to give them up without a fight--maybe literally. Guns are macho, and dearly loved by all those well endowed with testosterone. I have long believed that guns, and shooting people with guns, were glamorized by western (cowboy) movies. So, when people in other countries think America is still the Wild West, in a sense they are right.

Copyright © 2018.

Not Again!? Yes, More on Guns and School Shootings

I have said I am tired of blogging about guns, mass shootings, and school shootings. But they keep happening and I for one can't ignore them or keep silent (nor should anyone be able to).

After student survivors of the Parkland, FL, school shooting met with President Donald Trump, he was pledging action. But anything he has done has been completely ineffective. What happened is that, after his meetings with the Parkland students, Trump had a late-night meeting with representatives from the NRA (National Rifle Association)--and it's well-known that Trump is persuaded by whomever he last spoke to.

There have been over 150 school shootings in 30 years. What is it going to take to stop this ridiculous and intolerable phenomenon? We need widespread public outrage, and we need that to translate to people ceasing to vote for pro-gun legislators--those who accept money from the NRA and any and all other pro-gun lawmakers (which pretty much means Republicans).

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens recently said that we might need to think about repealing the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment to the Constitution states that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

The Founding Fathers who wrote and approved the Second Amendment were thinking in terms of muskets that could do a limited amount of damage. They did not foresee such progress in weapons that we would one day have semi-automatic and automatic assault rifles that could kill many people in literally a matter of seconds--let alone that any Tom, Dick, or Harry could easily buy and even stockpile six or 10 or 14 of these weapons.

Copyright © 2018.

Guns--Yet Again

I really don't want to blog about guns anymore and had thought (or hoped) that I was done doing so. But, alas, we've had another awful mass shooting of innocent school children.

President Donald Trump held a highly publicized meeting with survivors and parents of victims of three school shootings: Columbine, Sandy Hook/Newtown, and the latest, Parkland, Florida.

As part of what he proposes to do about the problem, which was dramatized to him by some very emotional speeches by the student survivors and parents, he cited the coach who was shot in Parkland, saying that if that man had been armed, things might have been different.

In other words, the answer to the shooting problem so often given by gun-rights advocates and the NRA (National Rifle Association): MORE GUNS! The answer to the problem of prevalent, too-often-used guns in America is MORE GUNS! The idea being that, if I am in a situation where someone is shooting and killing, and I have a gun myself, I can shoot (and presumably kill) the shooter--thus saving myself and others.

I can see one problem with this idea. There is one element in the equation that is being omitted: If I am face-to-face with someone with a gun, and who is using that gun, the outcome--isn't this obvious?--depends on who is the better shot; that is, who can shoot faster (i.e., be quick on the draw) and more accurately--that is, who is the better shot.

I, for one, would not have faith in myself to be the one who comes out better (or alive) from this hypothetical situation. I guess everybody in America must not only get a gun but "learn how to use it," that is, spend time on one of those things I think are called firing ranges.

And, again for myself, I think that, even in a situation where it might be viewed as a case of protecting myself, I would not want to have to make the decision to shoot someone else. Maybe if it was a case of "him or me," a survival or self-preservation instinct would kick in and provide the answer. But just finding myself in that situation seems to me to be the stuff of nightmares.

No, the answer is not more guns, but fewer guns. Australia (and three other countries) began programs to remove guns from their countries--and homicides by gun  dropped dramatically.

Unfortunately, the United States not only has a very strong lobby in the NRA (which is said to have given $31 million to Trump's campaign) but also something called the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which (as it is usually interpreted) guarantees US citizens the "right to bear arms." What is often forgotten is that centuries of jurisprudence have established that limits may be set on this "right to bear arms." We need to be thinking in terms of what limits can be set, short of seriously considering whether we can, or should, get rid of the Second Amendment (which is probably pretty much unthinkable, even after so many mass shootings).

Copyright © 2018

Update, March 1, 2018: Trump has actually proposed some restrictions on guns, and if he is serious about this, and can get this done, I might consider taking back all (well,some, anyway) of the nasty things I've said about him.
However, Trump is proverbially persuaded by the last person he talked to. So someone from the NRA or some Republican politician might get him to reverse himself (which of course he is quite prone to do). So it's premature to do any celebrations or even thanking him.
Plus, he still wants to arm teachers. This is just a paraphrase of the oft-repeated NRA mantra, "The best defense against a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."
And, let us not forget, the president does not make the law. This would require Congress passing some laws, and the pundits don't seem to feel this is likely.

Update, March 2, 2018.

It looks as though I was right. Today the media are reporting that the White House is "walking back" some of President Trump's comments made yesterday on the need for stricter gun laws, and the need, and ability, of our congressional lawmakers to defy the NRA. This reversal comes after he met with some representatives of the NRA late last night.

As I said, whatever opinions Trump is espousing depends on whom he was last talking to. The man is so intellectually weak, shallow, and worthless that he has no opinions of his own.

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.

How to Shoot Your (Ex-) Boss

There have been numerous incidents in the news of disgruntled employees shooting their bosses, particularly employees who have been fired, going back to the workplace and shooting the person who had fired them.

I've had a number of bosses who were truly evil; and I've been fired more times than I care to admit. But I can't say that it occurred to me to go and shoot them, or even that I think that doing such a thing is reasonable. But yeah, I get it.

So, much as I abhor guns, I was thinking about how you'd want to do it.

It's easiest to sneak in a small gun. Mind you, I know almost nothing about guns, but I have absorbed the fact that a small gun may well just wound, rather than kill. So it might take more than one shot.

However, after the first shot, people who heard a gunshot will come running. Maybe that's why so many of these boss-shooters, when they're caught in flagrante delicto, as it were, turn the gun on themselves.

Well, I think this is how you want to do it: First, shoot the boss once. Then—assuming you had been planning to off yourself as well, rather than face all that nasty business of a trial and probable imprisonment—shoot yourself. Then, if you are still alive and able to manage it, fire one or two more shots into your boss. Sic semper tyrannis!

Copyright © 2014

Guns, Killing, Hunting

Regular readers of this blog probably have a good idea of how I feel about guns: I think guns are horrible, appalling, loathsome things, and I hope to continue my record of never having touched one.

Nearly everyone is prepared to sanction gun ownership by hunters. I don't even approve of hunting. There may very well be some inborn and inbred instinct to hunt. Certainly for much of the million-year history of the genus Homo (as in Homo sapiens), human beings killed animals for their food, and in the course of that million years developed better and better tools (in this context known as weapons) for doing so.

It's only been 10,000 years since the twin, revolutionary inventions of agriculture and domestication of animals (the latter, of course, not precluding the killing of animals, but when we slaughter a domestic animal that does not constitute hunting) precluded the need to forage for edible plants and hunt animals. (We now know that our species can live without eating animal protein, but I don't think there were very many vegetarians prior to that 10,000-year-ago watershed. And I do not choose here to go into any of the pros and cons of a vegetarian diet.)

So my point is that possibly we have an instinct to hunt and/or kill animals. That is why, I think, when a driver more or less deliberately chooses to hit an animal in the road—yes, it happens, I am sure, and maybe not rarely—maybe he is just giving rein to his hunting instinct. I call it being "the great white hunter," in allusion to the image of the Western man on safari in Africa. You can also view it as machismo, though what is so macho about killing some poor little squirrel or opossum with your car is open to argument.

But we in so-called developed countries usually rely on others to provide our food, animal or not; so to a large degree the skills, instincts, etc., of a hunter are no longer needed, but evolution does not work quickly enough that we lose traits that are no longer needed.

Still, all that being said, I still don't sympathize very much with hunting nor with the people who want to  hunt. Hunters say they appreciate, even love, wildlife. I say, if you love something, you don't kill it.

Copyright © 2014

Oh, No, Not Another Post about Guns!

I've blogged about guns a number of times, and I've resolved to not write anything further on the subject. I've said it and I don't want to keep saying it. I don't want to get repetitious and tedious, for anyone who is a regular reader of this blog.

However, the shootings keep up, and my thoughts and perspective might keep evolving. So—here I go again.

The problem of the school and mall shootings (and so forth) that we have in the US, very tragically and all too frequently, have two ingredients: the easy availability of guns in this country, plus mentally ill people who are out on the street rather than being confined or institutionalized. This is simple logic and I don't think it can be refuted or denied.

It's mainly the first of these that I've written about a number of times, and I still maintain that the power and influence of the NRA (National Rifle Association), together with loose or broad interpretations of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, seem to stand in the way of our politicians' doing very much about that component of the problem.

As to the second part of the problem, I recently came across some interesting information. President Ronald Reagan instituted policies—funding cuts--that largely emptied our mental hospitals and sent mentally disturbed people out onto the street rather than ensuring that they were either treated or kept confined where they could not cause serious mischief; and evidently we still have the results of those policies with us such that dangerous people are not being treated, and can get a gun with plenty of ammunition and shoot numerous people.

Copyright © 2013.

Yet Another Shooting

It's happened again, another mass shooting.

I've hoped that one of these times, it would prove to be a tipping point and there would be a loud outcry from millions of Americans saying, "Enough! This has to stop," and effectively pressuring their leaders to do something about these shootings and control guns.

Guns, to my mind, are nasty things. Some people think they need a gun in their home for "protection," but that produces accidents where a very young child picks up the gun and shoots herself or a sibling or parent. (Do a Google search for "father shoots son." It will turn up news items on sons being shot by fathers and fathers being shot by sons—often accidentally.)

But there are those individuals, and the NRA (National Rifle Association), who get paranoid at the very mention of any sort of controls on guns whatsoever. If owning a gun is not a God-given right, it's a Constitutional right. Never mind that (1) there can be a lot of arguing over the meaning and/or intention of the Second Amendment; and (2) there has been a significant history of jurisprudence holding that guns can be regulated.

It's no secret that the NRA is very powerful. The NRA very recently, in Colorado, backed the successful recall of two state senators who had voted for gun-control measures.

The NRA claims it's just a bunch of owners of guns for hunting and handguns possessed for protection or target practice. Why, then, do they oppose legal limits on assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines?

One thing that should be understood is that the NRA has not only gun-owning individuals as its members but gun manufacturers as well who, of course, want to see more guns and more ammunition bought. For them, one or two or three guns per household is not enough (and I believe that, as a national average, we already have more than one gun per household).

Other countries can scarcely believe that America is so gun-crazed and that we put up with these shootings again, and again, and again.

Copyright © 2013.

More on Guns

Chicago, as an example of a major American city, has a high rate of killings by means of guns—on the order of 500 or 600 a year—a number that is, or should be, shocking.

These killings occur mainly in certain areas of the city, areas that have a gang problem, and are associated with gangs warring for turf or for control of the drug trade.

Also, these numerous and almost daily gun killings are committed with hand guns. These guns are cheap and are easy to carry inconspicuously. Interestingly, guns are not sold legally in Chicago, and there are no gun stores within the city limits. However, as has been observed, borders are "permeable." Guns can be bought in suburban communities or across state lines (which, in the case of Chicago, are not far away).

However, the mass gun killings are quite another phenomenon. Recent killings such as in Newtown, Connecticut, or Aurora, Colorado, are composed of two elements: a mentally unstable person, and easy access to "assault" weapons. (I put the word assault in quotation marks because I don't know a lot about—and don't want to get involved in the controversy over—types of guns. There is the distinction between automatic and semi-automatic guns, and even hand guns can be "automatic," that is, able to fire shots in rapid succession.)

So of course, if there are the two elements involved in these horrendous occurrences—which have been getting more frequent, it must be  pointed out—either element can be looked at, thought about, and perhaps somehow remedied.

The first element, unstable individuals, would require identifying individuals who might be or become dangerous. However, this is difficult. Countless adolescents would show personality traits that are part of whatever profile of the gunman or potential gunman that could be constructed. But of course nothing can be "done about" these individuals until they can be identified. ("Doing something about" them is also problematic. Should they be isolated from society? Have medications prescribed, which they might not take faithfully?)

But if the people who committed the mass killings had not had easy access to the very effective and deadly weapons that they used? The Newtown shooter, Adam Lanza, used a gun that his mother owned. The shooter at Virginia Tech was able to purchase his weapons over the Internet.

Certainly it is reasonable to think about making access to these guns more difficult. Maybe they should not be freely and easily purveyed at your nearest Walmart. Where they can be bought, and by whom, and how easily: all these things should be looked at.

Copyright © 2013 by Richard Stein

The Newtown, Connecticut, School Shooting--After We've Had a Week to Gain Perspective

It's now been over a week since the occurrence of the terrible, tragic shooting of first-grade pupils and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut; and the nation and the world has had, not a chance to recover but a chance to contemplate, discuss, and try to analyze this shocking event.

As was well shown in a special program on PBS (the American public TV broadcasting network), there are two components or ingredients to an event like this.

1. Mental illness on the part of the perpetrator.
2. The availability of guns.

The current state of our science is such that we can't confidently identify individuals who are going to do something like that. There are factors which might be considered risk factors, but the group possessing such risk factors is large, and it's only a statistical matter and would not clearly focus attention on specific individuals.

However, much thought needs to be given to the second factor, the availability of guns. The United States has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world, 88.8 guns per 100 population. And, as a Harvard study showed, more guns mean more homicides.

The gun lobby—mainly the National Rifle Association and a few other, smaller gun owners' or gun rights groups—wants to tell us that what we need is more guns. But that is contradicted by the experience of our own country, first; and by that of Australia.

The United States had a federal ban on so-called assault weapons for ten years, which expired in 2004. Mass shootings using assault weapons have increased since the ban expired. Also and at the same time—due to the influence, power, and legislative success of the gun lobby--gun laws have been loosened in many states.

Second, since Australia enacted tough gun-control laws, their experience of mass shootings such as we have been having has been nearly nonexistent.

A third factor needs to be added to the two I enumerated above:

3. The gun culture in the US.

There are countries with a high—though not as high as America's—rate of gun ownership. One such is Switzerland. But you simply do not hear of mass shootings in Switzerland.

Or take England. England has maybe 50 homicides a year. The US has roughly 12,000.* On a single summer weekend in Chicago, there might be 20 or more homicides committed with guns.

In the US, guns are glamorized and may be, for young urban gang members, a symbol of manhood. Guns are identified with heroically depicted characters in western movies.

Video games have also been blamed for our gun violence. At first blush it makes sense: many video games feature killing people (albeit not real people) by shooting them, and I understand that some video games even show assault weapons being used, weapons with visible brand names.

However, England gets the same video games. And they surely get American movies, including all those American westerns. Yet somehow those factors have not caused the English to be enamored with guns the way Americans are. We need to figure out what accounts for the difference. It would be too easy to simply say, "Well, the English--or the Swiss--are just more peaceable and civilized people." But as I write that, I'm almost tempted to say, Well, maybe that is simply the case. It just does not occur to them to go around shooting one another.


______________
*Update, January 8, 2013. Last night ABC TV news said the figure is 30,000 gun homicides a year. Today they said that there have been 57,000 gun homicides in two years; and that 85% of the world's deaths of children from guns occur in the US.
Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Are More Guns the Answer?

Some people think that the answer to our problem with guns is more guns. Gun sales are booming after the tragic Newtown shootings, and some people say "Arm the teachers."
That makes no sense to me. One, it's just an arms race, as we had between nations during the Cold War; and, as some of the world's leaders had the sense to realize, that does not make anyone more secure. Quite the contrary.Some people think that the answer to our problem with guns is more guns. Gun sales are booming after the tragic Newtown shootings, and some people say "Arm the teachers."
That makes no sense to me. One, it's just an arms race, as we had between nations during the Cold War; and, as some of the world's leaders had the sense to realize, that does not make anyone more secure. Quite the contrary.
Second, if I, for example, owned a gun, and someone invaded my house, I'm sure I'd get shot before I successfully shot the intruder.
Third, the United States is not the world. Look at the rest of the developed world, where there is neither the rate of gun ownership nor anything like the rate of gun violence that the United States has. As far as I'm concerned, that says it all. People in other countries believe the United States is still the Wild West; and, as far as our attitude toward guns is concerned, they are right.
Here is a quote from the web site Bloomberg View ("Concrete Ways to Turn Back the Gun Lobby"), which says it perhaps better than I can:

[T]he widely successful push to bring guns into schools, churches, bars, sporting events -- essentially every public venue in American life -- is part of a narrow political campaign that romanticizes and fetishizes firearms, all the better to sell them. In all of these instances, we are told the right to carry a gun is paramount to all others, including an employer’s right to maintain a safe workplace.

Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Guns--Yet Again

It's happened yet again: another mass shooting in the United States. I'm getting tired of writing about these things.
What kind of sick, crazy society is it in which these things can occur? What kind of sick, crazy society permits it?
I wish I could say you never hear about these things occurring in other countries. It's almost true. Within the last couple of years there was a mass killing of 47 people by a man named Breivik in Norway—even peaceful Norway; and I believe there's been one in New Zealand.
But when something like that occurs in another country it is even more shocking and startling because it is rare almost to the point of being nonexistent. Nothing of the sort had ever happened in Norway before, and nothing of the sort has happened since.
Yet here in the US it seems we have this kind of thing occurring every few months.
It should be clear to nearly any one that the problem is the gun culture* in the US. There are too many guns among the population, they are too easy to get, and crazy people can get guns, even so-called assault weapons.
The US state in which I live, Illinois, has been the only US state out of 50 in which it was not legal to carry a concealed gun out of doors. And now that law has just been overturned by a court. This means that if I should piss off some stranger—and yes, I've done that—I might well get myself shot.
If that happens, please, somebody, say "He told us so."
____________
* Maybe I should define what I think "gun culture" means. It means a lot of people think guns are a good thing, want to own a gun, want to shoot a gun (at shooting ranges). The argument goes, I need a gun to protect my person and my property.
Well, if literally everybody owns a gun, then maybe you do need to own one, too. That, to me, conjures up an image of some kind of dystopian world that I don't think I'd want to live in.
On the other hand, if nobody owns a gun, you don't need one.
The US is quickly becoming a country where everyone owns a gun. And with this concealed-carry business, well, that's not a world I ever thought I'd have to live in.
Update, December 14, 2012. The above was written after, and prompted by, the mall shooting in Oregon. Therefore, it was written before still another shooting, that of some 26 school children and teachers in a Connecticut elementary school.
Regrettably, these killings almost surely will continue until there is a very loud public outcry, an outcry loud enough to drown out the pro-gun voices of the National Rifle Association, which is very powerful and has been hugely successful in opposing gun-control measures.
Personally, I would even favor repeal of the Second Amendment (the infamous "right to bear arms" amendment), although I'm pretty sure that is not going to happen any time soon.
Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein

Fourth Freedoms

Today is Independence Day in the United States—almost always referred to as "The Fourth of July."

Fireworks are traditionally associated with celebrating the Fourth of July. However, the law in some places is that fireworks can only be used by designated organizations, like municipal governments.

This state, Illinois, is one of those where shooting off and even possession of fireworks by individuals is illegal. (As to the reasons for such a law: Yes, it might be a case of the government trying to protect you and your children from your own poor judgment; but also, your fireworks might set your neighbor's roof on fire. It does happen.)

However, this illegality does not stop an awful lot of people. In this area, it's easy to drive to the next state and purchase fireworks, and then bring them home and shoot them off in your back yard, in front of your house (which might seem a bit more of a flagrant violation of the law), etc. The law seems to be very laxly enforced.

I suspect that many people consider it their God-given right to celebrate the Fourth of July with their own fireworks. Here, fireworks are going off right now and it's not even noon. And fireworks were going off last night and even the previous day—neither of which, of course, was the Fourth of July.

This made me reflect on who considers what to be their right.

Conservatives consider the following, among others, to be their right:

• To cheat other people by means of financial chicanery (if you are a Wall Street firm) or to deceive the public with false advertising, false product labeling, etc. (if you are a manufacturer).
• To not pay their fair share of taxes.
• To pollute or otherwise destroy the environment (again this applies to corporate entities).
• To own a gun.
• To drive as fast as they like, and without wearing seat belts.
  
• To impose their own religious and moral notions on others by banning books, forbidding mosques being built, banning abortion, and denying equal rights to gay people.

And here are some rights that many progressives ("liberals," if you will, although conservatives use the term as if it were a dirty word) feel they have, or should have:

• To be free from government spying.
• To have an abortion.
• To marry one's partner of the same sex.
• To be free from government-sponsored or –supported religious exercises.
• To read whatever they want.
  

Now I ask you, which group of rights causes more harm to the general welfare?

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Responsibility for Shootings: It's Not Just a Guns Issue

Lest anyone say I'm not fair minded, I'm going to give some credence to the other side of the gun-ownership debate.

The gun-rights advocates are fond of saying, "Guns don't kill people, people do." Well, it's true that before there were guns, people could and did kill other people.

I can't even say that the invention of guns made it easier to kill people at a distance, because bows and arrows and even spears meant you didn't have to be face-to-face with a person to kill him or her. And Homo sapiens has had spears for a long time.

Okay, so if we take the position that people kill people, then this is what logically follows: When, as in the case of many of the killings of multiple people that the U.S. has suffered in the last few years, it seems that the shooter was suffering from mental illness, we have to say that there was a lack of action, a lack of responsibility on the part of those persons around the shooter before he tipped over the edge and killed people.

Parents, friends, boyfriends and girlfriends, schoolmates, neighbors, teachers. All these are people who had some opportunity, at least, to observe the developing erratic behavior in the person. And too often, they did nothing. I think it's especially important to point out that parents should urge troubled children to get help. Easier said than done, perhaps. But if the person in question is seriously troubled, parents can ultimately have recourse to their power to have the person committed to a mental institution.

I know that many parents, friends, etc., in retrospect have said, Yes, they saw the signs. They saw the erratic behavior. They saw the progression into irrationality. Yet they did nothing. I don't want to lay a burden of guilt upon any individual. It is more a matter of a collective responsibility on the part of whole communities that was abrogated. People need to be more vigilant and more willing to take action when they know of a person who might become dangerous to himself and to others.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

I Have to Speak Out on Guns Again Because the Problem Is So Dramatic

Yet another of those tragic, shocking shootings. When, when, WHEN will there be a loud outcry from the public saying that this has to stop?

As I have said before, the problem as I perceive it is that there are too many guns around, and guns are too easily obtainable, to the extent that mentally unstable people can (and do, very sadly) get their hands on guns.

It's terribly tragic that a recent US Supreme Court decision has undermined attempts of government jurisdictions to have gun control laws (this reverses years of jurisprudence that had held that some degree of regulation of firearm ownership was permissible).

Aside from this unfortunate Supreme Court ruling, most of the remainder of the problem is the NRA, the National Rifle Association, which, despite its name, seems just as concerned that there be completely unrestricted access to handguns and even assault weapons as it is with rifles.

The NRA is a very powerful, well financed, and vocal special-interest lobby in the U.S. Congress. According to a 2009 article, "The group's political action committee spent $15.6 million on campaign donations during the past two years, according to disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission." (Source: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/30/nra-lobbyists-hold-strong-influence-policy-agenda#ixzz1AeRrW2FG) Read more of this article for information on just one instance of the influence of the NRA, which ended up killing voting rights in Congress for the District of Columbia because the NRA wanted the abolition of DC's gun control laws to be a part of that measure.

To tie in with another posting of mine on this blog, if the U.S. did not incorporate the South, we would not have as much influence by the NRA. This is because support for the NRA comes largely from rural areas and from the South.

Those who want to see some restraint on gun ownership have not only the NRA in the way—a not insignificant obstacle—but also the Second Amendment to the Constitution. As I said above, a recent Supreme Court decision lends greater influence to that amendment, or at least a certain interpretation of it. The Amendment itself is quite concise, but (despite what some people think), the interpretation of law (or of anything else written) is never simple and self-evident. I won't go into issues of interpreting the Second Amendment here; I'm not a law professor or a Constitutional scholar. However, I'd even go so far as to say that if gun ownership cannot be curbed because of the Second Amendment, the Amendment should be repealed. But I'm pretty sure that can't happen in today's America.

Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein

Guns for Everyone!

As you probably heard, there was another one of those shootings today, this one at Johns Hopkins University hospital, and this one also with hostage-taking.

Add this to the growing list that includes The Discovery Channel, Ft. Hood, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois University. (And a church; and the TV news mentioned four similar incidents at hospitals.) The list is getting so long that it's hard to recall them all.

People in other countries are saying, "Those crazy Americans and their guns." Yes, we are crazy, and guns are too prevalent in America. Shootings like these seldom occur in other countries.

Extreme gunowners' rights advocates want every American to have a gun in his house, so that he will be "protected" in the event of a home invasion. And they want everybody to openly carry a hand gun.

The logic, "Well, the bad guys have guns, so I need one, too, to protect myself," simply means an arms race.

When homeowners have guns in their homes, a variety of accidents can happen. Just a couple days ago, here in Chicago, a boy shot his brother with a rifle; and supposedly the gun had been properly locked up in a cabinet. There have of course been other, similar accidents. All those guns ready to be aimed and fired at intruders and burglars: they're going to be mistakenly fired at spouses, parents, children.

And these shootings like the one today show that our easily-obtained guns are too often finding their way into the hands of those with mental problems. Anyone with some irrational grudge or rage, anyone with delusions, can get a gun and go and shoot whoever it is he perceives as causing his problems.

Again to look at Americans with an outsider's view: We have a Wild West mentality. It is macho to have a gun.

In fact I literally blame Hollywood Western movies for this: They glamorized the gunslinger, gun-toter, gunfighter. John Wayne and other heroes of Westerns became the American ideal of masculinity. Someone said that John Wayne redefined the masculine in America.

So, no wonder every gang member and every other punk in America wants a gun. When guns are easy to obtain and easy to own, it's more likely they're going to be used. We here in Chicago are having a problem that has been escalating to extreme, shocking proportions: Hundreds of people a year are killed in drive-by shootings and other gang-related violence. Often it's young, innocent children who get caught in the crossfire. The residents of certain areas are literally killing one another. Imagine what it's like to live in one of those areas and to live with your life in danger every day. Supposedly only soldiers in wartime have to live like that.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein