Joan Holtzman —
This is a reworking and updating of a piece I wrote about guns seven years ago, in 2015. Back then I was outraged and shocked; today I am more chagrined. Despite all we know about what could work to reduce gun violence little if anything will be done. The very modest gun control bill the House has put forward is being further watered down by a bi-partisan committee with no meaningful legislation likely to emerge from the Senate. But if there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, I still feel impelled to write again, to shine the flashlight on the grisly truth in the tunnel.
Last time I was prompted to write in response to a mass shooting in Oregon – and a less massive one, the next day in Florida. This time it is the events in Buffalo and Uvalde that are the prompts. Like most people, I was undone to see groups of innocent people mowed down in schools, churches, arenas and grocery stores. How can we not feel for the victims — children, teachers, shoppers, concert goers — and fear for ourselves? There are unstable people in our neighborhoods with guns — loners, losers, misfits (mostly young, often mentally ill, sometimes racists) who can strike at any time — frightening oddballs, weirdly different from the rest us.
But a little research reveals that these incidents and reactions do not accurately describe the full nature and extent of the problem.
As the Huffington Post has pointed out, most mass shootings (70%) occur not in public places but domestically – in homes, among people who know each other. They report that “57 percent of the time, the shooter targeted either a family member or an intimate partner … and 64 percent of mass shooting victims were women and children.” According to the Mass Shooting Tracker, there have been 4678 mass shootings since 2013 with 296 mass shootings so far this year. According to the same source, there were 818 in 2021.
Even less well publicized are the deliberate and random shootings that occur on the streets of poor neighborhoods, among gang members, and sometimes between police officers and “suspects”. Finally, there are all the non-mass shootings: the routine homicides, suicides and accidental shootings that just keep happening. According to USA FACTS there were 45,222 gun deaths in the United States in 2020 up 14% form 2019,
And here are some other stunning factoids:
* Most deaths caused by guns are suicides – not homicides. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 60%, or about two out of three, were suicides.
* Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and teens. People under 30 were nearly 10 times more likely to die by firearm than from COVID in 2020.
* The distribution of guns in the US is famously skewed: many more in some states, far fewer in others. Overall, only about a third of Americans own guns; of course many of them own multiple guns.
* Comparing the US to other nations is sobering. Only a few countries in Central and South America and Africa do worse with guns than we do.
That “the greatest nation on earth” has such high levels of internal violence is a source of deep concern and embarrassment to many Americans; it also amazes and provokes condemnation from many outside the US. Claire Taylor, the director of media and public relations at Gun Free South Africa said, “The USA is completely out of step with the rest of the world. We’ve tightened our gun laws and have seen a reduction.” Similar changes with similar results were made in Norway and Australia after experiencing mass shootings. “We don’t understand America’s need for guns,” said Philip Alpers, director of the University of Sydney’s GunPolicy.org project that compares gun laws across the world. “It is very puzzling for non-Americans.” (CBS News)
The U.S. is obviously an outlier. Despite frequent and loud cries for more restrictive gun legislation, the truth is that after every mass shooting in our country more Americans want to own guns. New people join and support the NRA, people who never did so before buy guns, people who already have guns buy more guns. And when military-style weapons like AK-15s are widely available as they are now, there are those who strongly advocate to keep them in the marketplace. Only a few days ago I heard a senior senator proclaim that an AK-15 was just what he needed to deal with the rodents in his back yard.
A vitally important question is why an increasingly large swath of Americans are so devoted to guns and so loath to give them up. The answers are several and not hard to find.
Guns are, of course, part of our deep cultural history and heritage. We ritually remember the minutemen – freedom-seeking colonials arrayed against the mighty king of England. And frontiersmen – defenders of women and children against native “savages.” Also armed cowboys and gunslingers and the heroes of organized crime. And are we not – proudly – the greatest military power with more weapons than any other nation – ever?
Recently, people seem to have become particularly enamored of their 2nd amendment rights and the need to maintain them without any limitations. The reason, (according to research done by The Pew Research Center), is that people want guns for self-protection. The fact that people feel they need to protect themselves is disturbing in itself and arises, naturally, from other feelings – of fear and impending threat. As we know (because they tell us), many Americans are afraid and distrustful of government; they also feel threatened by criminals and crazies and people who look and think and love differently than they do. And then there are immigrants and illegals who may – if they haven’t already – take their jobs away.
Guns offer the promise of safety, the power to take control over one’s life, to fend off real and potential and imaginary enemies. Some people also argue that the more people who have guns the safer we will all be, and so they advocate for more guns, in schools and malls and just about everywhere. We are urged to understand that it is good men with guns who will protect us from bad men with guns.
These feelings and beliefs are deep and pervasive. They also fly in the face of the facts: that guns in the hands of individuals are a safety hazard, that the more guns there are in circulation the greater the threat to public safety. Again and again it has been shown that even when guns are bought by sane, rule-abiding, thoroughly checked out citizens, they can be (and are) stolen by criminals, found by children, end up in the hands of people who should not have them. And then, too, good people in a bad moment, can (and do) use their own guns unwisely.
Sadly, facts do not always trump feelings, especially if the facts come from sources that are not trusted. On the contrary, these kinds of feelings run roughshod over the relevant facts because they are so basic, rub so close to the bone. So we must contend with other relevant facts, namely that lots of people feel threatened and unsafe in their own country. They will not give up their guns or any part of the right to own them. Our fractured government, with states pitted against one another and no federal mandate cannot — or will not — make laws that sensibly restrain their actions.
What I conclude from all this is that we can learn more about the extent of gun violence in the US and better understand the reasons for it. But we can do little to curtail it. As long as a significant body of people fear their government and authority figures and others who threaten them – and as long as our government remains polarized politically and incapable of compromise as it is now, the rest of us will live in jeopardy.
It might, of course, happen that someone (maybe more than one person) could find ways to make the fearful feel safer, more trusting, less threatened. Perhaps there are those who will figure out how to make our government more functional. I have no idea who they might be or what they could do. But I do hold out some hope that they will be found among young people – our grandchildren – who show spirit and promise and imagination. We oldsters have given them a sorry legacy; may they have the strength and wisdom to rise up and turn things around.
In the meantime, I am up in arms –- and down on arms.