It's a Gun Problem

I'm going to start this post by acknowledging the obvious, America will not be banning guns any time in the foreseeable future, perhaps not ever. Let me also admit that I like guns. I think they are fun. I have fired guns plenty of times, and I understand why people like them.

Now let's move on to why we must have meaningful gun control in America, and why Friday's tragedy was at its core, a gun issue.

For starters, it is worth pointing out that The shooting in Newtown, Connecticut was by no means an isolated incident, it has happened time and again in our country over the years. It is also worth pointing out that despite all of the public massacres that attract media coverage, most gun deaths in America go unnoticed and  unacknowledged. No one reports on the suicides that add up to thousands of individual tragedies, and no one cares about gun violence that claims the lives of thousand more poor minorities. As awful as Friday's massacre was, those type of events represent but a fraction of the gun deaths in America each year.

Over the past few days I've engaged in numerous debates with a variety of people about the role of guns in America, and there is no denying that boiling this down to a simple gun vs. anti-gun argument does not adequately address the complexity of the issues surrounding our gun-related murder rate. There are a variety of factors at play, all of which must be addressed if we are to prevent more tragedies.

But let's not kid ourselves, the underlying issue is guns. We can start by just examining murder statistics. Americans die from gun violence in alarming numbers. We could significantly reduce, though not eliminate, these unnecessary deaths by implementing meaningful gun reform. But we most also rid ourselves of the fallacy that having guns makes us safer. That's actually not true either. In fact owning a gun makes you more likely to be killed by one, whether that death is a suicide or simply an accident. So owning guns don't make us safer, they put us in more danger. It is a statistical fact that guns make our country a more dangerous, rather than a less dangerous place.

In the conversations I've had recently, many people have pointed to things other than guns as being THE issue: mental illness; crime; drugs; etc. It is again worth mentioning that all of these factors play a role, but we can see how the availability of guns, especially of the variety that only America allows, plays an important role.

For starters we must admit that while mental illness is not exclusive to America, gun rampages by mentally ill individuals largely is a uniquely American issue. Not entirely, but largely. Off the top of my head I can think of one example of this in other countries, the shooting in Norway that claimed 81 lives. Of course there are others, but here in America we have had two in a week, one at a mall in Oregon and one at a school in Connecticut. These kinds of things happen all the time here because we are the only country that makes guns so readily available that anyone can get them. Should we do better destigmatizing and addressing mental health issues? Absolutely, and that will probably help, but we can also limit access to guns.

What about suicide rates? Obviously if someone is determined to kill themselves they will find a way to do it even without a gun, but we make it harder to do this in other manners, such as erecting barriers or fences around bridges, or by restricting access to many drugs or chemicals that may be used for poison. Would limiting access to guns result in a decline in the suicide rate? Perhaps, but I think it's undeniable that by making guns easily accessible we do nothing to deter individuals from using them to end their own lives.

Finally, we should consider the deaths that are by-products of crime and poverty. There are again a variety of factors at play here, but an article in the Economist details a few of the difference from gang and drug related violence in Britain as contrasted with America. In that country, far fewer criminals wield guns and thus there are far fewer gun deaths. There are still problems with drugs and crime, but less violent crime due to less guns.

I recently finished reading "Collapse" by Jared Diamond. Among the many issues that he discussed as contributing factors to a society's potential collapse is a refusal to change values when they have lost their utility. While I don't think that guns have lost all utility, and I certainly don't think that our love of guns has put us on a path towards a societal collapse, I absolutely think that we need to reevaluate our thinking on guns. If we read the 2nd Amendment literally, the right to bear arms does not apply to private citizens, but even if we believe that it does, are we really hoarding weapons as a deterrent to government tyranny? I find that argument somewhat insulting to people who actually suffer under the yoke of dictatorships and also laughable as a real solution to the imaginary threat of a hostile government intent on trampling our rights. Assault rifles are deadly when fired at crowds of innocent people, but are they really going to stop military tanks? This is nothing short of ludicrous. The American public is protected now by the American military, there is no need for militias either as means of protecting our well-being or as a deterrent towards a perceived hostile government. What we have instead is an over-abundance of deadly weapons that are turned on our own citizens. Innocent Americans are dying, and it is a gun problem.

I don't long for an America without guns. I think that is unrealistic and unfeasible. I do long for an America that recognizes it's addictions to guns is dangerous and silly. I do want us to examine our gun culture and realize that guns have lost a lot of utility in today's world and that we would be safer if we took steps to regulate and restrict them as we do with other dangerous things. We are the only developed country in the world that has problems with gun crimes, and it can be traced to just that - guns. Other countries struggle with drug issues, gang issues, mental illness and whatever other factors play into violent crime, but they don't have a problem with guns and so their citizens do not suffer, die, and mourn like we do in America. It's a real problem, it's a gun problem, and we need to address it.