First of all, let’s all agree that the needless death of an innocent individual or group is always a tragedy. No one wants that perpetuated. We can all feel the horror and the pain, share the sorrow and disappointment, and recognize these mass killing events are a stain on our society. It pulls at our emotions; it pains our hearts; to see children and others as targets for warped and frustrated individuals within our society. Anyone who dies at the hands of another beyond the bounds of war, is senseless, unfathomable, and disturbing. But the key in this is at the hands of another individual, individuals who have either found no value in human life, have reached their own tragic end and hope to take others with them, find some freakish joy in celebrity and going out in a blaze of glory, or have been harmed both emotionally and physically all of their lives. Individuals. Those responsible.
To address this senselessness, we have to look at each situation with wide eyes, eye which aren’t being tainted by our emotions, and determine what caused it and what we can do to stop that catalyst from ever being at the center again. We have to step back from the emotion and the tragedy and evaluate, develop plans which actually address the problem, not the method. Method changes. Yes, a gun is convenient. Yes, a gun can do damage in a matter of seconds, but guns are not the source of the issue, they are just the means of release.
Perspective. I know that word will be attacked by those who want to jump on the “let’s gather all the guns” platform, but it is necessary to evaluate what is at core. In 2021 alone, there were 20 million legal gun purchases in the United States. A 2018 Small Arms Survey (SAS) estimated there were 393 million guns in the US. According to a Pew and Harvard Northeastern surveys, about 40% of American’s (nearly half) say they or someone in their household owns a gun. In 1978 that number was 51% of households. Approximately 22% of Americans (72, million) claim to be gun owners. In rural areas, 46% of the population are gun owners, while in the suburbs and urban areas rank out at 28% and 19% respectively. Most gun owners are from families which had guns in the home while growing up (67%) and 76% of gun owners claim to have fired their first gun before the age of 18.
You’ve seen it of Facebook from your gun supporting friends, I’m sure, but before the 1990’s, every pickup at my school had a gun rack in the back with rifles and shotguns, both student vehicles and teacher vehicles. Most of those pickups were likely unlocked. No one worried about someone getting a gun out of a car and shooting the school up. If they had, certainly there would have been twenty other student’s hunting them down.
When it comes to gun crimes, the US is not the worst, but not the best. In a 2016 study by IHME, the US ranked 20th in gun deaths per capita (10.6 per 100 thousand). When isolated to higher income countries with populations of over 10 million the US ranks first. Canada’s rate was nine times lower at 0.47 per 100 thousand. And that’s not good, but many things need to be considered here for an evaluation of the issue. Much of the gun violence of record is criminal activity, dealt with (or not) by city governments which are largely in the hands of Democrat administrations and has been for years. Stronger police presence, law enforcement-community relations, focus on gang violence, drug enforcement, and more vigorous prosecutions would deal with the such issues. And this gun violence can’t be addressed in the same manner as mass murder.
Of course, gun ownership is also more heavily restricted in these countries. The right to arms is not considered, and government control of behavior is more entrenched we saw that through the COVID project. In Canada, the government even took away the right to use debit cards to control a protest. Canada, our “freedom loving” neighbors who often find time to criticize the rednecks to their south. Since they are just a pinky away from tea sipping, it’s not surprise. Just a side note here, freedom isn’t what your government tells you, it is everything. While control should be in the hands of the people and placed upon the government, not the other way around.
In a Pew Research Survey, 67% of gun owners claim protection as the reason they bought a gun, while only 38% claim hunting as the reason for gun ownership. In the 90’s, 57% of gun owners were hunters or sport shooters. What changed? Why do more gun owners feel the need for protection? Who filled that gap in protection before? How has our society changed in that time period?
Among gun owners in the US, 72% claim to own handguns, 62% say they own rifles, and 54% say they own shotguns. Republicans do out number Democrats in gun ownership (44% vs 20%). Two-thirds of gun owners in the US claim to own more than one gun, while 29% say they own five guns or more.
Prior to a 2021 Reuters article on the Timeline of Mass Shootings, it was estimated 2,000 people had been killed in mass shootings since 1999 when the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado attracted attention to the subject. From Columbine through 2021 there were 792 people killed in mass shootings, and average of 36 per year over the 22 year span. The year of the Las Vegas shootings, 2017, was the worst in which a total of 117 were killed and 587 injured.
According to a Washington Post article, there have been 232 mass shootings in the US in 2022. However, this article claims any shooting of 4 or more people as a mass shooting, and collects all such incidents rather than isolating random acts of mass killing. A Wikipedia article shows similar numbers with a total of 308 killed. Of the mass shootings claimed in 2022, 3 have been at schools. Everytown shows different stats with 96 incidents on school grounds resulting in 40 deaths. In 2021 Chicago, one of the most heavily gun regulated cities in the country, had 797 homicides, along with 3,561 shooting incidents. The Chicago Police Department removes more guns from the streets than any other city in the nation, removing 12,088 in 2021 alone.
- FBI stats show there were 68,698 murders by weapon over the years of 2013-2017, an average of 13,740 per year.
- Of those, 48,664 were by firearm, leaving 20,034 for all other weapons from knives (7,897) to hands.
- Again, 13,740 gun deaths per year, meaning of the 393 million guns in the US less than .000035% were used to kill an individual in any given year (some of those deaths were by the same gun).
- Of the 72 million self-proclaimed gun owners in the US, less than .00019% were killers (assuming the mass shooters were self-proclaimed gun owners or bought their guns legally).
- Of the 20 million 2021 legal purchases of firearms, only .00001695% have the potential for being used in the 339 deaths from mass shootings which have occurred since January 2021.
There are many discussions which need to take place around guns, gun deaths, mass shootings, and personal responsibility. However, they can’t take place when we place more responsibility upon the object than we do on the individual using it or when we conflate gun ownership by 72 million law abiding gun owners with the number of mass murderers we have each year. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, over 99.9% of those legal gun owners are responsible, mature, law abiding citizens who pose no threat to anyone who is not threatening them or their friends and family. Making legal gun ownership the target for the inability to address the breakdowns in our society is beyond reason and can only be see by those individuals as an effort to remove their rights, rights they exercise daily with no incident.
Much has been made about raising legal ages for gun purchases. While I don’t feel that is an effort directed at the core of our problem, I’m not opposed to the discussion as long as we are determining the legal age for all adult decisions – alcohol purchase, tobacco purchase, gun purchase, consensual sex, military enlistment, and voting. It isn’t fair to say a person is adult enough to decide to give their life protecting their country, but not adult enough to purchase alcohol, tobacco, or a gun. And voting is an important thing in our country. If an individual does not have the maturity level to determine how to handle purchasing decisions, I’m not sure they should be helping to decide who runs our country. They are highly emotionally driven at that age.
Another issue is that, as a father of a young woman, I felt that when she was in college, she was in most need of the ability to protect herself with a handgun, yet she was too young to own one. It seems that for protection purposes, the most vulnerable target is college aged women.
The truth is, when it comes to guns, our youth are not taught how to handle them, what they are used for, and how much destruction of which they are capable. They spend hours on video games killing. A gun to many of them are is just a controller, and an image upon a screen. Those who are actually taught about guns at a young age are less likely to use a gun in a wrongful manner.
An additional issue, which seems to fail those who vilify guns, is that laws only work for the law abiding. Criminals, disturbed individuals, bad elements in society, sociopaths, and terrorists don’t follow laws. They subvert, skirt, ignore, and break laws. Those with intent to harm or commit crimes will find a way. We need reason, not emotion to tackle the issues within our society. Pitting one part of our society against another solves nothing, and we owe it to our future generations to solve the issue together.
