Tweet
(photo: An Nguyen Photography via Flickr)
It has been over five-and-a-half years since a mass shooting on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, caused me to write:
. . . the terrible truth is that we only pay attention when our domestic murders come in multiples.
Gun violence is more than an everyday occurrence in this country, it is an hourly one. Correction: it is a quarter-hourly one. There are, roughly, 12,000 gun murders a year in the United States (if you are looking for contrasts, contrast that with the average 350 gun murders that occur annually in Canada, Great Britain, and Australia combined). If you watch the local TV news in the US, then you likely bear some sort of witness to numerous individual gun murders every week.
But it is only when six or twelve or twenty-two or thirty-three are shot that most of us even look up, take pause, or stop to think at all about what guns do.
And what guns do is kill people.
I’m sure there is somebody out there right now that is raising a finger in protest. Wait, there’s sport. . . competition shooting. . . hunting! And to that person I say: Knock it off! AK-47’s and their clones are not prized by biathletes, 9 mm semi-automatics are not hunting weapons, and you don’t need an extended clip to bring down a sixteen-point buck. You can make your arguments about self-defense and Second Amendment rights (though most of them would be wrong), but you cannot argue that it is either a right or a necessity to own the kinds of weapons that felled those at Columbine, or West Nickel Mines, or the unfortunate students and faculty at Virginia Tech.
And now we can add Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut to that list–a list that had already grown much, much longer since 2007.
I wrote several posts around the time of the VaTech shootings–and several others about sadly similar events over the years–and went back to read them while thinking I would scrawl something today about the massacre in Connecticut. But you know what? I’m not sure I see the point of a new story–not when almost every single word I wrote back then is just as applicable now.
Sure, some of the names have changed. We have a different president; one who arguably struck the right emotional tone as he joined the country in mourning the senseless deaths of 20 young children. But a little while before Barack Obama spoke to the nation, his press secretary, Jay Carney, took to the White House briefing room to say that today was not the day to address the role that gun laws could play in preventing more mass shootings.
So, if you have the time, take a look at part of what was said some 17 domestic gun massacres ago:
Then, maybe ask, who do we have in elected government, or in a visible place in our country or our communities, who will rise up and say to Mr. Carney, or to the press corps, or to the president, “How about now? Can we talk about it now?”
I’ll leave you with the questions I asked back in 2007–and have asked so many times since–in an attempt to actually move this discussion beyond pearl-clutching and platitudes:
To those that love their guns. . .
Please don’t resort to screaming about how I want to take away your guns. . . I don’t. Just tell me why you oppose:
Gun registration,
Better background checks,
Additional licensing procedures for concealed weapons,
Mandatory waiting periods,
Restrictions on assault-style weapons, Saturday night specials, and extended clips,
Mandatory safety training and periodic recertification,
Closing so-called gun-show loopholes,
Legal liability for gun manufacturers commensurate with other consumer product liability,
And limits on the number of guns and rounds of ammo you can purchase at any given time and over the course of a year.If you can address those points, we can have a discussion. . . or you can just scream that I want to take away your gun again if that makes you feel better.
And one more thought–something I tweeted earlier. Today, before the news of the Connecticut shooting broke, I heard a story about a man who went on a violent rampage at a school in China. He was armed with a knife. The result: 22 wounded; 0 dead.
33 Comments
I am not sure I can listen to the little kids talking about this- just heartbreaking.
That said, I am not sure better background checks are the answer, because I don’t see, for example, non-violent petty drug felons being the problem.
If you have a serious mental health issue these days you cannot get help, but you can get a gun.
My friend, the writer Steven Brust tweeted:
It was one of the most sensible things I’d seen all day. Thanks for this post, I’ll start looking through what you’ve written and plan to use it on MyFDL front page shortly.
One answer is to prohibit the sale and ownership of assault weapons. It won’t stop the massacres but it will make it harder to efficiently kill large number of people, if the magazine limit is, say, 5 rounds.
No civilian access to bullets designed to penetrate body armor.
No civilian access to the body armor, itself.
Enforce a substantial waiting period.
Pull the licenses of gun dealers who cut corners.
Use ATF to mount sting operations to illegally purchase firearms and jail the dealers who are guilty.
When Barack Obama weeps tears and offers condolences for the 4th time in his first term, and won’t even mention the word “gun”, it makes no sense to blame his press secretary for a refusal to talk honestly about this.
We used to call Reagan “the teflon president”. Jesus, it’s at the point with some democrats and liberals that Obama could be molesting kids on White House lawn and they’d say he was just running a day care center.
There is a president in the White House. He is not to blame for the massacres, but the blame for not articulating a response to this beside just saying we should “take action” IS on him.
What action is he talking about?
Sending emails to congress?
Raising funds to help the bereaved families?
Marching in protest against the easy availability of assault weapons?
Those are not bad, but they’re not going to change a damn thing. To do that, we need a president whom, at this point, will show a little froth at the mouth.
I mean, he just got re-elected; he can’t lose. Put it like this:
WHEN is he going to go after the assholes full-bore; the last week of his second term?
The NRA has a vested economic interest in keeping people fearful and armed. Especially white people.
Short answer :
Mass killings get lots of media attention, but involve so few people as to be largely irrelevant. They do, however, unleash predictably emotional freak-outs by the supposedly reality based community.
Most gun control proposals will have little or no positive effect, but will piss off people who have not and never will commit a crime.
There are a huge number of small arms in private hands in this country, perhaps a half-billion, and unless you have a plan to confiscate all of them (don’t forget reimbursing the owners for taking their property, hundreds of billions of dollars worth that could go to far better uses) the tiny number of people who commit these crimes will find a way to get them.
Gun ownership is a right, whether you think it should be or not, is specifically enumerated, and recently confirmed by the Supreme Court as an individual right, not some collective right relating to the National Guard. They left themselves a loophole in the form of “reasonable restrictions”, but prepare for anything like a national handgun ban to be taken to the SC and applied against that standard. Anything approaching eliminating guns from our society will require amending the Constitution, and we couldn’t even get the ERA passed. There is no chance of repealing the 2nd Amendment, period. What can actually be accomplished is pretty limited, and almost all of that has already been done – hence the 40,000 or so laws on the books today.
To those who ask when we can begin this conversation, we’ve been having it for 80 years now. Who has something new to add?
Finally, there is exactly one way to revitalize a dying Republican party – turn the Democrats back into the party of gun control. It’s political suicide just when we have them on the ropes.
Whatever political capital and time is spent on this issue is somewhere between completely wasted and grossly counterproductive.
Grow up.
Ownership may be a right, but rights can be regulated. You have the right of free speech, but you can’t slander or libel, and you can’t scream “fire” in a crowded theater.
Similarly, voting is a right, but the courts have no problem with registration, with limits based on prior criminal records, and other such issues.
The last blockquote in the post is a series of powerful questions, none of which are against the constitution.
Your statement about “what can be accomplished” is not a fact, but rather the devout wish of the NRA, unsupported by facts.
“Who has something new to add?” 20-some families in Connecticut do. Their friends, neighbors, and coworkers do. Every secretary in every school who has a switch to allow people into their building does.
As I said at the beginning, I’ll repeat at the end: grow up.
Really? A solution might come from the most surprising and creative of places.
Bless your little heart.
So just out of interest, Jay: what would be the day?
Tomorrow?
Next Tuesday?
How about, let’s say, February 8? Would that be a day when we could address the role that gun laws could play in preventing more mass shootings?
Just curious.
@ Peterr: I seem to be the only one grown up in this discussion.
Gun ownership is already extremely regulated. The question, that we have been discussing for 80 years, is exactly what those regulations should be.
The “powerful questions” are a laundry list of poorly informed talking points from gun control groups.
The assault weapons ban is a great example of a law that accomplished exactly nothing but pissing people off. You could still buy new weapons with the same barrels, actions, and rate of fire. Tens of millions of high capacity magazines were grandfathered in – you could get as many as you wanted, but you had to pay $75 instead of $15. Instead of a pistol grip you got a thumbhole stock. Practically no assault-style weapons are used in crimes in the first place, and it did nothing to reduce those numbers. It did, however, piss off millions of people for 10 years. Good riddence to bad rubbish.
Waiting periods accomplish nothing unless it is your first gun, or you can’t steal one from a relative, AND you are about to commit a crime of passion that from which you come to your senses in a couple of days. In all other cases it accomplishes nothing. It does, however, piss off millions of people.
I don’t know what you had to go through for your concealed carry permit, but mine entailed fingerprinting, a background check, required class in safety and law, and a visit to the range, and it has to be renewed every five years. What “additional procedures” should we add that would accomplish something besides pissing people off?
What is the magic limit of guns per month/year that reduces crime? I only need one, so if the limit is greater than that it isn’t accomplishing much. What is the magic limit of ammunition purchase that reduces crime? How many times a month should UPS come and make a delivery? How many months should I save up to go to the range once? What about reloading?
What is the magic magazine capacity that is “safe”, because only round number 11 causes the damage? Why not 8? Why not 12? Sure, 100 round drum magazines are dumb, look stupid, and jam frequently. How many are actually used in a crime? What have we accomplished if we ban them? What’s the magic number?
Every time, like clockwork, that there is a mass shooting (we always seem to ignore the individual ones) there is a mass hysteria from the otherwise reality based community who want some law, any law, passed that makes the bad thing go away. This is where the “not the right time” statement comes from – if you want to discuss it, wait for the emotional storm to pass.
Should we have a national registration system? Maybe – what gets recorded, who has access to it, how long are the records kept, how do we find and correct mistakes (every database has mistakes), what is it going to be used for (do you come and track down every gun registered to me if I am arrested?), how is it maintained, who pays for it, etc. What is it expected to accomplish and what are the risks? That’s a good discussion. Facts. Reason. Not emotional outbursts by the uninformed.
All the money to the US military and all the money to continue to bomb then build up other nations…Big con jobs…All schools must have metal detectors now for the price of one aircraft carrier. Metal detectors should be paid for by US treasury–like the blank checks going out to the Pentagon now. The price of the free house, car and yard keepers for all the US military brass could prolly cover the metal detectors. There is only an allocation problem in this nation. There is no deficit. There is no fiscal cliff. There is enough money for a reasonable nation.
Yes. To all of the above.
If we can afford to do this with voting, perhaps maybe possibly gun owners could manage to do the same.
We manage to deal with this when it comes to who is allowed to cast a ballot. I don’t think it’s too much to expect the same when it comes to who is allowed to shot a bullet.
Why is the U.S. the only developed nation with such a history of gun massacres? If other such nations can control guns effectively, why can’t we? Their experiences show that this is not the insurmountable problem you make it out to be.
I’m not opposed to any of Mr. Levine’s points from 2007 but 4cdave is right about several things especially “if you want to discuss it, wait for the emotional storm to pass”
But that’s one of those things that won’t happen and asking for it just pisses people off, so: Anyone have some specifics about what additional regulations would have made a difference?
I feel nothing but rage at the libertarian jackasses who quote chapter and verse about the Founding Fathers’ intentions on their right to own guns. Do you understand how many years of life were snuffed out today? Your twisted sense of what your “rights” are just don’t measure up to the mounting casualties your beliefs have caused.
Do some simple math just based on today’s nightmare. Take those 20 dead children with a likely life expectancy of, say, another 75 years each. That’s 1500 years of life snuffed out so that you can tote around your weapon to make yourself feel safer. Sorry, buddy, go peddle that crap somewhere else.
Nor is gun training and registration an adequate solution. If guns are retained by private citizens in their homes, they cannot be secured. It’s that simple. At a minimum, in most circumstances, if we are to tolerate “hunting”, guns should be stored at local police stations and should be “checked out” for brief periods of time. Leave them where they are today and you’ll have a never-ending, daily stream of murders.
Are you really able to disconnect your “it’s my right” views from all these deaths? I blame you very directly, Mr. Gun Toter.
If you want to enforce your right to your little murderous toys, solve the violence problem first. If not, no guns for you! Got that? Solve the problem or lose the guns. Your so-called rights do not measure up to the rights of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of innocent victims each and every year. Solve the problem first; then we’ll talk.
I am outraged at the violence. I am outraged at mealy-mouthed Presidents who cave in to the NRA. I am outraged at the whining libertarians who put their “rights” ahead of those who have lost their lives and ahead of the best interests of the rest of society. The right thing to do is to ban all handguns and all assault weapons except where extreme need can be demonstrated. Truthfully, it boggles the mind, after all the death and after all the violence, that this discussion is even necessary.
The obvious places to start with gun control are with the police and the military.
Police – federal, state, including the national guard and local – should be forbidden to carry or use guns, tasers and other potentially lethal weapons.
The US military, the world’s largest and most lethal terrorist organization, should be brought back to the continental US, disarmed and discharged. Mercenaries in the employ of US companies should be disarmed, withdrawn to the continental US, arrested and prosecuted as gangsters.
Are we going to see the conservative right to life crowd chime in here for protecting the lives of school children…..?
I’m waiting…………..
That’s one of the best arguments for a national health care system, or socialized medicine, take your pick, that I’ve ever seen.
I understand your outrage, I do. Unfortunately, there is that little Second Amendment thing standing in the way of what you would like to see happen.
To be fair, when the Second Amendment was ratified in the 18th Century semi-automatic and automatic weapons did not exist. It was literally impossible for a lone gunman to go anywhere people were gathered and murder a couple dozen of them. At the time, it made sense.
As for libertarian whining, I don’t really care what the Founding Fathers would say about the current situation. They’re long dead, after all, and were products of a very different time.
The fact is that the Constitution of 1789 has outlived its usefulness and needs to be scrapped. The government and governmental processes it set up no longer work for the best interests of the American people any more than the two major political parties do.
We need a Constitutional Convention. Unfortunately, it will probably take a revolution to obtain one, after which this school shooting will become an insignificant historical footnote.
And just how do you think this miracle can be accomplished?
NRA garbage. You folks are everywhere like termites destroying the fabric of the culture, changing it from one of creativity and innovation to one of fear, destruction, dominance and violence.
And there is still debate as to the intent of the second amendment, to assure the right to local armed police forces or unrestrained individual rights. Sadly it will be a long time before SCOTUS may revisit its most recent interpretation, purchased by the NRA.
By fighting for it, beginning with not accepting the status quo.
“It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
Samuel Adams, Boston
Raising ideas that are not immediately attainable, as long as they are reasonable and needful ignites Adams little brushfires, which over time combine into a conflagration.
To my good friend, Ohio Barbarian, I ask you to look at the Second Amendment with fresh eyes. First, and perhaps least, we have the “well regulated militia” clause. The intent, here, was not to provide an “individual right” but rather a “collective right” to allow Americans to protect themselves from the tyranny of the King. Notice that most who argue the NRA position argue it on behalf of “their” individual rights. This is not consistent with the intent of the Second Amendment, but, again, this is the least important argument in my view.
Nothing in the amendment gives you, or, worse, profit-seeking corporations, the right to “manufacture and sell” arms. The wording talks about the right to “bear” arms. Banning the manufacture and sale of arms does not violate the amendment.
We also need to discuss the society’s right to “regulate” arms. If you emphasize the clause, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”, should individual citizens therefore have the right to own nuclear weapons, rocket launchers, drones and other life-taking, rights-denying weapons? When we, the people, interpret our laws, including the Second Amendment, do we not have the right to do so as free men and women with a duty to interpret the laws in the context of the modern world? Interpretation of our laws must not be seen as dead and static; it must be adapted to the world that lies before us. Our interpretation must evolve as our world evolves.
Owning a revolutionary era “musket” to raise a militia against the King, thus matching the weapon power of the King’s army, turns our communities into killing fields in which we, in our madness, have built and sold “weapons of mass destruction”. These WMD include the semi-automatic and automatic weapons to which you referred. Those who make Second Amendment arguments, it seems to me, endow the individual citizen, in pursuit of their right to bear arms against the tyranny of the King, with the right to own WMD. The citizens of today, in my view, have an obligation to read the Second Amendment with fresh eyes and to regulate these killing machines as needed.
My program would ban the manufacture and sale of all products that lead to thousands, tens of thousands, and over the decades, hundreds of thousands of deaths. This means no more making and selling of handguns or assault rifles. Immediately, even before that action is taken, I would offer a voluntary “buy back” program, at double or triple the value, perhaps even more, to get as many guns out of circulation as possible. Fewer guns equals fewer deaths from guns. Most who have lost loved ones to gun violence would pay any price to have them returned. No price is too high. Instead of building more weapons to line the pockets of the mercenaries, let’s spend that money buying back weapons to make us all safer. Again, fewer guns means fewer deaths from guns.
And, finally, we have the issue of “conflicting rights”. Whatever defense of the Second Amendment one might make, all citizens, and, of course all non-citizens as well, have the right not to be killed. No law is “absolute”. Our judgment must be applied, as best we are able, to balance rights that conflict. The Second Amendment must take a back seat when the rights of innocent citizens, especially children, are denied. The killings must be stopped… now. Is it not our obligation to protect one of our most precious rights, i.e., the right not to be killed? No “right” is absolute.
End the gun violence, now, and then we can discuss the extents and limits of the Second Amendment. Libertarian arguments about individual freedoms must stand down when the best interests of society are so clear.
Yeah, right. The guy who’s telling us we have to be resigned to children being slaughtered in their classrooms because a bunch of paleo-brained extremists who have no concern for the rights of anyone except those who want to own military-style killing machines in case their homes are invaded by a small army will get pissed off is the “only one grown up in the discussion”.
What an ignorant, disgusting, assholic, self-important attitude.
Only with gun violence do we respond to repeated tragedies by saying that mourning is acceptable but discussing how to prevent more tragedies is not. (h/t Greg Hatcher via FB)
“…Every time, like clockwork, that there is a mass shooting (we always seem to ignore the individual ones) there is a mass hysteria…”
Ah no, you don’t get to put that dusty blame the victims off the shelf, 4cdave. Not here! Where have you been on Terror Tuesdays? Where have you been almost any day of the week on this very forum when people speak out against the policies of this administration ongoing which further violence in our communities? As was said and well said
Grow up!
We don’t ignore the individual ones here – sometimes threads go on about them for months.
And one person’s ‘mass hysteria’ is everyone else’s progressive movement for change.
On an Aussie post I copied yesterday, the observation was made that in Australia the gun lobbyists did still come out to prevent sensible legislation. They were shouted down.
We must do that and keep on keeping on. Thank you, fdl, for all you do.
If every gun in the country was destroyed tomorrow how long do you think it would be before smuggling weapons became more wide spread and profitable than smuggling drugs?
I’m Just Askin’
Our gun laws are just another endless example of our government protecting corporate profits, even at the expense of children’s lives. It’s no different than healthcare.
Agreed that we need a new constitution. Other countries adopt new constitutions without revolutions, yet we can’t even have a conversation about considering the idea.
Why? That’s not a rhetorical question; I’d really like to understand how the US got this way.
Why are you asking me?
I proposed that weapons be taken away from the police, spy agencies like the CIA and the military.
I made the assumption that you’d want to take them away from criminals and private owners, too, which would immediately start a huge black market.
Wrong assumption.
Taking them away from the police is tantmount to taking them from criminals. The other main cause of gun violence – the attempt to control drug use instead of treating drug use as a public health problem – would solve most of the other deaths involing guns or criminal violence.
This is not a question whose solution is helped by pandering to religious ignorance and superstition.
The solution is to the campaign of mass murder by this and previous Administrations around the world, especially in Palestine, Pakistan and Afghanistan where children die in large numbers especially at the hands of ‘unauthorized’ copycat military murderers. Most of those murders are related to a religious, as opposed to a public health approach to drugs and those murders are largely ignored because they involve people of color.
Another solution is to recognize that there are tens of thousands of murders around the country every year and that most are ignored as an inherent cost of living in a militarized state increasingly under the sway of theocrats.
Another is to understand the power of the weapons industry in the US, the real backbone of the NRA whose sales and profits tripled last year. ” U.S. arms sales to both developed and developing nations reached $66.3 billion last year, up from $21.4 billion in 2010… making the U.S. responsible for more than three-quarters of the global total.” HuffPo 08 27 2012
The US arms industry, foreign and domestic, continues to cite the Second Amendment without noting that there’s a growing body of evidence that it was a compromise with Southern slavers who wanted to insure that their armed militias would be ready to suppress runaway slaves and revolts by slaves and native Americans. Slavery was prominent in the Constitution and was the subject of may compromises like where slaves, called “other persons,” are counted as three-fifths of a whole person. In Article 1, Section 9, Congress is limited, expressly, from prohibiting the “Importation” of slaves, before 1808. The Fugitive Slave Clause requires that the state to which an escapee flees to return slaves to the states they escaped from.”
the attempt to control drug use instead of treating drug use as a public health problem
should be
changing the attmept to control drug use to one of treating drug use as a public health problem