I wrote everything after the first couple paragraphs over a year ago on March 25, 2021. It was about the spate of mass shootings taking place in this country. And what has happened since then? More states have passed laws allowing people to carry concealed weapons without a permit. The number of mass shootings this year is on track to exceed all previous years. And, as I have pointed out in previous blogs, gun violence is now the leading cause of death in minors in this country.
What has Congress done to solve this crisis? Zero!!! Instead, politicians are squandering their time on ‘woke’ issues like passing anti-transgender laws, passing anti-abortion laws, railing against immigrants, passing voter suppression laws and doing absolutely squat to address the gun violence which permeates American culture more than any other country in the world. So why doesn’t anything get done? They will fight like hell to protect a fetus, but do absolutely nothing to protect living, breathing children going to school. I am sure I will be able to post the same blog next year at this same time because nothing will change until the political whores in the Republican party who are beholden to the NRA muster the political courage to do something! Currently, it looks like hell will freeze over first!
I’ve been thinking a lot about these latest mass shootings the last couple of days and yesterday I read a piece in the New York Times that tried to address the same question that I had been asking myself – “Why can’t we solve this problem?”
In March of 2019, a gunman armed with an assault rifle attacked two mosques in New Zealand and murdered 51 people. “Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had announced a temporary ban just days after a terror attack on two mosques in Christchurch in March that left 51 people dead and was streamed live on Facebook. Weeks later, all but one of Parliament’s 120 lawmakers voted to make the ban permanent. It outlaws military-style semiautomatic weapons and assault rifles, and some gun parts, and violators face five years in prison.”2
They embarked on a gun buy back program which resulted in 56,000 weapons being turned in by 32,000 people. This cost the New Zealand government about $100 million NZ. Was there controversy? Of course. Was it universally popular? Of course not. That said, they did something! The massacre happened in March and by the end of the year they had enacted laws and taken thousands of weapons off the street. Compare that to this country. There has been a constant increase in mass shootings over the last decade and this country has done nothing!
Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, took her clue from Australia. “In making her case for the ban, Ms. Ardern had pointed to Australia’s success implementing gun-control measures after a mass shooting there in 1996. The country implemented strict new laws and carried out a gun buyback that removed more than 20 percent of firearms from circulation. Since then, rates of gun violence and gun suicides have tumbled.”2
The fact is, the United States just has too many guns, and the almost unlimited access to assault style weapons is not making America safe, in fact, just the contrary. America has more guns than people. In a 2018 survey, the number of guns in American was estimated to be 393 million. The population of the United States is about 330 million. This figure of 393 million firearms represents 46 percent of all civilian owned firearms IN THE WORLD! There is a growing body of research that suggests this is the only variable that explains the excessive number of mass shootings in America compared to the rest of the world.1
“The same can be said for gun deaths in general, of which mass shootings account for only a tiny fraction. As German Lopez has explained in Vox, “When researchers control for other confounding variables, they have found time and time again that America’s high levels of gun ownership are a major reason the U.S. is so much worse in terms of gun violence than its developed peers.”1
On average, every single day in the United States, 100 people are killed by guns. Think about that – 100 people each and every day die because of firearms. That’s like a small regional jet crashing every day. One would think that would get people’s attention and there would be a huge outcry for something to be done. The fact is, there is a huge outcry after every single incident of a mass shooting – and then the cries for reform die away or are beat into submission by gun rights advocates and conservative politicians.
“If the United States were to hold a national referendum tomorrow, a number of gun control measures would probably pass: universal background checks and bans on high-capacity magazines and even on assault-style weapons — all of these proposals have the support of at least 50 percent of the electorate. So why don’t we have stricter gun control? According to The Washington Post’s Robert Gebelhoff, Americans simply don’t care about it enough.”1
Sadly, not only don’t Americans view gun control legislation as a priority, but after these types of incidents, guns sales usual spike.3 In addition, the gun rights organizations such as the NRA immediately start lobbying against any type of such legislation. And now, it appears as if the Supreme Court will hear a case that actually might expand the Second Amendment, given the conservative majority currently on the court.4 Even if the current Second Amendment case gets tossed out on a technicality, there will be more such cases in the future that are designed to broaden the rights under the Second Amendment rather than abridge them in any way.
The rest of the industrialized world seems to have figured how to move forward without having their citizens have almost unlimited access to firearms including assault rifles. Frankly, I can’t think of one real problem facing this country that more guns is going to solve. In spite of all of the rhetoric surrounding the latest mass shootings and how people are outraged, don’t expect anything to change – except the number of guns on the streets – there will be more of them. I guess in addition to wearing masks when we go to the grocery store now, we should all wear body armor as well! So, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go update my Christmas list for this year.
“Dear Santa, I’d like an AK-47, AR-15, grenade launcher, and a bazooka (not the bubble gum!), and about 10,000 rounds of ammunition. Oh, and you can throw in a new Glock for a stocking stuffer. Thanks, Mike”
The insanity is staggering.
- Opinion | Why America Can’t Fix Its Gun Violence Crisis – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
- New Zealand Ban on Most Semiautomatic Weapons Takes Effect – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
- Gun industry prepares for a surge in demand after back-to-back mass shootings – CNN
- Gun rights: Supreme Court hears biggest Second Amendment case in a decade – CNN Politics