Guns

The question of how to reduce gun violence in the U.S. and to eliminate or at least drastically curtail the number of public massacres is always a hot topic for debate.  In a nation where the gun genie was long ago let out of the bottle, there are no easy answers.

First of all, there can be no debate about the fact that the U.S. has a lot of guns of all types.  There are more guns per capita in the U.S. than any other nation in the world.  In fact, the U.S. has 35-50 % of the world’s civilian-owned guns divided among only 5% of the world’s population.  We have almost one gun for every man, woman and child in the country.

Second, the homicide by firearm rate in the U.S. is about 3 per 100,000 people, which is about eight to ten times higher than almost every other developed nation.  Interestingly, the developed country that comes closest to the U.S. in homicide rate, Switzerland (with a 0.7) is also number three in the gun ownership ranks.  Most Swiss men go through military service and keep some sort of weapon afterwards – probably a rifle.  But the U.S. still has more than four times the homicide rate that Switzerland does.

So one question is whether high rates of gun ownership can be correlated to high rates of homicide.  I don’t believe there can be any doubt that this is the case.  However, countries with low rates of gun ownership can also have high homicide rates if the countries have high crime rates and are politically chaotic.  In this case, the actual number of guns in circulation may be much higher than the statistics show.

Some nations with fairly high gun ownership do not have big problems with homicides.  Australia, Austria, Norway, New Zealand and Canada are examples.  My guess is that the gun ownership in these nations is generally focused on rifles and shotguns for hunting purposes as opposed to handguns for self-defense, but I am not certain about that.

Clearly the gun violence problem in the U.S. is not solely due to gun ownership or availability.  The U.S. also has more crime and more people in prison than any other developed nation.  One of the primary reasons that there is major opposition to more stringent gun control or even gun reduction (God forbid!) is the fear that more gun control will only result in less available guns for law-abiding citizens who want to protect themselves against the criminal element, who can always obtain guns. 

The public does not generally believe that gun control will reduce crime and homicides.  Gun control opponents point to Mexico with its very tight gun control laws and very high homicide rate to show the supposed folly of such an experiment.   But given the drug cartel situation in Mexico, which is, of course, a result of our insatiable hunger for drugs, it is not clear that Mexico is a good example of the results of gun control.  One can point to other countries with strong gun control laws in Europe that have had tremendous success – Great Britain being a good example.

But in the end crime and guns must be addressed together to make any real progress on this front.  Why is there so much violent crime in our country?  Why are so many of our citizens behind bars?  Why are we so different in this regard from Great Britain and Germany and France and Australia?  Is there any relationship between our gun culture and the level of violent crime we have?  What is the relationship between violent crime and drugs, or gangs?  It is estimated that about 12% of the homicides in the country are gang-related.  Now we face a triad of related issues – guns, crime and drugs.

But this triad does not explain the frequent occurrence of massacres such as Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora and Sandy Hook Elementary.  Is there something else in our culture or society that increases the probability of such attacks?  Is some potent mix of cultural decadence, violent video games and movies, and gun mania to blame for these horrific all-too-frequent national nightmares?

A mass shooting is clearly the act of someone who is mentally deranged.  But why does the U.S. have such a large number of mentally unbalanced or psychotic people who are willing or motivated to commit these horrible acts?  Do we have a larger problem with psychosis, or a problem with identification, or is the availability of weaponry the critical factor?  Some have argued that more rigorous background checks would reduce the incidence of these events, but it is not clear that any of the recent assailants would have been identified as psychotic before they acted.

At a minimum, it would seem reasonable to aggressively outlaw and eliminate the civilian ownership of multi-round semi-automatic rifles, which generally are the main weapons used in these tragedies.  Why is there such resistance to this proposal?  Both Australia and Great Britain took similar steps after massacres and have had great success.

But the opposition to gun laws is very deeply embedded in our society.  Why is it so uniquely vociferous in our country?  Part of it is the libertarian abhorrence of anyone telling people what they can or cannot own or do.  Part of it is a gun fetish that goes far beyond a healthy interest in hunting and sport shooting.  But the most intriguing and disturbing part of it is the anti-government paranoia that makes people want to stockpile guns in preparation for fighting against the government when they feel it has gone too far in controlling their lives.  This is what the 2^nd amendment really means to many Americans.  And it has taken on an almost religious symbolism and significance.  The NRA is the church organization for this religion.

So gun control is opposed for four reasons:  hunting, sport shooting, self-defense and protection against a future over-zealous government.  Hunting and sport shooting don’t really have much to do with the current gun debate.  Strong gun control and elimination of automatic weapons would not impact these hobbies.  The real opposition to gun control runs in a much deeper vein of government distrust and fear of the criminal element.

Recently, the gun lobby has changed its strategy from a defensive posture against more stringent gun control to an offensive strategy of supporting open carry and stand-your-ground laws. The argument is that if more people openly carry firearms there will be less crime and Sandy Hook/Columbine-type massacres will be curtailed. 

The counter-argument is that guns at-the-ready will cause far more accidents and moment-of-passion shootings (road rage, domestic arguments, bar fights, etc.) than the number of crimes or shootings they will prevent.  If handguns are available at a moment’s notice, then a moment’s fury or a youthful indiscretion is all that it takes to create a tragedy.  Are we really ready to sacrifice so many lives in accidents to make us feel a little bit more secure in our cars or homes?  Would we really be any more secure?

In the end, having more people carry weapons can really only be characterized as a cynical and short-sighted response to the problem of crime and mass shootings.  If we do not address the deeper problems of crime, incarceration, gun availability, mental illness and drugs, we will decay into a third-rate nation of fortress communities and frontier justice.  That would not be a place that many of us would choose to live.