When The “Monsters” Met The “Merchants of Death” – Gun Violence in America –

“O tempora! O mores!” – Cicero

by Paul Ballard
January 1, 2013
Like you, I was deeply shocked by the appalling gun massacres recently in Newtown CT and Webster NY. What are we to make of these? And what should now be done to prevent future such tragedies? President Obama has tasked Vice-President Biden and a task-force to talk to concerned parties and propose more effective gun regulation in America. We all now await their recommendations.
We all also heard Mr. Wayne Lapierre, Vice-President of the National Rifle Association (NRA) give us once more the time-worn line “guns don’t kill, people do”. This time, with his back more to the wall, he doubled down on his argument. The free availability of hundreds of millions of guns is not responsible for gun homicide, he says. It’s “monsters walking amongst us”, who must be identified and killed. In this dog-eat-dog, shoot-or-be-shot world, better to arm every citizen, teach our kids to use guns, and place armed guards in every school. Don’t worry that the USA has laid off ten per cent of K-12 teachers since 2008. If you don’t learn computers, you can always become a mercenary somewhere!
Mr. Lapierre’s world sounds like a Guy Ritchie movie – like “Snatch” or “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”. In them, armed gangs roam city streets killing at whim and at will until one side is annihilated. Life is indeed “nasty, brutish and short”, as Hobbes said. But also highly profitable if you manufacture guns, especially the sexy weapon of choice – the automatic assault rifle, like the Bushmaster Adam Lanza used to kill so many 5-7 year-old school children in Newtown CT.
Where I grew up, school was a spiritual and civilized place, free from instruments of violence and war. It was a sanctuary nurturing healthy young minds and bodies to grow into well-balanced adults. We learned there the importance of companionship. We learned the power of argument founded on fact was superior to brute force to settle disagreement. I passionately believe school must stay this way. Putting armed guards in schools would be an unwarranted and disturbing invasion. Better by far to institute now common-sense gun regulation and keep our schools free to be what they should be.
It’s also quite shocking to hear grown-ups say we need guns because so many of our fine, beautiful young people today are mentally ill – more so than elsewhere. There is no evidence to support this claim. World Health Organization (WHO) surveys show little difference in mental health between the USA and other advanced societies. So, it’s a ruthless calumny by folks “hooked” on gun ownership to say this! Hands up all you parents who think your kids are mentally ill?
Of course, many of us as children – and now our own kids – play act violent games between cowboys and Indians, or space invaders. But this does not make us potential psychopaths. As Bruno Bettelheim, the eminent child psychologist tells us in “Uses of Enchantment”, every society and every individual has a rich sense of fantasy. Many fairy tales include scenes of violence as a way of helping children understand and overcome fear of the world we live in. Ultimately, well-adjusted adults and children understand the dividing line between fantasy and reality.
The supreme cynicism of the NRA view is that, ultimately, if we kill enough “monsters” we won’t need guns. So, better to prevent society from identifying them – through background checks, so manufacturers can keep selling them?
There is an alternative way to go. This clearly distinguishes legitimate – and limited – gun ownership for hunting and target shooting, from criminal and dangerous over-arming of civilians, that correlates highly with massively higher gun homicide.
In the European Union (EU), in 2011 the five largest countries – Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain – combined, have civilian gun ownership twenty per cent of the USA’s – 61 million to 275 million guns. But they had only five per cent of the USA’s gun homicides – 500 compared to 11,900. They have a larger combined population than the USA – 315 million to 310 million.
In the USA, firearms account for seventy per cent of all murders and of law enforcement officer slayings annually. Since 2004, in a troubling trend, following the end of the assault weapon ban in the USA, killings using such weapons have doubled, while handgun homicides have declined but are still the most common. By contrast, non-gun related homicides are the same or lower in the USA than in the five EU countries.
This says that, rather than a total ban on guns, a different pattern of gun ownership enables other advanced societies to have far lower levels of gun violence than the USA today. It also shows that, absent high gun violence, the USA is generally less violent.
What would such a different pattern of gun ownership look like? It’s worth looking at recent history from the USA and other advanced countries.
First, and most important, the predominant “gun culture” in other advanced countries accepts gun use for hunting, target shooting and sport, but highly restricts other civilian gun use, including for self-defense.
In Australia, following a 1996 gun massacre, a highly restrictive gun control law was passed, including a major buy-back of 750,000 guns from civilians. This resulted in a 65% fall in gun-related crime and in gun suicide. In the UK in 1948, compulsory gun surrender of non-hunting firearms and strict regulation of hunting weapons has resulted in one of the lowest gun homicide rates in the world.
Second, rigorous, well-administered national systems of gun licensing and registration are a key enabler of a modern, safer, sport-oriented gun culture. Since 1991, the EU has set continent-wide standards for these. In France, for example, gun ownership requires : six-months compulsory, officially sponsored, training; extensive criminal and mental health background checks by the national police; a five-year license for a maximum twelve firearms, not including assault rifles which are prohibited; a national computerized gun registry.
Such systems are clearly far more rigorous than in America today. The USA has no national system of background checks, licensing, or computerized registration. Moreover, since becoming a Cabinet appointment in 2006, the directorship of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) in the U.S. Justice Department has been filled by acting, part-time appointees. The U.S. Congress – under heavy NRA lobbying pressure – has blocked confirmation for the post, as well as proposed national systems of background checks and computerized registry of licenses.
Unlike the EU, the USA has only a patchwork of fifty states’ differing gun control regulations, making effective countrywide gun control practically impossible. Moreover, many states’ regulations on carrying concealed weapons, and on use of automatic weapons have been watered down in recent years. So, even in Connecticut – with the sixth most restrictive gun regulations nationally – it is legal to own the Bushmaster semi-automatic assault rifle used by Adam Lanza in Newtown CT. Yet, U.S. civilian hunters overwhelmingly prefer using single-shot or small (four-shot) magazine hunting rifles.
So, clearly hunting use of those deadly rapid-fire semi-automatic and automatic assault rifles is small to non-existent, even if their sale is highly lucrative. The liberalized sale of such weapons has enabled the greatly increased profitability of U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors in recent years. Their added $4.1 billion in profits annually has come at the unconscionably high price tag of 100,000 gun homicides a decade. That’s about $410,000 per fatality! Little wonder the NRA and its gun industry members are blocking sensible sports-oriented gun regulation.
But it is also why the U.S. police chiefs’ and mayors’ associations have pushed in vain for over a decade for tighter national gun regulation, including a ban on assault weapons. While American public opinion since the 1980s has turned away from supporting an outright ban on guns, a majority of Americans (polled by Gallup in 2007) favored more effective gun regulation – including national systems of registration and background checks, and bans on high-magazine and assault weapons.
In the face of such views, NRA lobbying has become all the more intense and is much feared on Capitol Hill and in many U.S. governors’ mansions. No surprise, then that so few Republican – and Democrat – lawmakers or governors have spoken out following the Newtown CT and Webster NY massacres. Yet, public outrage has reached a new peak of intensity now. This particularly because the wanton killing of so many 5-7 year-old school children has robbed them of happy and productive lives.
I, for one, wish Vice-President Biden well in his efforts, and sincerely hope that this long continuing, unnecessary national tragedy can finally be ended. Sadly, based on past experience, despite the glaringly obvious rightness of the cause, if you are awaiting quick results, I would have to say “Don’t hold your breath”! I only hope I am proved wrong!