I am not the champion of lost causes, but the champion of causes not yet won – Norman Thomas
Silence is violence! – Anonymous
On January 8, 2011, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords of Arizona was meeting with constituents in Tucson. A man walked up to her and fired at point blank range.
The shot went cleanly through her brain — in the front of the head and out the back.
In the next 15 seconds, the shooter opened fire on others and emptied his magazine. It contained 33 bullets and there were 33 wounds.
On December 14, 2012, there was a shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Twenty–six were killed, 20 of whom were children ages six and seven.
Their lives ended in a hail of bullets. Their teachers bravely stacked them into closets and bathrooms whispering that they loved them.
There were emotional calls for legislative actions to avert future Newtowns.
Our Congress responded by passing…well…nothing.
An English journalist wrote: “Sandy Hook marked the end of the U.S. gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over.”
Some 30 years ago, I spoke with my students voicing a feeling that America was a shooting gallery.
Now, three decades later, I await, without much hope, the end to this barbarism.
Why we’ve made little to no progress is not a mystery. There are powerful forces in our nation dedicated to maintaining the status quo.
As long as it is profitable to oppose any gun control or gun safety legislation, the killing spree will go on.
We hear the argument that gun control advocates wish to take guns away from law abiding citizens. This is patently ridiculous since many who propose reasonable limits like Gabby Giffords and husband Mark Kelly are, themselves, proud gun-owners.
A corollary argument is that the federal government wishes to confiscate all weapons. This paranoid fantasy is often stated by neo-Nazi, militia groups who point to what happened in Waco, Texas.
There are also bumper sticker words of wisdom like “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” That makes sense.
No gun ever pulled its own trigger. But the facts refute this argument. What if you take guns out of the equation?
Think how many fewer bodies there would be if killers used baseball bats and knives.
Actually, it’s the proliferation of guns which correlates with multiple deaths.
States with the most guns have the highest murder rates. If you live in a state with restrictions such as a ban on assault weapons and safe storage requirements the gun death rate drops.
“Gun aficianados” love to point to cities like Chicago and Washington D.C. which have very stringent gun laws on the books and still experience very high murder rates.
This is supposed to prove that gun control does not work, but that’s an erroneous conclusion. One cannot only consider the correlation of gun laws and murders. One must also factor in the socio-economic facts of life in our urban areas. Actually, the real lesson to be learned from our urban metropolises is that we need federal regulation covering all states and cities. The gun used in the attempted assassination of President Reagan was “imported” from Texas so our capital’s tough laws made no difference. (In Texas, by the way, it is easier to get a handgun than a library card.)
It is now time to name the real culprits.
They are the National Rifle Association (N.R.A.) and the gun manufacturers who finance that organization.
The N.R.A. spent $3,360,000 on lobbying in 2014. It also contributed 11 million to Republican candidates and 15 million to defeat Democrats in the 2013-14 cycle. In Political Science 101, we talked about “access.”
Every pressure group wants to know that when it calls a legislator, he or she will take the call.
The best way to insure this outcome is by making substantial financial contributions. Let’s examine some facts. Since 2009, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took $72,399 from the N.R.A. while House Speaker John Boehner received a paltry $57,790. Who said we don’t have the best Congress money can buy?
President Obama in one of his most impassioned and angry speeches (that’s “no-drama Obama, mind you) hit the nail on the head. Talking about the murders at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, he warned about the “routine” nature of these massacres. He said they were the “direct products of political decisions” and that “We collectively are answerable to those families, who lost their loved ones because of our inaction.”
After the Sandy Hook tragedy, I picked up a copy of the New York Daily News
a paper not known for its liberal stance on issues. Yet, there on the cover page was a picture of Wayne LaPierre, Executive vice president of the N.R.A. The screaming headline read: “Craziest Man on Earth.” Just above the crease, again in bold letters, “Just 90 minutes after moment of silence for Newtown victims, vile NRA nut blames everyone and everything except the guns.” What led to this angry headline was LaPierre’s oft-quoted” “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
For those who wish to see America turn into an armed camp with everyone “packing heat,” this makes sense.
The man who was New York City mayor at that time, Michael Bloomberg, summed it up beautifully: “Instead of offering solutions to a problem they {NRA} have helped create, they offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe.”
LaPierre also spewed some venom on video game manufacturers.
He called them “ a callous…and corrupting shadow industry that…sows violence against its own people.” Of course, there is no evidence of a correlation between playing electronic games and mass murders.
Nicholas Kristof just penned an op. ed. piece for the New York Times.
In it, he discussed the relationship between gun safety and auto safety.
Some wag had written him that since cars are responsible for so many deaths, they should be banned.
Kristof turned this argument to his advantage pointing out that the auto industry had, in fact, introduced seatbelts, airbags, safety glass and padded dashboards thus reducing fatalities by 95 percent.
What kind of a reduction might we expect if we made comparable changes in our gun laws?
How many lives would be saved if we had effective criminal background checks, no magazines holding more than 10 bullets, tighter restrictions on “carrying” laws, closing the gun show loophole, extended waiting periods, no armor piercing bullets, safety locks to prevent children from firing guns, training law enforcement officers to deal with mass shootings and the reporting of all private gun sales?
I cannot imagine that adopting some, or all, of these measures would not substantially reduce the death toll from guns in America.
The N.R.A. rejects, out of hand, any gun control measures no matter how sensible. They also love to extrapolate from a single case.
When it was learned that the Roseburg shooter had obtained his arsenal legally, and that the college was a gun-free zone, the N.R. A. figuratively jumped for joy.
Wasn’t this more proof of the failure of restrictions and limitations?
My calculus in these matters is different. I, like most progressives, have no compunction about inconveniencing some in order to save even a single life.
There is a line in the Talmud “He who saves one life, saves the world.” If you are more concerned with the 2nd amendment rights of an N.R.A. member, talk to the mother of a dead six year old in Newtown.
We live in a gun culture.
Americans love their firearms! No one wishes to take them away. Hunting or use on a firing range are legitimate activities. But no one needs a clip of thirty rounds to kill a deer.
Automatic weapons are designed to kill people and only the military and law enforcement should have access to them. We must reject the likes of Charlton Heston who, as N.R.A. President in 2000, proudly held up a rifle and said: “I will give you my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands.” Conversely, we should support the likes of Michael Moore who made the Academy Award winning “Bowling for Columbine” and wrote: “The gun, not the eagle, is our true national symbol.”
Unlike most civilized nations we are awash in guns.
Obama was right. The time to stand up and be counted is now. We need to elect officials who have the guts to stand up to the N.R.A! We must unseat legislators who side with the gun lobby!
We must work with groups like the Brady Campaign, The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and Americans for Responsible Solutions which are on the front lines in the battle for a just and humane society.
There have been over 29 school shootings since Newtown.
When is enough, enough?
Dr. Hal Sobel
Great Neck
