By Tom Kando
Less
than five months ago, I posted a piece titled “Learning from Colorado Mass Murderer James Holmes?” The
occasion was another recent mass murder.
James Holmes “only” killed 14 people.
Today in Newtown, Conn., the count is
27, mostly children!
One
of the first commentaries heard today, from the White House no less, is that “now
is not the time to get into a gun control debate.” Wow! If not now, then
when? (To
his credit, President Obama did emphasize later the imperative need to address
the issue).
I
suppose I could go over the arguments again, tediously and futilely. Mass
murders such as Aurora and Newtown briefly wake us up to the
insanity of our situation, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. Murder goes on unabated every day. As I open
the morning newspaper, I see that nearly every day our region experiences
homicide (90% through guns). We are a
mid-sized city, but we have more murders annually than the average mid-sized European COUNTRY, and almost as many as Japan!
Not a
day goes by when I do NOT read about one or more homicides in the greater
Sacramento region. One can hardly keep
count of the number of murders, suicides-by-cop, occasional
unjustified killings of suspects by
callous peace officers, and other forms
of criminal homicides.
At
the same time, not only are Second Amendment rights vigorously protected but they are gaining! Gun ownership is rising. We are becoming like the Wild West again. It is becoming easier to own guns and to carry them, concealed or not. In the State of Illinois, the US Court of Appeals has just outlawed one of the last laws left in this country which banned carrying concealed weapons. In all other states, such a ban was already in effect. Now it's unanimous (Associated Press, December 12).
What
the heck, I’ll just re-post what I wrote less than 5 months ago:
(By
the way, I taught criminology at the university for 30 years. I went to
international conferences and published on this subject many times (see for
example http://www.tomkando.com/professional_publications.shtml).
I covered gun control issues for decades. I was also a teacher at the California State Prison in Vacaville, with several dozen inmate-students. I spent many hours riding along with police patrol, and I did fieldwork at a variety of juvenile and adult penal facilities.)
The
gun control arguments have been made ad
nauseam, but nothing ever changes.
On
July 22, Sacramento Bee
journalist Marcos Breton said
excellent things. He reminded us of
well-known NRA-sponsored clichés
like - “guns don’t kill people, people
kill people;” “we don’t ban spoons and forks because people are obese,” etc.
I can
add to this idiotic list: “more people are killed by cars than by guns, so how
about banning cars?” “If we ban guns,
people will easily kill you with knives
and other things...”
And
the “guns don’t kill people” proponents always bring up places like Switzerland,
Israel, Washington D.C., New York, Florida: The Swiss and the Israelis are
heavily armed, but their murder rates are very low. New York and D.C. have some
of the toughest gun control laws, yet also some of the highest rates of
homicide. When Florida’s gun laws became
more permissive, gun deaths were said to
have declined. And so on and on, the abuse of selective statistics, spurious
correlations and absurd arguments...
Breton
pointed out the obvious: it’s not “guns or no guns?” but “what TYPE of guns?”
and “used by WHOM?” James Holmes bought 6,000 rounds of ammo and no alarm bell went off? Assault weapons in every garage? All these things have been said a million
times, but don’t hold your breath waiting for
significant change. The stranglehold
which the NRA and a certain mind set have over politics and public opinion will
never slacken. What’s the point of mentioning the obvious again?
US:
16,000 murders per year, of which 13,000 are
by guns.
UK:
600 murders per year, of which are 60 by guns.
But
the US is five times larger than the UK, so we are entitled to five times more
murders. That would be 3,000! Not the
16,000 which we DO have!
“But
if we ban guns, people will use knives, etc.
instead...” See previous paragraphs. It’s a lot harder to kill with a
knife or with your fists.
A
fellow named Marc has a brilliant blog
essay “ Jimmy Homes, Superhero?”
http://www.3sigma.com/james-holmes-superhero/ A lot of sarcasm, but his conclusion should not be misunderstood.
He is on the same page as I am: GUNS DO
KILL PEOPLE!
You
can substitute dozens of other countries for “UK” in the above comparison. The
discrepancy remains equally appalling -
if not worse. For instance, Japan had
300 murders last year, that’s half Britain’s number and 53 times
(!) fewer than in the US. (Japan’s population is twice that of Britain and a little less than half ours).
Of Japan’s 300 annual murders, 10 (!) were by gun!
Like
Breton, I’ll put in a disclaimer to show you that I am not a zealot: I own a
rifle. It’s tucked away safely, and it’s
not leaving my house, ever. I don’t
advocate dogma, just common sense.
Someone very dear to me just said it: “Gun control is a duh thing.” The
NRA is wrong. Case closed. leave comment here
