We need to make it difficult to weaponize people
The recent spate of mass shootings in the U.S. has produced a flood of outrage, fear and argument about how to account for these events and how we might control them.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy was practically on his knees in the Senate asking what our nation might do to reduce the likelihood of incidents such as the reported killings of 21 people in Uvalde, Texas. I am in sympathy with Sen. Murphy. But I have reservations about the depth and scope of his proposals. Should we not seek to eradicate mass shootings in our nation — not just diminish their frequency? I then heard him refer to the difficulty of obtaining support for such weak proposals as making routine background checks or diminishing the supply of ghost guns. Too weak, I say.
The first point of thinking clearly about gun violence is that no amount of the display we saw at Uvalde, Texas, will ever be acceptable. We need to think about the fundaments of this problem. Why is the United States uniquely troubled with gun violence? And why is this problem becoming worse, despite an overwhelming public interest in making our schools and streets and shops safe from gun violence? As a first step toward progress, let us recognize that what we are doing now is not satisfactory. Effective action toward the eradication of gun violence must be based on understanding what is wrong in our system and then we can work to fix it.
This first step of establishing a goal for the reduction of gun violence is of critical importance. The status quo is powerful and the forces for maintaining that status quo are massive, and only partially recognized. The NRA has been a force, as have lobbyists for the weapons industry. The manifest defeatism of Congress bespeaks a lack of will to change the status quo. As an organization, the NRA is in tatters — and yet the shadow of fear that it has generated remains a paralyzing force.
The easy availability of firearms such as the AR-15 is an open scandal. The only
reason for such a weapon is to kill human beings quickly. How could such a tool end up in the hands of an 18-year-old civilian? It is less trouble to buy an AR-15 than it is to buy a handful of cherry bombs. When I was a kid, I could buy fireworks easily, on the street or through the mail. Fireworks are still available, of course, but access is carefully regulated, and the accidental harm they produced a generation ago is a thing of the past. The need for effective laws to govern access to weapons is obvious. And the major barrier to the enactment of such laws is the self-fulfilling prophecy that such laws would be difficult to enact. The problem here is lack of will — a fatal weakness for our social fabric. Let us first believe that this can change.
Here are other examples of unclear thinking about gun violence: The Texas killings had no sooner been announced than reporters announced that authorities were investigating the background of the killer, with particular attention to his motive. Also, the mental status of killers
is automatically examined, based on the assumption that mad acts must be occasioned by the madness of the perpetrator. In fact, there is little benefit in seeking explanations for gun violence by examining the motives of the perpetrator. And it is simply a sham to operate on the belief that gun violence is a product of mental illness or deranged thinking. It does not help to examine motives or to think about mental illness as explanatory — there are clearly red herrings, obscuring the simple but unpleasant truths that commonly occur without a background of mental pathology.
Thinking that gun violence is a manifestation of mental illness is tantamount to explaining one mystery by inventing another. There is no warrant for thinking that gun violence might be reduced if the general level of mental health in our population were improved. The current population of the United States is a little less than 333 million. Despite or because of its hideous nature, gun violence in this huge population has an extraordinarily low base rate of occurrence — certainly less than one such incident for every million people per year. In this mass of humanity, unaccountable and bizarre occurrences are inevitable. This trick is to make it less likely that these aberrations will result in deaths because weapons are so near at hand. We need to make it difficult to weaponize people.
The number of firearms in the United States exceeds the size of our population, reaching nearly 400 million, according to recent estimates. Per capita, we are easily the world leader in firearms.
What if we should take the task of eliminating gun violence seriously? The prime minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, recently provided us with a simple and compelling account of how New Zealand acted to remove assault weapons after a mass shooting in Christchurch in 2019. They instituted laws restricting purchase of assault weapons and instituted a buyback program for weapons currently in the country. The results have been gratifyingly positive.
Of course, New Zealand is a small and relatively homogenous country. Even so, I allow myself to imagine a swell of public courage in the United States that will result in a similar disarmament of our population. We will retain guns, as have New Zealanders, but they will be fewer in number and will be used for shooting at tin cans, or hunting, both of which I practiced in my youth.
We need to do whatever it takes to initiate such a popular movement and to establish it as a permanent part of our political and social lives. Life is not a charade. Once a child is dead, he or she will never live again. Once you are born, you have a right to life. Let us take this responsibility seriously. Fewer weapons will result in saved lives.