‘THERE’SANACTIVE SHOOTERINOUR NEIGHBORHOOD’
Monday’s mass shooting was already the 19th in Texas in 2016 — and one of two in the area that day
PICTURE this: It is getting close to 6:30 a.m. The house is still quiet. Fall is upon us so it’s still dark outside, but I see the morning light starting to paint the sky. I amcatching up on emails to get a head start on a busy workday, and wondering what I should pack for myboys’ lunches. They are 10 and 6 years old, and I want to let them sleep another 15 minutes right until they absolutely have to wake up. They have a busy day of learning ahead.
And just like that my thoughts are interrupted with what sounds like firecrackers bursting. I run upstairs to my 10-year-old’s room because I know he is a sensitive sleeper and may wake up. Sure enough, I open the door and there he is peeking out of one of the bedroom windows, with a sleepy but bewildered look on his face.
“Mommy,” he says, “what was that sound?” “I don’t know, honey,” I say. Right then we hear the sirens as several police cars and ambulances speed down our street. Our home is nestled in one of the most upscale neighborhoods in Houston — West University. So thoughts about those sounds possibly being gunfire don’t even cross my mind. I amconfused, and at this time, my 6-year-old is up as well, the blaring sirens finally having roused him. As the three of us snuggle together on the bed for just a minute longer, I assure them that it’s probably an accident down the street.
I get them ready for school. No time to check social media or watch TVin our home early in the morning. We step out to the car and notice that there are cops, helicopters and ambulances everywhere. My sensitive 10-year-old is visibly worried now. I know it’s more than an accident, but I don’t say anything. We drive quietly to school. I kiss their sweet cheeks, wish them a wonderful day and drop them off.
Right then myhusband, who is out of town, calls to tell methere is an active shooter in our neighborhood, just two blocks from where we live! Wait, what? Two blocks? Howdid we not get alerted from the city?
Over the next few minutes I find out that the shooter is down. Dazed and confused, I head to work. I amapublic health epidemiologist, a professor whostudies epidemics. As I read the news on the internet, I find out that this manwhowreaked havoc in our neighborhood, injuring nine people and ultimately losing his ownlife, was a well-educated attorney and seemingly good citizen. Life events led to a downward spiral, and for reasons unbeknownst to us he woke up on Monday, Sept. 26, 2016, and decided to load his guns and shoot innocent bystanders.
He was no terrorist. He was not a drug dealer seeking revenge on a rival. Nathan DeSai was an “ordinary guy” living among us. He probably shopped at the
neighborhood Randall’s and Walgreens, parking in the very lot where first responders would set up a triage Monday morning to care for his victims. He was one of us. And as one of us, we who live in a state and nation where there is a proliferation of guns, he had an alarming ease of access to weapons that have the power to kill many, and to kill them quickly.
That is what we need to pay attention to. As someone who studies epidemics for a living, it is a known fact that increased availability and accessibility promotes behavior. For example, if you live in a neighborhood that has no sidewalks, parks or street lamps, you are less likely to be physically active. So why would the epidemiological framework for the ongoing assault of gun violence in the United States be any different? It isn’t.
If you have easy access to and availability of guns, that access is guaranteed to manifest itself in predictable behavior: the increased use of guns. Here is another fact: Of all the developed nations in the world, the United States has the highest number of gun-related deaths by far — about 30 per day.
The shooting that happened in myneighborhood Monday was the 19th mass shooting in Texas in 2016. And, it was not the only incident of multiple gunshot victims to make the news that day in the Houston area. About 12 hours after DeSai began firing at random passersby, four children were injured in a shooting incident in Humble. At least two were innocent bystanders, kids who were playing soccer outdoors.
These could very well have been mychildren, or yours.
Texas’ open carry gun law only adds to the problem of gun availability. Maybe not in number, but the spirit of open carry certainly conveys that most of us are comfortable around loaded firearms. We are not.
None of these mass shootings serves to support the argument that some have about the Sec- ond Amendment: that strong gun laws somehow impinge on the right to gun ownership. If anything, the repeated incidents shoot that argument full of holes. What is so hard to understand about the obvious?
We are in the middle of an epidemic of gun violence, and it is not going away.
We can change this trajectory substantially by strengthening our gun laws, and this will take political will that so far has failed to materialize — even after Aurora, even after San Bernardino and Charleston. And even after Sandy Hook and Dallas.
In myfield, there is one very much-needed policy change that could make an enormous difference. Congress in 1996 approved a budget provision effectively throttling gun research by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Efforts to remove the provision have been blocked at nearly every turn, most recently in the House Appropriations Committee in July. The reality is that without data from the CDC, we will not be able to affect policy because policy change needs to be driven by evidence, and rightly so. With a policy change indicating political interest in stemming the bloodshed, evidence might finally align with a growing public unease with the level of gun violence that is consuming our communities and our nation.
This is the first step we must take to move the needle on this epidemic. If we choose not to change the gun environment, can we really be surprised at the outcome?