Gun rights vs. right to life
IT HAS HAPPENED again, 20 dead, including the parents of a 2-month-old baby, and 24 wounded in a shopping mall in El Paso, Texas. Just a few hours later nine more people slaughtered in Dayton, Ohio. The massacre of innocents has become so common that it is now a news blip, a sensational story that fills the airways for a few days. How often do we hear about the two Parkland, Florida, survivors and Sandy Hook, Connecticut, father who committed suicide? Or the devastation caused to the family of Stephen Romero, 6, and Keyla Salazar, 13, murdered just last week in Gilroy, California? Or the young man who survived Las Vegas, Telemachus Orfanos, only to have his life cut short in Thousand Oaks, California?
Those families, like the families of so many victims of senseless gun violence, will never recover.
“A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
It is interesting that those who speak of their constitutional right to own guns “forget” or don’t know that the intent of the Second Amendment was to maintain a militia. They ignore the fact that we no longer utilize militias. We have a standing army, trained in the appropriate use of guns intended only for war.
Many reasons have been put forward as explanations for mass shootings. Yet when comparing the United States to other industrialized countries, only one difference stands out: the number of guns.
• Mental health. The mental health care spending rate in the United States, the number of mental health professionals per capita and the rate of severe mental disorders are all in line with those of other wealthy countries. A 2015 study (Swanson, J.W. et al) showed that only 4 percent of American gun deaths could be attributed to mental health issues.
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Statistics don’t support that assumption. A Londoner is just as likely to be robbed as a New Yorker. Yet the New Yorker is 54 times more likely to be killed in the process by an armed assailant. It is the possession of guns that makes the crime more lethal.
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If that were the cause, why are the vast majority of the shooters, young white, heterosexual males? LGBTQ and minority youth and young women are much more likely to be victims of bullying and abuse, yet we only hear about their high rate of suicide.
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This one is correct. Americans make up about 4.4 percent of the global population but own 42 percent of the world’s guns.
Too many studies to be listed come to the same conclusion: more gun ownership corresponds to more gun deaths across every axis, countries, states and cities.
Yet despite evidence to the contrary there are those who cling to the idea that guns make us safer. There is no evidence other than anecdotal proving an armed homeowner can protect his family from a home invasion. Some studies have actually shown guns in the home increase the danger to family members, especially if the guns are not locked up or if there an abusive spouse living in the home.
Switzerland has the second highest gun ownership after the United States, yet its gun homicide rate is 7.1 per million versus in the United States where it is 33 per million.
Swiss laws are stricter, the bar higher for securing and keeping a gun, for selling guns and the type that can be owned. A gun license, like a driver’s license, is something to be earned.
The United States, along with Mexico and Guam, are the only three countries in the world where owning guns, regardless of type, is seen as an inherent right.
Extremist gun rights advocates believe the cost – the ever-increasing body count, the corpses of six-year-old children riddled with bullets – is worth it. Ironically it is not uncommon for these selfstyled “patriots, protectors of the Constitution” to rush out and buy more guns immediately after a mass shooting, fearful the government will impose commonsense gun laws.
People are dying. Our children are traumatized as they participate in active shooter drills. Yet these gun fanatics only grip their guns tighter, believing it makes them stronger.