The sentence that makes up this post's title is a direct quote from a story in the New York Times titled Boy, 12, Is Fatally Shot by Owner of Stolen Car in Denver, Police Say, and in the story the sentence contains a link to an earlier piece titled Childhood’s Greatest Danger: The Data on Kids and Gun Violence. The piece is filled with shocking statistics. For example:
No group of American children has been spared, but some have fared far worse. Last year, nearly two-thirds of gun deaths involving children — 2,279 — were homicides. Since 2018, they have increased by more than 73 percent. Most homicides involved Black children, who make up a small share of all children but shoulder the burden of gun violence more than any others, a disparity that is growing sharply.
The number of children who die by suicide with a gun has also risen to a historical high over the last decade. Last year, suicides made up nearly 30 percent of child gun deaths — 1,078. Unlike homicides, suicides disproportionately involve white children, mostly teenage boys. A decade ago, the number of white children who killed themselves with a gun totaled around 500 annually; in three of the last five years, that figure has surpassed 700.
The share of gun suicides for Black and Hispanic children has been growing, too. Still, in America, among children who die by gunfire, Black and Hispanic children are more likely to be killed by others, and white children are more likely to kill themselves.
Gun accidents that kill children have also ticked up in the last decade, though they are relatively uncommon, totaling fewer than 150 in most years.
Is there anything to do but despair? I am all in favor of strict gun-control legislation, but is there any conceivable legislation—let alone legislation that has any chance of being passed and upheld by the Supreme Court—that would make a meaningful difference?
Excellent post!
ReplyDeleteSeveral years ago, when I looked over the data, I was impressed by the fact that while Blacks of all ages are much more likely than Whites of all ages to be killed by a gun, Whites were much more likely to kill themselves with a gun. Most of the suicidal Whites tend to be older, less educated and rural. The same people were likely to get into drugs. Later they would fall for the Trump make America great again program.
Blacks and Hispanics have a more hopeful culture; they see a way forward despite obstacles. Many Whites come from a culture that is despairing about the future. They have increasing mortality just like the Russians after the end of the Soviet Union.
Another piece of data from that time came from the Israeli military. They had a problem that their active-duty people were committing suicide with their own weapons when they went home on the weekends! They very substantially reduced the problem by not allowing the military to take their weapons home on the weekend.
From my time in academia, I know that Israeli citizens including those who work here, have to put in their periodic service in the military. The academics are usually put to work on solving the problems of the military using their academic expertise. That is what likely happened in the case of the suicide problem.
The problem about guns and suicide is that the guns often accomplish their purpose. With other means of suicide, people often do not succeed, get help, and then are no longer suicidal.
Essentially the gun lobby has provided Americans with a surefire means of assisted suicide.
It surely is depressing. I don't know what the answer is. Even if legislation were to pass, the guns already out there would still be there. There are now more guns than people in the US.
ReplyDeleteI was looking up some further statistics and found this article: https://www.childrensdefense.org/state-of-americas-children/soac-2021-gun-violence/
According to this, 86% of underage gun deaths are boys, and 85% are between the ages of 15 to 18. Also, for every gun death there are five non fatal injuries. Some of the deaths are suicides. As a society we are not doing well for teen boys.
It is interesting that when I was surfing around for statistics the message popped up on my Kindle, "Are you having disturbing thoughts? You are not alone, Help is available." And it gave a suicide hotline number.
I don't know what has changed in the last thirty or forty years. I grew up in an area where there were a lot of hunters. My dad had guns. I personally never shot one, except a BB gun, and I couldn't hit a tin can off a fence post. But we rarely ever heard of a gun used in a homicide.
ReplyDeleteGiven the media reportage, you'd think only girls are killing themselves due to cyber bullying. Though not a fan of sports, it can be a source of socialization for young boys. And I don't mean the parent and school controlled formal stuff. I remember when a bunch of guys would spontaneously decide to go to a public field and initiate a baseball game. I suppose that is more possible with basketball these days. But the incursion of video games and cyberspace has killed a lot of that, even normal play. Physical and social isolation must have something to do with depression and suicide. Regarding young males, the media seems to be geared up for empowerment of girls. Even the Disney movies concentrate on this, showing the men as jerks or superfluous. More women enter college now than men. It seems that the media doesn't promote equality and harmony so much as confrontation, bad guys and oppressed girls.
ReplyDeleteI wish we as a society could stop thinking of life as a zero sum game. Empowerment of girls doesn't have to mean disempowerment of boys. About the Disney movies, they're for a targeted audience ( not that I've watched any lately). The audience is preschool and grade school girls. The superhero movies target the boys. It's interesting though that my oldest granddaughter likes the superhero movies better. Of course she is a teen and has outgrown Disney princesses.
DeleteI think you are right that video games and cyberspace have encouraged isolation.
Stanley, could you be more specific about exactly which Disney movies portray men as superfluous or jerks? When visiting our sons, we often watch movies with the kids, including Disney movies. It’s almost the only time we watch movies. I would like some names for a future visit. Have you actually watched these allegedly anti-male Disney movies yourself? Or are you just reading reports of this?
DeleteI see a lot of whining in the media by men who are unhappy that they now have to compete with women in areas where they once simply assumed that they would get preferential treatment. Their hero seems to be Jordan Peterson, who feeds their sense of injury with some incredibly misogynist ideas, under the cover of religion.
When I read articles about how boys and men are suffering because women and girls now often have access to the world of education and work previously totally dominated by men and boys, I can’t help but wonder why the men don’t understand that until very recently, women were kept out almost completely. Now that boys and men can no longer assume they will get preference in educational and job opportunities, they are saying it’s unfair. No - now it’s more fair than it once was. It’s like whites complaining when a minority gets hired instead of them. White, male privilege was the status quo until just a few decades ago. Some can’t handle the loss of these assumed privileges,
While there has been great improvement during the last 50 years, women are still locked out of many opportunities, especially those at the “highest” levels in business, academia, government etc. Not to mention in institutional religion.
Social isolation is bad for most. Teenagers are especially vulnerable. Teenagers who are not “hot” or “ cool” are especially vulnerable. For boys, not being athletic can be a point of vulnerability. But in high school, very few boys make a team.,the average high school ranges from 1000-5000 students except in small towns and rural areas, such as my high school, which had only 300 students.A boy whose self- esteem is tied to making a team has a better chance in a small school. Also the teachers in a small school have a better chance of observing dysfunctional behaviors in students. But these huge high schools can still only have a small percentage of students on their teams. And they are far more likely to not be able to see problems in students. In my high school, every student was known by name to every teacher and to one another. There are fewer neighborhoods where kids gather without adults in order to play a game. Perhaps the local infrastructure is part of it. My neighborhood has three parks within a ten minute walk. We often see kids from about 10 and up kicking around soccer balls. Mostly boys. The older kids often play pickup basketball as well as kick around a soccer ball. But the parks are safe, in the neighborhood, and at least some parents still encourage the kids to “ go outside and play”.
I agree with Stanley. There is so much social isolation. People have their heads in screens all the time. I also wish cooperative friendships between girls and boys were depicted in entertainment more instead of focusing on heroes who are loners from dysfunctional families.
DeleteIn answer to Anne, I've a friend who takes his daughter to movies. He was referring to "Frost". I haven't watched Disney movies since I was a kid and am not enamored with their buying out franchise after franchise. There are female superheroes now. Male superheroes are often portrayed now as moody and emotionally damaged. But the whole superhero thing seems to be burned out, along with Star Wars and Star Trek. Disney owns them all and is beating them all to death.
DeleteReturning to the theme, female protagonists suffering under male dolts seems to be another trope that is being beaten to death. I've seen some jerks during my career but nothing like the frequency and severity characterized in the media. As for women being underrepresented as CEO's, yes, but, in Nazi Germany, women were underrepresented as concentration camp commanders. It's similar to me.
We have already decided that the answer to gun violence is more guns. Once that happens, you're a sitting duck if you don't have a gun. That's why I haven't given up my rifle.
ReplyDeleteWe don’t own a gun. Never have and I hope that we never will. I do think that America’s Golden Calf is guns. The horses ( or maybe the cows) are so long gone from the barn that there is no hope. I always feel so much safer when we travel in Europe, where few own guns except for hunting. No worries that half the people around you have a concealed gun. No worries that gun violence has been encouraged by laws that allow gun purchases with almost no restrictions. No worries that someone who gets mad at me can not only shoot me, but can claim it was their right under “Stand your Ground” laws such as the one in Florida because of a verbal disagreement.
DeleteI am praying that at least two of our sons will be able to move to Europe within the next five years, as planned. I will sleep better knowing that my grandchildren will be able to go to school with almost no risk of an angry young man showing up with an AR-15, without having to undergo active shooter drills, without having to go to schools with armed security guards and metal detectors and a move to arm all the teachers. Who knew that someday Early Childhood Education majors might have to include a course at the shooting range.
It is a national shame, I agree.
DeleteThe security measures in schools are going to be highlighted selling points soon. Most of our neighbors have security cams and guns. Nice day today, and I can hear a lot of firing practice.
Rich people are already moving to gated communities with guards.
We live in the cornfield where too many elderly people experience break-ins, beatings, and two died a few years ago, no culprits found. Our local police force does not work 24/7, and it takes 911 up to 30 minutes to get a county sheriff up here. Found that out when I called them on the neighbor who was slapping his girlfriend around. I yelled out the window that the cops were on their way, and everything was lovey-dovey by the time Deputy Dawg showed up. Then I worried about him throttling us or The Boy, still in Hugh school then, for sticking my nose in.
If we move to the senior apts, the gun will go. But until I can persuade Raber to move, it seems dumb to sell it.
Could I pull the trigger on somebody? Not something I thought I'd be asking myself at 70, but there ya go.
Interesting. Our suburban town has a population of about 60,000. There is little violent crime in most DC suburbs. I have no problem idea how many people keep guns in their home for protection. People don’t talk about it if they do. I also think it’s interesting that gated communities haven’t really caught on in the DC suburbs. I can’t think of a single gated community in our affluent town, or in any of the affluent communities I’m personally aware of in the entire DC/VA/MD metro area. I think there may be a few in the outer counties in Virginia - maybe Loudon County, VA.,,That area grew dramatically during the last 25:years, and is far enough out from the city that people could buy McMansions on several acres in subdivisions. If there are gated communities anywhere in our area, that is the most likely location. It was rural and had mostly small farms until about 35 years ago. It experienced explosive growth once a lot of jobs appeared in northern Virginia closer in to the city - defense contractors and tech mostly. But also close enough to the outer counties in Virginia for commuting from the new country “estates.” It was cornfields until then - literally.
DeleteI know a lot of people here have guns. But I don't feel unsafe, at least in our town. There are parts of Omaha where I would though. I guess we do have a couple of trailer parks here that are a little sketchy. My husband has a 22 pistol in a locked box in the basement. It hasn't seen the light of day in thirty years. I don't know, we don't worry about safety too much.
DeleteWe live in a poor rural area.
DeleteCrime tends to be higher wherever there is poverty.
Lots of aimless young people, meth cookers, pot shops, people down on their luck, conspiracy theorists, people in a rage over woke liberals at school board meetings (if there are any woke libs here besides Raber and me, I would like to meet them), blue-collar workers angry that they can't get ahead like their grandpa did at GM. One of the people arrested in the plot to kidnap, try, and punish Gov Whitemer lived a mile away from me.
It wasn't that way when we moved here. But things change in 35 years.
Middle class respectability and feeling safe takes money. Raber turns to God. I keep my powder dry.
I’m sorry that your community has become poor, with all of the problems that come with it. But even those in affluent communities can’t assume they are automatically protected from gun violence. It has happened in our town. It happened in my family. I don’t know if my niece and her husband owned a gun. I suspect that they did, especially since her husband grew up in a military family. It didn’t protect them though.
DeleteWhen I was twelve, I went hunting rabbits and pheasants with my dad on my grandparent's farm. I accompanied him when I was even younger. I would be his dog walking along the hill side ahead and uphill from him so that I would kick out the rabbits and pheasant which would then tend to run downhill. So, I think hunting is o.k.
DeleteMy mom had dad buy her a pistol and train her how to use it up at our cabin. If women feel safer with a gun, that is fine with me.
After mom died, dad asked me what he should do with the gun. I advised him to sell it. I had no idea of what the impact of mom’s death would be on dad, whether he might suffer from depression. I thought the risk of suicide might out weight any safety concerns.
I don’t think I would feel any safer with a gun than without a gun. I guess I rely on my brain to keep me out of trouble. I think that I am not threatening to other people and would like to keep it that way.
My home is located in a safe neighbor off a well-traveled highway. My driveway and entrance are very visible to my next-door neighbor. He is armed and vigilant.
I feel particularly safe in this age of the wireless phone. I can summon help in less than a minute. Although we have a lot of trees which gives this area an appearance of being rural, there are a lot of people and businesses nearby. Most of us who live here are neither particularly wealthy so as to be targets for criminals nor poor so as to be tempted to become a criminal.
Nevertheless, crime may not be too far away. A few days ago, I was planning to make an early morning trip to Home Depot. I got delayed and never made it there. Soon I noticed on the internet that there had been a shooting in their parking lot. The shooting was actually the next street over in the parking lot of a hotel. The victim had driven in his car to the Home Depot parking lot for help. The victim was from out of state.
While I will be a little more careful when I am out shopping, I don’t plan to carry a gun.
I wouldn't call where we live rich. It's a street of small 1950s tract homes. We own ours; well, us and the lending institution. But most of the houses on the street are rentals now. Night before last there was a cop car parked in a neighbor's driveway with the lights flashing. No idea what was going on. I didn't spend all day worrying about it. I wouldn't feel any safer if I knew how to shoot that old pistol in the basement. I plan on going for a walk today. I don't think I'll get mugged.
DeleteWhen I moved to DC I had just graduated from college. I was still 20, about 6 weeks shy of 21. My college friend who wanted to work on the Hill had talked me into moving there. We rented an apartment that was in a redeveloped area of the city - one that had been all very poor. Now gentrified. The apartments were mostly rented to college educated workers, many young. Like we were. We moved there a couple of months after the DC riots that resulted in massive fires and damage after the murder of Martin Luther King. Racial tension was very high, and we were two very naive young women from California with little real knowledge of racism. We thought it was only a problem in the south, where so many people were ignorant, uneducated, prejudiced. Our apartment was 2 blocks from my sister and her husband, very close to Capitol Hill. She had moved to DC after college to work for the California congressman who represented the district where our college was. Our apartments bordered a high crime neighborhood, about 4 blocks away. I racked up a lot of parking tickets because I wouldn’t park beyond the invisible line separating our apartments and the poor public housing neighborhood. So I parked illegally dozens of times. My brother in law wanted me to get a gun, and took me to a shooting range to introduce me to shooting a gun. I didn’t want one. He had grown up in West Virginia where everyone had guns. His brother also lived in DC and carried a gun. One night when his brother was walking with his wife they were mugged - robbed - at gun point. Wallets, her jewelry including diamond engagement and wedding rings, earrings, necklace, watches. He never had time to react. But if he had managed to pull out his gun, he probably wouldn’t have survived the encounter. The mugger was ready and would have shot him.
DeleteA couple of years ago a house up our street was surrounded by cop cars. It was a domestic dispute that became a hostage situation. The 18 year old son was threatening to shoot his father. His mother had managed to call the cops. The standoff lasted hours. He finally surrendered. A couple of years earlier I couldn’t enter a street I used to get home. Cops, fire trucks, ambulances, everywhere. Since a Jewish school was on that corner I was scared that it might be a terrorist situation. Thankfully not. A young man had carjacked a luxury car about 5 miles away.The car was spotted and the cops started a chase. He abandoned the car and ran through some woods that I often walked through on my daily walks, less than 1/2 mile from our house. The carjacker ran up the stairs of the deck of a house bordering the woods, but the owner saw him coming and ran out the front door. The cops had to negotiate with the carjacker for hours before he finally gave up. He was armed. Fortunately nobody was killed. Two gun incidents in my neighborhood in a five year period. A safe neighborhood of higher income college graduates - professionals.
But nowhere is safe. And, according to the studies, having your own gun seldom improves the odds.
"I guess I rely on my brain to keep me out of trouble."
DeleteMy brain tells me to move away. My pocketbook says good luck with that. Without $$, your potential solutions dwindle.
Getting to know your neighbors helps you be more aware of your surroundings. We also know who the perennial miscreants are. The rightwingers conveniently fly their Confederate and Trump flags so we can identify them. Always fun to see a "F*ck Biden" flag flying next to the Christmas display!
Most Americans are not troubled enough by mass shootings, suicides, gang violence, or armed crimes to do anything about gun laws. Realistically, you would not be able to round up the guns. Putting limits and bans on ammo and accessories for making ammo might help.
Not asking people here for sympathy, approval, or advice. Just offering an experience that's likely different from yours and hoping it doesn't make me sound like a total low-class loser.
I agree that the personal threat and how to manage it depends very much on one’s location, perhaps even on one's precise location.
DeleteFor example, the little town in SW Pa where I was raised and where my parents lived until they died is in the midst of the mining and steel mills and has deteriorated much since I grew up. It continued to deteriorate after my parents died. If I had chosen to move back there, I would be in a more dangerous situation.
It was a small town in which everybody knew everyone, in part because everyone walked or drove to the small post office to pick up the mail; there was not home delivery.
Although people watched out for each other; that social cohesion deteriorated as the older people have died off.
I might have purchased a gun and let everyone one know that I had done so via the post office grape vine. With emphasis that I could not image why anyone would want to steal my old desktop computer and academic books. I may also have joined a gun club and regularly practiced there with the same story. In other words, play the scared old academic who just might be in shape to successfully shoot anyone who tried to mess with me. I would be careful not to get too self- confident so no one would see me as a challenge. You got to take into consideration the macho types.
Over the years when I lived alone, especially when I worked, I managed the look of my property carefully to help deter thieves. I grew bushes around the edges of my property to make it difficult for people to see if I was there. I always parked my car in the garage so no one could take and absent car that as a sign I was not there. I also had a system of time lights to simulate changes in activity. I set my own work schedule and was able to work at home. So my comings and goings were indeed very unpredictable. Finally, I let the outside of my house deteriorate so that people would assume that I was not very wealthy.
Politically those who are against gun control are well organized; they have intimidated politicians who might be open to gun control.
ReplyDeleteA few years back when March for Our Lives started, I had hopes that people would respond to the leadership of young people. That did not happen.
I think we are at the place when even large rallies against the deaths of children will not make a difference. Those who are against gun control would organize counter rallies, and the possibility for violence would be large.
About the only alternative that I see is to continue to vote for Democrats in the hope that they are more likely than Republicans to do something about the issue. The opponents to gun control have cornered the market on this as a single issue.
Well, Jean, you are doing the smart thing by knowing your neighbors. I know you aren’t looking for advice, but I’ll tell another story anyway.
ReplyDeleteSince you can’t move, it might be wise to invest in a simple security system. Some years back there were several breakin/house robberies in our neighborhood. The MO was the same in all. The house breakers would apparently case houses in a neighborhood, determine when people were home,, and find a somewhat un obvious entrance. They were all daytime robberies while people were at work. They kicked in side yard doors to the garages or the houses, not visible from the street.. The cops called a neighborhood meeting. They had a description of the car and the robbers. One was a woman. She would ring the front doorbell of the target house to be sure that nobody was home. The other person stayed in the car down the street. They would walk around the side after determining that nobody appeared to be around to see them.Break in, grab the goods, leave. But someone did see them. Somebody got a description of the suspicious vehicle. We live on a dead end street, a cul de sac, backing to,woods. Years ago our next door neighbor’s house was robbed while they were at work by a teenage gang who came through the woods behind the house. After the neighborhood meeting about the more recent robberies, the woman next door noticed a car matching the description of the suspect car sitting at the end of the street, in the dead end circle. She called the police and waited. When it started to move slowly up the street, she grabbed her phone and waited for it to get close. It was going very slowly. When it got to her house she then stepped out and took a photo of the car as it drove by and its license plate. The people in the car saw her and then speeded up the street. I think that could have been dangerous but they knew there were neighbors watching if they were the robbers.
At the neighborhood meeting the police suggested that people get simple alarm systems. Loud ones. He said a monitoring system isn’t usually needed since the bad guys are long gone before the cops get there. They run as soon as they hear alarms. We bought simple, battery operated alarms that stick on windows and doors and are very loud. They go off with even fairly mild vibrations so we usually turn them off when home. We’ve had the alarm go off more than once when opening a window or the sliding door. If you feel unsafe when home you could just keep them on once you aren’t leaving the house for a while. These are the alarms we have.
tinyurl.com/2p8cvua6
There are many kinds. You might also want to get a doorbell camera. I imagine you could get everything you need for less than $100.
Even our “ safe” suburban neighborhood has had plenty of incidents over the years.The worst was a murder. The man killed his common law wife, apparently cut up her body and disappeared it. She was Chinese. Her adult son reported her missing when he couldn’t reach her. When the police asked the common law husband, he said that she had gone to Hong Kong to visit family. ( And didn’t tell her son?) Eventually he was convicted on DNA evidence. The murder weapon was a machete, but not found until after the house was sold.The new owners had the ash dump compartment for the chimney emptied and cleaned.The machete was there, wrapped in a newspaper.,
Congrats! It's not often when something is so cluelessly condescending that my withering sarcasm deserts me.
Delete... and a shooting is underway at Michigan State University right now. Shots fired in two locations, cops looking for a shooter on foot. One dead, multiple injuries. What a godawful world.
ReplyDeleteGodawful doesn’t begin to describe thé awfulness. The madness just keeps getting worse.
DeleteThree have died now, five seriously injured and in hospital. No apprehension yet, though there is a surveillance photo of suspect. Lots of scared kids sheltering in place or being herded to staging areas.
DeleteThe gunman killed himself. 43 years old with no connection to MSU. This has become a thing to do. These things are happening so often, they drop from media attention as the next shooting occurs. Has anyone seen any media followup to the recent California shootings?
DeleteThe shooter of the dancers celebrating the Lunar New Year was found dead. The disgruntled nursery worker in Northern California was arrested.,pThete are angry, bullied, mentally off balance people in Europe too. But it’s much harder for them to get hold of guns and ammunition. Few mass murder events there, and most are political - terrorists.
DeleteStanley, you are probably right. It'll be thoughts n prayers n teddy bears for a couple days, then everybody will forget about it.
DeleteSt John student parish is offering Mass and adoration this morning. Staff and clergy are available all day.
The Islamic Center has also opened its doors to any students who don't want to be alone. Both are campus adjacent and fairly large spaces.
MSU is a beautiful campus with free public access to gardens, library, and union. I fear that may give way to restricted access and security passes.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, in Chicago for the year 2022, 93 shooting victims (most not homicides) ranged in age from 0-18. Racially, it broke down this way:
ReplyDeleteBlack: 70
Hispanic: 11
White: 8
Asian: 1
Unknown: 3
Middle Eastern: 0
American Indian: 0
Other: 0
https://graphics.suntimes.com/homicides/
How those proportions compare to the racial composition of the city as a whole is fairly complicated to determine, because it seems that Hispanic/Latino is not categorized solely as a race in Census Bureau statistics - there is some overlap between white, Black and Hispanic categories, and there also are individuals who self-identify as mixed race. But one possible interpretation of the Census Bureau data would be: Chicago is 1/3 white, a bit less than 1/3 Latino or Hispanic, a bit less than 1/3 Black, with Asians accounting for about 7% and other possible racial identities being < 1%.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/chicagocityillinois
My observation, as one who watches the local newscasts, is that many of these shootings of children in Chicago are gang- or crime-related. In some cases, the children/teens who are shot are members of gangs themselves; in others, they're simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whether or not they're in gangs, no children should be shot. Still, the confluence of gangs, crime and guns accounts for much of this violence against children in Chicago.
What legal or government policy remedies are out there to help address problems of gangs, crimes and guns? Almost by definition, crimes are illegal, but they still occur, suggesting that laws can't solve every problem. Here is Kevin D. Williamson, a conservative journalist who might be labeled pro-gun, on existing gun laws which aren't enforced:
"Prosecutors at all levels—from local yokels up to the feds—are notoriously loath to prosecute ordinary straw-buyer cases. If there’s a big, juicy, organized-crime case to be made against gun traffickers, that’s another story: For example, the feds were very happy to bust up an Illinois-based gun-trafficking ring involving U.S. military personnel who were acting as full-time straw buyers for Chicago’s infamous Gangster Disciples, an old-school crime syndicate that has been operating in Illinois since the 1960s. And they should be busting those guys.
"But most straw-buyer cases don’t look like that. Most straw buyers are girlfriends or family members of convicted criminals and other prohibited persons, and most straw purchases involve one firearm. (Or so seems to be the consensus; again, real data are difficult to find.) Straw buyers who get charged with the crime are, by definition, almost always first-time offenders, and many of them are sympathetic subjects: Did we really expect that 23-year-old mother of three to tell the felon who is the father of her children and upon whom she is financially dependent to go jump in Lake Michigan when he ordered her to go buy him a pistol? We do not instinctively want to put such offenders in prison—but that is who a great many straw buyers are.
"(Similarly, try putting yourself in the place of a firearms retailer, a businessman who already has a target on his back, politically speaking—in the age of “woke” moral panic, how assertive are you going to be about somebody you suspect of being a straw buyer? Short of her preemptively confessing to the crime, are you going to tell a young black woman shopping for a 9mm semiautomatic with her boyfriend that you think she is not a prospective customer but a prospective criminal? This is your family’s livelihood, and the same people who want to put you out of business for selling guns at all will be happy to try to put you out of business on grounds of racial discrimination, however vaguely attested to. I have spoken to firearms dealers who have gone forward with sales they believed to be straw purchases precisely for that reason.)"
Jim, you seem to think that because it’s hard, nothing should be done. But a lot could be done, and then the 23 year old would have a legitimate reason to tell her criminal boyfriend or husband that she can’t buy him a gun. If the gun seller thinks it’s too dangerous to do the right thing when selling guns to those he thinks might use them for criminal purposes, perhaps he should find a different business. Better, if he still has a sliver of a moral conscience, maybe he should actively support politicians who will enact gun control measures that give him a way to avoid selling guns to people he thinks are not law abiding.
DeleteBut guns are very lucrative business - at all levels, from manufacturing down to your friendly, neighborhood dispenser of killing devices. Greed continues to be the American way of business.
Katherine also is correct that there already is a large supply of guns in circulation - I understand it is estimated to be several hundred million. How do we disarm those who are armed? Unless we are willing to violate civil liberties, I don't think it can be done. I believe every police officer in America would tell us that stop-and-frisk is a wonderful way to disarm people who are walking around with guns - or would be, if walking around with guns was illegal. But it's not illegal, and stop-and-frisk practices have largely been stopped out of (at least partly valid) civil liberties concerns. As for going into people's homes to confiscate their guns - again, if it was illegal to possess a firearm, and if probable cause could be identified, perhaps the police could be persuaded to obtain a warrant and raid a person's home to confiscate his/her guns. Personally, I think the American public, and even the police, wouldn't have much appetite for this.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like a cliche, and to a degree it is, but I think we have to change the culture to change the problem. One symptom is road rage incidents. Not long ago in Omaha there was a killing over a minor fender bender. One of the guys involved had a gun and pulled it out, killed someone because he was mad and didn't have any impulse control. I drive in Omaha occasionally, I suppose a grandma with Platte County plates going too slow because she doesn't know her way around might make somebody mad. Thank the the Lord for Google Maps app.
DeleteOf course a lot more killings are related to gangs and just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as Jim said. Not to mention unhinged people with a grudge.
Pretty much all serious religions, and ethical people of no religion, believe in the Golden Rule, and being one's brother's keeper. But if people don't have any "read delay" in their brain, and the first thing they think of is pulling out their too-available gun, tragedy will keep happening.
https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2023/02/14/michigan-state-msu-shooting-campus-gun-reform/69901405007/
DeleteAnne, the link was broken, but redirected to an article about a previous incident in 2019 where the shooter was arrested in illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition. He didn't serve prison time but was on probation Then there was this: "Court records indicate he could not legally own or posses a weapon during the time he was on probation." Since that time he had been discharged from probation, presumably he could have legally obtained a gun. I have not read if he legally had the gun he used in the shooting, but if so the previous offense should have been a disqualifier. There are a lot of incidents where the gun laws we actually have are not enforced.
DeleteThere are some common, false, assumptions spread by people on the right - the first often seems to be that since most minors who are shot to death are in the+poor areas of cities, and are minorities, and perhaps involved in crime or gang related activities, that “ It’s all ok, middle class people.. it’s only inner city kids”. . Guessing that a lot of the people who so easily dismiss the horror of gun deaths in the inner cities also claim to be “christian”, and “pro-life”.
ReplyDeleteThere is also an assumption that any gun control at all is a violation of civil rights. And that nothing should be done to try to move us out of continuing to backslide into the Wild West mentality, instead of trying to regain our footing as a civilized nation. Our gun death data put us in the same category as the drug countries of Latin America ( you know, the countries where thousands are desperate to flee to the US because refusal to cooperate with the drug gangs can lead to their daughters being raped and their sons tortured to death) and also of the most violent countries of African, which are fighting civil wars.
In April 2017, while visiting friends in England, we went with them to their favorite tiny pub/ restaurant, in a very tiny village in Devon. Great food, lots of charm. I ordered a glass of wine, as did our female friend. She ordered white, and I ordered a red. They were out of stock for the red, so gave me three small glasses of alternative reds to taste to choose another. After dinner, I sought out the owners to thank them for the excellent service and compliment them on the excellent food as well. They knew our English friends well, yet somehow they picked up on the fact that we were Americans. ;) They started to chat with us and after a minute of polite “where do you live in America“ stuff, the wife asked us why, with more than 300 million Americans, we couldn’t have found someone better than trump. The next question was “What’s with Americans and guns?” It seemed to them to be like the old movies they used to see about the American Wild West. We couldn’t answer her questions because we don’t understand it either.
In 1996, in Port Arthur, Australia (in Tasmania), a deranged young man used semi- automatic weapons to kill 35 people, moving from place to place in a killing spree. They haven’t had a mass gun homicide since. My family - my grandkids in school - were safe in Sydney. The rate of gun deaths/ 100,000 in Australia is minuscule. Australia, Scotland and the UK all passed common sense gun laws after mass shootings. None of their citizens civil liberties have been taken away from them. In this country, once again, greed rules.
…eight years before the massacre and following two mass shootings in Melbourne earlier in the year, Premier of New South Wales Barrie Unsworth said: "it will take a massacre in Tasmania before we get gun reform in Australia", referencing Tasmania's resistance to gun law changes.[10….. Following the spree, the Prime Minister of Australia… led the development of strict gun control laws within Australia and formulated the National Firearms Agreement, restricting the private ownership of semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns as well as introducing uniform firearms licensing. It was implemented with bipartisan support by the Commonwealth, states and territories.[33] The massacre happened just six weeks after the Dunblane massacre, in Scotland, which claimed 18 lives, with UK Prime Minister John Major reaching out to his counterpart over the shared tragedies; the United Kingdom passed its own changes to gun laws the next year after a change of government.[34][35]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia)
After the gun control legislation was passed by all the states and territories, the government asked that people who owned the newly banned weapons to voluntarily turn them in. Most did.
Delete"There are some common, false, assumptions spread by people on the right - the first often seems to be that since most minors who are shot to death are in the+poor areas of cities, and are minorities, and perhaps involved in crime or gang related activities, that “ It’s all ok, middle class people.. it’s only inner city kids”"
DeleteI am sure there are people of any/all color and political persuasion who aren't nearly as bothered if it's "the other" who is getting shot. To their credit, the media in Chicago cover stories of Black people, whether kids or adults, being shot. (Although they still may not get the same hype as, say, four white college students in Idaho getting killed while they sleep.) One outcome of this increased focus on violence in poor neighborhoods is an increasing perception - which may not be borne out by the facts - that Chicago is a dangerous place to live. It's a political problem for the current mayor, but beyond that, the perception is damaging in other many other ways.
There was a shooting last Fourth of July in a wealthy suburb of Chicago, Highland Park. That has given renewed energy to gun control legislation in Illinois. The legislation that seeks to ban certain ill-defined categories of weapons (such as "assault weapons") almost certainly won't survive court challenges. But the governor can posture that he tried to do something.
" Australia, Scotland and the UK all passed common sense gun laws after mass shootings. None of their citizens civil liberties have been taken away from them. "
DeleteIf that were tried in the US, then American civil liberties would have been taken away from them. Because in the US, citizens have a Constitutional right to bear arms.
I've written here before, and I'll say it again: the American Constitution is revisable. Why Democrats don't undertake a serious effort to revise the 2nd Amendment is beyond me.
Democrats have been willing to expend huge amounts of political capital, including sustaining many election losses, to bring about an incremental improvement in health care in the US. Apparently guns aren't worth losing an election over.
Jim, gun controls do not take away American civil liberties. Gun controls do nothing to abrogate the « right to bear arms ». Australians and and UK citizens also have this right. But with common sense controls.
DeleteReread the laws passed in Australia and the UK in the comments above.
…Agreement, restricting the private ownership of semi-automatic rifles, semi-automatic shotguns and pump-action shotguns as well as introducing uniform firearms licensing
All have been proposed here, but our politicians are under the control of the big money gun lobby.
We actually had a ban on semi- automatic weapons, but it sunsetted. And was never passed again. BTW, Biden passed the first gun control measure in 30 years. The previous gun control measure, that restricted AR-15 sales, was enacted in 1994, when Clinton was President.
In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed an assault-weapons ban, which banned the AR-15 and other similar semiautomatic rifles. After its ban, mass shootings were down in the decade that followed….and in the decade after [2004]
Australians are a pretty independent and feisty lot. But apparently smarter than Americans and they realized that outlawing semi- automatic weapons would benefit everyone.So most went along with the voluntary program to turn in their weapons.
BTW the passage of Obamacare, as imperfect a program as it is, gave about 20 Million Americans access to health insurance that they previously couldn’t afford. Perhaps you think that’s a small thing, but it was huge. Now we need to create a universal healthcare program. It will not only give ALL Americans access to affordable health care, it will reduce American healthcare outlays as a percentage of GDP by 50-75%. Obamacare has been a big step in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go. There are still almost 30 million Americans who don’t have health insurance.,
One of my brothers is kinda Trumpy. But I have not heard him say one word of griping about Obamacare, aka the ACA. Because it literally has saved him thousands a year. As it has many small business owners or farmers. He can't go without coverage as some of them do, because of a heart condition. Last year he aged into Medicare.
DeleteKatherine, for reasons I don’t understand, the url changes when I paste it in to new gathering. I tied a workaround.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-kaffer/2023/02/14/michigan-state-msu-shooting-campus-gun-reform/69901405007/
Or google
« Opinion: After MSU, I have to tell my son about another shooting on campus »
Nancy Kaffer
Detroit Free Press
Jim raises a concern that gun control measures means sending police or ATF in to raid homes and confiscate contraband.
ReplyDeleteAs a conservative, he casts this in terms of an abridgment of freedom at a level Americans don't have the stomach for.
As a left-leaner, I don't have the stomach for giving cops, who can be so jacked up on adrenalin and incompetence that they raid the wrong house and shoot innocent people, the power to enforce these laws.
Maybe that illustrates that the problem is complicated: Gun violence perpetrated by police who go overboard needs a different solution than gun violence among organized criminals than among domestic abusers than among white nationalists than among the mentally ill or the suicidally despondent.
I don't know what Republicans collectively are willing to do, if anything, to solve any of these problems. They seem to sympathize with victims but do not see a government role in curtailing guns.
Some Republicans in the culture warrior camp use gun violence as a way to highlight moral issues and a call to return to prayer in the schools. There is a lot of talk about "hardening" vulnerable sites, like schools and churches, and mental health, but I'm not sure what that looks like, practically speaking.
DeleteI am certainly willing to entertain the notion that family breakdown and disrespect for God's creation contributes to instability and lack of empathy. But I don't see a clear cause and effect between demise of school prayers and absent fathers and gun violence.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3519071-republicans-pitch-religious-family-values-as-gun-violence-solution/
Yeah, I don't see any clear cause and effect there, either. I more see alienation as both a cause and effect, but that's just an abstract word, and I've no idea how to counter it.
Delete"Jim raises a concern that gun control measures means sending police or ATF in to raid homes and confiscate contraband."
DeleteRight - I would put it this way: Anne pointed out that, in Australia, most people voluntarily surrendered their guns. I don't think that would happen in the US, for a number of reasons which, in the aggregate, we might call "American culture". Part of American culture is insistence on individual rights and liberties (which, unfortunately, also is reflected in the absence of solidarity). Part of it is a certain tolerance for lawlessness and violence. Part of it is a toxic zero-sum political environment in which, if one team supports something, the other team reflexively opposes it.
As the original topic is kids dying by gun deaths, I assume we can (for the sake of this conversation) set aside problems such as over-armed, overzealous police and armed white nationalists - as real as those problems are. In an urban environment like Chicago, I'm suggesting that many/most of those juvenile gun deaths are related to gangs, crime and the proliferation of guns.
FWIW, I think Katherine is right that culture precedes government. Rooting out gangs and the crime that funds their activities requires transforming part of American culture. That can be done; cf the Civil Rights movement.
"But I don't see a clear cause and effect between demise of school prayers and absent fathers and gun violence."
DeleteI don't, either. It's a dumb argument, well within the boundaries of stupidity we expect from Republican elected officials these days.
FWIW - I don't think the school prayer issue resonates very much with Catholics. Part of that is that many Catholics, at least of my generation and older, attended Catholic schools, where we prayed all the time. But Catholics in the US never have been part of a culture which had a semi-official religion like white Protestants and Evangelicals in the South did at one time. Presumably that's the base that Cruz, Boebert et al are playing to.
I went to Catholic grade school, but when I was a kid that school didn't have kindergarten, which I guess was common. The state required kindergarten, which meant the Catholic kids had to start in public school, then transfer for 1st grade. Anyway I remember in public kindergarten we said a little grace before our snack. "God is great, God is good, and we thank him for our food. By his hand we shall be fed, give us this day our daily bread."
DeleteAnd finally the Catholics figured out that they'd have better enrollment if they had a kindergarten. Which seems like a no brainer.
I'm surprised that gun violence isn't much higher given the economic insecurity and stress. Until this country abandons the fantasy of world hegemony and cuts the military budget at least in half, we will continue to disintegrate as a society. Also, we have to end the tax boycott by the rich. Both parties got us into this mess. If they aren't dissolved and replaced, we are screwed.
ReplyDeleteDialing back on our militarism is a higher priority than gun control though I approve of it. We have visited much violence on the world in the last 30 years and the results have been retrograde. I think this global violence just returns home to poison our society.
Gun violence varies a lot by state and region. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm
ReplyDeleteJean, interesting stats. My state is in the second lowest category. Which is surprising, since nearly everybody has guns of some sort (a lot of deer hunters here). But encouraging. I didn't realize Colorado was in such a high category. It didn't used to be when we lived in Ft. Collins in the 80s.
ReplyDeleteThe CDC has a bunch of caveats about the ratings and how the stats are adjusted. I didn't think there were too many surprises.
ReplyDeleteAmerica is a terrible place to live for a lot of people, but it's a huge geographical area with cultural differences by region that can make things better or worse.
I focused on Colorado as a way to compare and contrast our son’s families environment in Australia v their new home in America - the gun violence in Australia v one single state in the US. Lots of Aussies own guns, but semi- automatic weapons designed specifically to kill as many as possible as fast as possible are restricted. Common sense.
ReplyDelete