The headlines have become commonplace, and the official responses from many of our so-called legislative leaders have become predictable and morbidly routine. A 19-year old gunman, armed with an AR-15 assault weapon, killed 17 and injured 14 at Marjory Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Valentine's Day. While the majority of us are crying in sympathy with the horrendous reality experienced by parents, family members, friends, neighbors and loved ones whose lives have been shattered, the majority of our legislators continue to pay homage to the gun lobby, and allow themselves to be bribed by the NRA. House Speaker Paul Ryan gave the stock response we have all become accustomed to: "Take a breath and collect the facts. We don't just knee-jerk before we even have all the facts and the data." Megyn Kelly, a sometimes controversial political commentator, and host of the NBC morning show "Megyn Kelly Today," offered an impassioned response to this most recent school shooting: "There have been at least 12 school shootings in America so far in 2018. It's February 15th. We are averaging one just about every three or four days. How are we doing, America? Everyone O.K. with that? Apparently the answer is yes, because we haven't done anything to stop it. We're going to say how sorry and shocked and sad we are, and then we're going to move on without doing anything. And then we'll express how sorry and sad we are at the next one, and the one after that. Does anyone really think that we are going to do anything after these mass murders? I don't."
Among the multitude of poignant headlines, two stood out for me. Gregory Gibson, an author whose son Galen was killed in a school shooting, wrote an opinion piece for the Feb. 18 New York Times entitled: "Why Wasn't My Son the Last Victim?" And the Wall Street Journal of Feb. 17 dedicated a full page to "Three Decades of School Shootings," which listed many of the more than 150 children and adults that have been killed in more than 70 shootings at kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools, since 1990. Although these school shootings deserve our immediate attention, they don't include the many other mass shootings we have experienced. The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit organization which focuses on collecting this information, reported that from 2015 through 2017 we logged 1,046 mass shootings, which resulted in 1,260 dead and 4,667 wounded. Almost all of these mass murders involved the use of "America's most popular weapon," the AR-15 - a weapon which, according to the NRA, thanks its popularity to being "customizable, adaptable, reliable and accurate, and is versatile because it can be used for sport shooting, hunting and self-defense situations. (William Cummings and Bart Jansen, "Why the AR-15 keeps appearing at America's deadliest mass shootings," USA Today, Feb. 15, 2018.)
Every year roughly 35,000 Americans are killed with guns. This number includes suicides. Deaths from gun homicides in the U.S. totals 27 shot dead EVERY DAY of the year. By contrast, Japan only suffers 10, the U.K. 60, and France 130 EACH YEAR The U.S. is the only country featuring a right to keep and bear arms without constitutional restrictions. The National Rifle Association wants to insure it stays that way. As the lobbying arm of the gun industry, which in 2016 collected $51.3 billion in aggregate revenue, it will do everything to protect the industry, and oppose any form of regulation, reasonable or not. This includes granting gun permits to blind people in Iowa, or opposing the development of smart guns using biometrics, which would only allow the owners of guns to operate them. This would be especially relevant, since many killings are allegedly perpetrated with stolen weapons. Between 2005 and 2010, an average of 232,000 guns were stolen each year. Smart guns could make these guns useless to the criminals that steal them.
All of this information is common knowledge. However, to NRA hardliners this is inconsequential. Its supporters will spin the available data for political purposes. After all, the organization spends millions of dollars to keep the lid on any legislation it opposes. In 2016 it spent $51 million on the election - $31 million of which went to support Donald Trump, while the top 12 legislative recipients received a combined $48 million in bribe money.
A common deflection of pro-gun legislators when responding to massacres, is to blame them on perpetrators with mental issues. The problem with that argument is that we are not the only country with people suffering from mental illness - but in other counties these people don't stage massacres. The issue is not mental illness, the issue is easy access to guns, more specifically assault weapons. Besides, after the "Sandy Hook" killings, President Obama issued an executive order stipulating that the roughly 75,000 people who receive Social Security disability benefits due to mental impairments needed to be included in a data base that would keep them from buying guns. The NRA opposed the ruling, and President Trump deleted it shortly after taking office. That's some of what $31 million will buy. In the mean time Americans are 20 times more likely to get killed by guns than citizens of any other developed country, and, according to the Center for Disease Control, we have a 1 in 315 lifetime chance of dying that way.
While using circular arguments ("when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns"), the NRA will continue to oppose any attempt at getting this pandemic under control. They see themselves as the savior of our Second Amendment. They have become a semi-religious organization for many of its supporters, and they continue to hold sway over enough gutless legislators to keep sensible regulations from being adopted. In the words of Senator Chris Murphy, D-Conn., while admonishing his colleagues: "If you are not working to try to fix this, to try to stop these shootings, then you're an accomplice." In other words, when you allow yourself to be bribed with blood money, you end up with blood on your hands. It make you wonder if we should not label the NRA a terrorist organization.
One of the fathers whose daughter was killed in Parkland last Valentine's Day, while participating in a White House discussion on the subject on Feb. 26, very pointedly expressed his extreme frustration by exclaiming: "I am pissed!" Perhaps, if enough of us come together expressing the same sentiment, we can start something.
No comments:
Post a Comment