By Tom Kando
Less than five months ago, I posted a piece titled “Learning from Colorado Mass Murderer James Holmes?” The occasion was another recent mass murder. James Holmes “only” killed 14 people. Today in Newtown, Conn., the count is 27, mostly children!
One of the first commentaries heard today, from the White House no less, is that “now is not the time to get into a gun control debate.” Wow! If not now, then when? (To his credit, President Obama did emphasize later the imperative need to address the issue).
I suppose I could go over the arguments again, tediously and futilely. Mass murders such as Aurora and Newtown briefly wake us up to the insanity of our situation, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. Murder goes on unabated every day. As I open the morning newspaper, I see that nearly every day our region experiences homicide (90% through guns). We are a mid-sized city, but we have more murders annually than the average mid-sized European COUNTRY, and almost as many as Japan!
Not a
day goes by when I do NOT read about one or more homicides in the greater
Sacramento region. One can hardly keep
count of the number of murders, suicides-by-cop, occasional
unjustified killings of suspects by
callous peace officers, and other forms
of criminal homicides.
At
the same time, not only are Second Amendment rights vigorously protected but they are gaining! Gun ownership is rising. We are becoming like the Wild West again. It is becoming easier to own guns and to carry them, concealed or not. In the State of Illinois, the US Court of Appeals has just outlawed one of the last laws left in this country which banned carrying concealed weapons. In all other states, such a ban was already in effect. Now it's unanimous (Associated Press, December 12).
What
the heck, I’ll just re-post what I wrote less than 5 months ago:
(By
the way, I taught criminology at the university for 30 years. I went to
international conferences and published on this subject many times (see for
example http://www.tomkando.com/professional_publications.shtml).
I covered gun control issues for decades. I was also a teacher at the California State Prison in Vacaville, with several dozen inmate-students. I spent many hours riding along with police patrol, and I did fieldwork at a variety of juvenile and adult penal facilities.)
The
gun control arguments have been made ad
nauseam, but nothing ever changes.
On
July 22, Sacramento Bee
journalist Marcos Breton said
excellent things. He reminded us of
well-known NRA-sponsored clichés
like - “guns don’t kill people, people
kill people;” “we don’t ban spoons and forks because people are obese,” etc.
I can
add to this idiotic list: “more people are killed by cars than by guns, so how
about banning cars?” “If we ban guns,
people will easily kill you with knives
and other things...”
And
the “guns don’t kill people” proponents always bring up places like Switzerland,
Israel, Washington D.C., New York, Florida: The Swiss and the Israelis are
heavily armed, but their murder rates are very low. New York and D.C. have some
of the toughest gun control laws, yet also some of the highest rates of
homicide. When Florida’s gun laws became
more permissive, gun deaths were said to
have declined. And so on and on, the abuse of selective statistics, spurious
correlations and absurd arguments...
Breton
pointed out the obvious: it’s not “guns or no guns?” but “what TYPE of guns?”
and “used by WHOM?” James Holmes bought 6,000 rounds of ammo and no alarm bell went off? Assault weapons in every garage? All these things have been said a million
times, but don’t hold your breath waiting for
significant change. The stranglehold
which the NRA and a certain mind set have over politics and public opinion will
never slacken. What’s the point of mentioning the obvious again?
US:
16,000 murders per year, of which 13,000 are
by guns.
UK:
600 murders per year, of which are 60 by guns.
But
the US is five times larger than the UK, so we are entitled to five times more
murders. That would be 3,000! Not the
16,000 which we DO have!
“But
if we ban guns, people will use knives, etc.
instead...” See previous paragraphs. It’s a lot harder to kill with a
knife or with your fists.
A
fellow named Marc has a brilliant blog
essay “ Jimmy Homes, Superhero?”
http://www.3sigma.com/james-holmes-superhero/ A lot of sarcasm, but his conclusion should not be misunderstood.
He is on the same page as I am: GUNS DO
KILL PEOPLE!
You
can substitute dozens of other countries for “UK” in the above comparison. The
discrepancy remains equally appalling -
if not worse. For instance, Japan had
300 murders last year, that’s half Britain’s number and 53 times
(!) fewer than in the US. (Japan’s population is twice that of Britain and a little less than half ours).
Of Japan’s 300 annual murders, 10 (!) were by gun!
Like
Breton, I’ll put in a disclaimer to show you that I am not a zealot: I own a
rifle. It’s tucked away safely, and it’s
not leaving my house, ever. I don’t
advocate dogma, just common sense.
Someone very dear to me just said it: “Gun control is a duh thing.” The
NRA is wrong. Case closed. leave comment here
29 comments:
I was just getting ready to put a message on your previous blog - i am so happy that you sent this latest blog out I cannot wrap my brain around what just happened today in Connecticut 20 children did-adults died-we have got to stop this madness . Your points are well taken and our country is on the brink of having to make some serious decisions about gun control -Gail
And I forgot to add that I really believe that we have reached our boiling point as a country- I don't know how we are going to live this down -not only was this horrific but it happened in one of the most unlikeliest places and this creates a culture of frustration and I don't know how we can just let this tragedy not change the way we regulate laws regarding guns- Gail
W.F. Hermans, a Dutch writer, used to say that "we are surrounded by dangerous madmen", which is a strong formulation, but not untrue. And he was not talking about the USA. A few years ago, we, in the Netherlands also had a shooting taking 6 lives in a shopping center. He kind of slipped through our gun control procedures. So there are disturbed unhappy people everywhere, but in the U.S. it's relatively easy for then to 'act out ' their phantasies.
What Tom calls 'Mass Murders' are but the most dramatic and exceptional type of murders. There must be other types to produce the numbers quoted by Tom. From what I can infer from Dutch media, our major types are what are called 'family drama's' (relational frustrations and revenge) and intra-criminal liquidations.
So the point is: why should one make it so easy?
Murder, and other types of violence is so uncivilized.
Right on, Tom!
Scott
Do we have examples of how gun control in other countries reduce violence?
Gail
Thanks for your comments.
To Paul: As I said, these mass murders are just the tip of the iceberg. Of course, the vast majority of murders are individuals being killed by other individuals. The number one category consists of relatives killing each other; next, friends and neighbors killing each other. Last, stranger-on-stranger murders, e.g. you being killed by a mugger on the street. A cynic might say that we most often choose to kill those we love (or at least know) the best.
A few other interesting facts: the clearance rate for criminal homicide has declined over the years - to about 50%. That’s an appalling statistic: Only half of all such cases lead to an arrest (and even fewer to conviction).
One reason, some say, is that the proportion of stranger-on-stranger homicide has increased - such cases being more difficult to solve...
To Gail:
I don’t think I can answer your question - certainly not in a nutshell. But we must keep our eyes on ONE indisputable fact: Our per capital rate of gun ownership is the highest in the world (except for Yemen, I just heard). It’s roughly 1:1. And our rate of murder-by-gun is by far the highest in the advanced world. The cause-and-effect relationship is unquestionable. Therefore, our goal should be the reduction of the number of guns in circulation.
Obviously, the devil is in the details.
What types of guns?
Deny gun access to whom? Everyone? Only the mentally ill and (ex-)felons?
How do you go about it?
There are already many, many laws, but enforcement is patchy and evasion is easy. The Newtown murderer used his mother’s gun.
Etc.
So the problem is complex. But not insurmountable. Where there is a will there is a way. We have GOT to begin somewhere. For starters, support the Brady campaign to prevent gun violence, not the NRA’s obstructionism.
I am not a big gun advocate, although I do own firearms. But I am always amazed at the arguments that pop up after an incident like the one in Connecticut. First and foremost, Connecticut has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country - so how did that work out? Evidently laws in and by themselves do not stop loons from acting.
Your use of statistics is a bit odd. Indeed our rate of homicide by firearm is much higher than other countries. We also have a fairly high level of auto deaths per 100,000 - both figures have been coming down in recent years. Handgun ownership has been on a general trend of decline in the last two decades. So if there were a reliable correlation between handgun ownership and violent incidents you would see the rate of violent incidents dropping - no such luck.
From my perspective we should be thinking carefully about what factors can be successful in reducing the number of incidents like this. Morgan Freeman made one good suggestion - get the networks to quit glorifying the madmen and begin to focus on the victims. But the reflexive calls for gun control are simply not a way to reduce these kinds of incidents.
Connecticut does have strict gun control laws and also has fewer deaths from gun-related violence. One shooting doesn't prove that gun control doesn't work.
Japan has 0.07% deaths compared to 9 in the US. Japan has one of the stricted gun laws on the planet. What is so difficult to understand about availability?
After about 200 words I wanted to change the word boycott to request and lost my entire comment. We can make the change. Our Congress is impotent right now. We can make this change.
For example: I heard (but have not verified) that one can buy ammunition for semi-automatic weapons on Amazon. As a bookseller, I must be sure that any book I sell for children, follows regulations regarding glue and covering lacquers whatever. Isn't it odd that a computer literate child himself might order ammunition from an Internet supplier that tries to protect children from bad glue? Is this true? If so, let us request that Amazon remove such ammunition magazines from their site. Could we notn request Internet servers (MS, Google, etc) to have a regulation that no one could buy a gun online from their programs or servers? Let's not depend so much on the President. He is a leader. His office is not even the law making branch of government. He has said the time is now. Okay, let's go for it. For starters, let us computer literates require that no one online will be able to purchase magazines for semi automatic weapons. One other point: law enforcement agencies in San Francisco and Oakland on Saturday, Dec 15th, invited all and any gun owners to exchange their guns for dollars. By the people, for the people.
Maxwell makes good points. The issue is not “gun control” vs. “no gun control.” It is, WHAT SORT of gun control? A ban on weapons such as the AR-15 style rifle, the most popular rifle in America, also used in Aurora, is a good start. Same with a variety of other automatic and semi-automatic weapons, as well as clips and ammunition for them, especially from Amazon and the rest of the Internet market.
Anonymous’ brief comment is excellent, because it reminds us of the inability of the overwhelming majority of the public to think in terms of AGGREGATE numbers: Almost all of the arguments in the gun control debate are about INDIVIDUAL anecdotes:
“Connecticut’s strong gun control laws were not able to prevent Lanza’s rampage.”
“Norwegians have few guns, yet Breivik managed to murder 80 children.” Etc.
But that’s like saying that “Joe died in a car accident even though he was wearing his seatbelt, so seatbelts are useless.”
Isn’t it obvious that everything in life is a matter of PROBABILITY? As anonymous so astutely notes, the tough Connecticut laws DO help. OVERALL, the Connecticut murder RATE is low. OVERALL, there is very little gun violence in Norway.
Gun control has much less to do with any of these crimes than does mental health and the ways we are treating and mistreating it. We need to focus less on gun control which, not to be flip, is fairly uncontrollable. People will get a gun no matter what. Even if we make semi-automatic guns illegal, people will still get them if they work hard enough to do so. It's truly horrible, but it's true, right?
What we need to be having a serious international dialogue about is how we are dealing with the mentally ill - especially our mentally unstable young men. What are they being prescribed? If they are taking medications that are making them psychotic &/or suicidal, then those drugs should be pulled off the market. If our young men are so frustrated and angry that they are taking the lives of innocent people, how do we move forward with other angry young men who need help?
That is the dialogue we need to be having.
Dani
I agree Tom, gun control is a duh...
Now that the nation's focus is on two of the most important issues in our society: 'violence' and 'mental illness', things have become so distorted that keeping things in perspective is almost impossible.
First of all, unless drugs or alcohol are involved, people with mental disorders do not pose any more of a threat than anyone else. That is just a myth.
Secondly, this might be taboo right now, but how can one person growing up in a small town like Newtown be ignored to the point of not showing up in a highschool year book? Does the community play a role in all this?
I am in favor of banning assault weapons. That being said in the Connecticut case it would have made no difference. Since this was not a fully auto weapon there’s nothing he did with the assault rifle he could not have done with the other two semi auto handguns. It just looks scarier. The REAL problem in this country is mental health. Our only method of dealing with the mentally ill in this nation is the criminal justice system. From 2000 to 2006 the number of mentally ill in the criminal justice system quadrupled, at the same time we shutter our state mental facilities. Most of the other problems we have in this nation loop back to this mental health problem, homelessness, drugs, child abuse, crime and juvenile delinquency. How many of our juvenile delinquents come from homes where a parent is mentally ill and on drugs? I know from experience of growing up in a high crime area that most of those in the most troubles homes would fit those criteria. If we had a more comprehensive national health care system, would the majority of these shooters receive better mental health treatment possibly diverting these shootings? I think we fare better addressing that issue since most of these cold calculating perpetrators would have been little affected by the assault weapons ban, but in nearly every case serious warnings from the families and the community rang out about these individuals capacity for violence and need for mental health services.
If a person has severe mental illness without substance abuse and history of violence, he or she has the same chances of being violent as any other person in the general population.
It just makes us feel safer if we can attribute such monstrous acts to a specific group in our population.
100% of these mass shooters was commited by a mentaly ill person.
Alcohol and drug abuse are much more significant contributors to violence than mental health.
25% of the mentally ill can expect to be victims of violent crime, in contrast with 3% of the general population.
Read more here: "Actually, Mentally Ill People are More Likely to Be Victims of Violence"
Ironically Kinder Surprise (an Italian "confection egg") are banned in the USA because they pose a danger to small children. Un-bloody-believable.
This is a good “conversation/dialogue”.
However, I agree with today’s Huffington Post, that we are way past the time for “conversation.” We need action, not conversation. Children are dying.
I disagree with Dani that we must choose between gun control and the treatment of mental illness. We need both.
I also disagree that, unfortunately, guns can’t be controlled because some people will always manage to get their hands on them:
See again my Dec. 17 comment, above: Nothing is black and white: It is true that no matter how many laws there are, some people will manage to slip through the cracks. But this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work as hard as we can to REDUCE - never fully eliminate, but REDUCE - the mayhem. And this CAN be done - through effective gun control legislation.
I’ll say it again: FEWER GUNS = FEWER GUN DEATHS. Is this so difficult to understand?
Read “Mass shooting in Australia provides Gun Control Lesson,” by Will Oremus, (Slate, and Sacramento Bee, December 18):
In 1996, a gunman murdered 35 people in Australia. As a result, Australia enacted sweeping gun-control measures, enforcing them at the federal, state and local levels. The measures included massive buyback of automatic weapons, stringent registration, screening, and flat-out prohibition for certain categories of people.
The result, a decade and a half later? 59% decline in firearm homicides, even steeper decline in firearm suicides. No corresponding increase in non-firearm deaths.
Don’t tell me that this doesn’t apply, because “things are different in Australia.” What is missing in the US is the WILL to do something about the problem, and a culture which now believes that we are safer armed than unarmed. In the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, several people have suggested the preposterous idea that if teachers were armed, such things wouldn’t happen!
*********
When Roy says that a ban on auto weapons would not have prevented the Connecticut massacre, he, again, makes the familiar error of “arguing on a case-by-case basis:” We will never eliminate ALL mass murder. But banning assault weapons will REDUCE mass murder. Think statistically, you guys!
Also, anonymous #2 and Madeleine are correct about mental illness.
What bothers me, in addition, is that changing the topic from gun control to mental illness is another evasion, one which the NRA is ready to exploit and abuse. OF COURSE the mentally ill deserve the best possible medical care. No one can disagree with Roy on that score. But right now, that is neither the issue nor the solution to the problem at hand.
I prefaced my statement by saying I was in favor of the assault weapons bans. I myself don’t own a gun or plan to. But Statistically It will have no affect other then making the mass shootings look less cool, and that alone is reason enough for me. None of any of the mass shootings I have read about involved an assault weapon that had been converted to fully automatic weapons. If you have other information please educate me, but I have read all the details of Columbine, Virginia Tech, etc. and so far I’ve seen nothing of the sort. All the weapons I’ve read about were semi automatic. I don’t think in general common gun crimes are committed by assault weapons, they’re too cumbersome. The biggest affect of banning assault weapons is the psychological because you don’t look as much like Rambo with a 9mm Rugger, and that the next shooting won’t have one that has been converted to fully auto killing many more people. However since the amount of carnage committed wouldn't have been any less with a semi auto 9mm Glock, that leaves the only other variable in the equation to be addressed by far the priority. If Mental Illness (I) plus Guns (G) equal Mass Shootings (MS) I + G = MS and you cannot change (G) than you must change the (I) or suffer more mass shootings. If you ignore the mental illness crises in this country that began mass closing and emptying of our state mental institutions in the 1970’s, you have done little or nothing to prevent more of these in the future
All of the talk about increased gun control results in Murphys Law again…in trying to reduce gun ownership, demand has increased significantly. I looked online to buy a couple of hundred rounds of my favorite 9mm target ammunition and find its back ordered through mid-February on five different web sites.
Wrong Law: it's not Murphys Law, it's the "Law of Unintended Consequences"
Alright! Obama may not be so bad after all! Thankfully, he’s punting! Establishing a commission with Biden in charge…that ought to slow down the gun control landslide ‘til things blow over.
To Roy:
Yes, let’s have BOTH gun control AND mental illness treatment. Done.
As to guns, let’s try logic (again): For A to be a cause of B, the two have to co-vary.
We are talking about three variables here:
A. America has an exceptionally high rate of gun violence.
B. It also has an exceptionally high rate of gun ownership.
C. Does it have an exceptionally high rate of untreated mental illness?
A and B are unquestionable facts; C is not so clear. So the contribution made by guns to gun violence is clear, that of mental illness less so.
Look: It’s obvious that causation is almost always MULTIPLE. There are many other contributing factors: law enforcement policies, the rise of the single parent family, movie and computer game violence, poverty and unemployment, bad genes, drugs, alcohol and, yes, mental illness. Each factor contributes to violence in real life. Guns are ONE factor - in my view a very important one.
I’ll say it again: if you reduce accessibility to fire arms (focusing especially on multiple, rapid-fire weapons - call them automatic, semi-automatic, assault weapons, or whatever),
you WILL have fewer deaths by firearms. As I said yesterday: think statistically!
To anonymous #1 and #2: Yes, the perverse consequence of all the current talk about gun control has caused a surge in demand for guns, especially for the fancy automatic weapons most likely to be targeted by new legislation. Call it “Murphy’s Law” or the “Law of Unintended Consequences.” I have another term for it: Mass hysteria. The people who are rushing to buy guns and ammo in response to the Newtown massacre have taken leave of their senses.
I agree Tom about the need to curtail guns. NO QUESTION. However; the only legislation being proposed is a ban on assault riffles, which will in reality do next to nothing for the reasons stated earlier. If it were up to me, you could only own single action bolt rifles and revolver hand guns, and only after a background check and psychological evaluation. These restrictions do not I believe conflict with my belief and support of the second amendment. After all I should not be allowed to posses my own nuclear weapon, so obviously there needs to be and it is justified in the constitution that there be restrictions. So the only question is where you draw the line. For me the weapons stated earlier are reasonable in my opinion. That being said, it’s total fantasy and will NEVER happen. I’ve done a lot of travel around America, and especially the heartland of Southeast Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and here in California and the “you can have it when you pry it out of my cold dead fingers” crowd is pervasive. The amount of bloodshed you would incur trying to collect these weapons from these people that are more innately paranoid then most in the world, is far more than the amount that would be saved. The rush on ammunition and assault rifles is indicative of that. Your question Tom, “Does it (America) have an exceptionally high rate of untreated mental illness?” compared to our European friends, YES. I believe that’s indicative of the sort of population that immigrated to America in the first place, the criminals, the schizophrenic, the bi-polor, the asperger’s, and the paranoid. This explains why our city streets are crawling with the mentally ill living in filth, and why our substance abuse is so high. So since my (and probably your) version of responsible gun control is no more than a fantasy why not focus on the one variable we could make headway in, mental illness treatment.
My God, I am glad I don't live near the likes of Roy. I am an immigrant. I am not a criminal, a schizophrenic or bi-polar. I don't have asperger's syndrome and I am not paranoid. I am a regular Jane who happens to have emigrated to this country.
How did we get from discussing gun control to using dangerous generalizations that have no base in fact?
Madeleine, I believe you miss read my comment. Perhaps I should have been more explicit, but I'm talking about the original population immigrants that came to America centuries ago, contributing to the genetic makeup of most European Americans today. Not unlike Australia many were criminals, and debtors and those were also more likely to be people with mental health issues. This goes along way to explain why although we have near the same amount of gun ownership as Canada, we have far more gun violence. It also explains why we have far more substance abuse problems. When you travel overland from the relatively intelligent regions such as Northern California, you are often shocked at the sites you see in the vast rural areas east of here between major population centers. Overt racism and paranoia about the government are not uncommon. This is where the 20% of Americans who believe we are in the "end of days" live, and believe that Jesus will return in their lifetime. If you don't leave the more sane and intellectual areas of the nation and get off the interstate, you don't realize how many of your fellow Americans hold some pretty backward ideology. I occasionally travel overland to Visit my mother who lives in the heart of the Ozarks and in the rural areas between here and there, I never fail to be dismayed at some of the things I see and hear.
Regarding Roy’s penultimate (that’s fancy for: next-to-last) comment:
So now the problem is that most immigrants who came to America were mentally ill?
I don’t know whether to take this seriously or not. I’ll do both.
First of all, it’s insulting to immigrants such as Madeleine and myself (and to just about every other American, as almost all are descendants of immigrants).
Aw shucks, and here I thought that we immigrants were the lifeblood of America, the salt of the earth, the brave trailblazers, hard-working entrepreneurs and heroic freedom fighters who made the country great. I sure prefer THIS familiar narrative, although it is probably as much a fairy tale as Roy’s opposite theory - that America started out basically as one vast “Botany Bay” (penal colony).
The two opposing narratives can be reconciled by noting that many of the millions who settled this continent came from the two extremities of the bell curve: more of the maladjusted, and more of the exceptionally good and courageous. Fewer from the mediocre middle. Maybe.
But this is besides the point, because it is highly unlikely that early settlers transmitted their violent genes to modern-day Americans. The problem is culture. It’s NURTURE, not NATURE.
Even though I share Madeleine’s hurt feelings, I give Roy some credit for at least being serious about this issue. His point about Canadians owning as many guns per capita as Americans was also made by Michael Moore in “Bowling for Columbine.” It is intriguing.
Actually it was the bowling for Colombine point that started me on the epiphany. And why anyone of more current immigrant stock would take offense I don't know, since my reference was directed at the original immigrants from Europe such as the ones I am descended from. I believe the "Botany Bay" analogy is accurate. Most of our great success and. Innovation is probably due to this as well. How many of our greatest citizens had mental health issues. Newton is thought to have aspergers, Howard Hughes bi-polor, John Nash schizophrenia and countless others. I think this explains why so much of the worlds greatest innovations come from America and why greater violence, mental illness and substance abuse exist here. Yes nurture and nature play a role in the violence, but you can't nurture away mental illness.
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