Ever since the school shooting on Friday, it has been the lead story for the NY Times on line as well as the LA Times.
Heitor's reaction this morning was something along the lines of "either do something about the gun violence in the U.S. or quit featuring the story. If you're serious about regretting these tragedies, then do something about your gun laws. As it is, I think Americans just like mourning."
And of course he's right. It's true neither of these newspapers can do anything about the gun laws except editorialize. Still, to the extent that newspapers reflect the culture, one has to conclude we just like beating our breasts and lamenting.
9 comments:
Given your comments and the story about the "Tipping Point," one wonders if gun control is the only solution?
While we both agree that some of the assault weapons seem to have no reason to exist other than mayhem, I would point out that China has had several "me too" killings (like 20 or so?) and woundings (around 90) from knife and cleaver attacks at schools. Ban knives and cleavers??
I am not in favor of the idea that gun control will cure all the violence in our society. Look at Puerto Rico and Mexico. And then take a look at our society in general.
We need to make all kinds of efforts to stem this type of attack which certainly seems to fit your Tipping Point model, but are we sure how to do it?
This would not be the first time we launched an offensive in the wrong place.
Bob - You get no argument from me that gun control is probably not the only solution to violence in our society.
However, reasonable people should be able to agree on a few basic truisms:
1) Guns are too easy to obtain and too difficult to track under existing laws.
2) Nobody has a constitutional right to an assault rifle.
3) There is no constitutional right to clips that hold 30 or 50, or whatever, rounds.
Those three I think should be easy to agree on, but the NRA will fight every one of them tooth and nail.
I would also be in favor of laws that require gun owners to maintain a minimum level of security and control over their weapons. If they do not, they can be held criminally liable for the acts of minors who somehow obtain their weapons.
Reversing any tide that has passed a tipping point is extremely difficult, and we don't know too much about how to do that yet. (Gladwell sites an example of reduced teenage smoking as a successful effort, but it only came about after adults quit lecturing teens). We do know, however, that we can make guns a lot less accessible.
I'll bet no kid in China has ever killed 27 kids with a meat cleaver before he was overcome, or turned the meat cleaver on himself.
Actually, it occurs to me that we may actually, with this latest tragedy, have reached a tipping point in the effort to enact reasonable gun control laws that address the 3 points I made earlier.
Of course I'm an idealistic dreamer, but stranger things have happened, and I'm reading some statements by some politicians that are somewhat surprising...even one with an "A" rating from the NRA.
The first one you mention, may have deterred this shooter. I have not heard if it was confirmed, but one report said he tried to buy a weapon but could not for some reason. It is not as easy to buy a gun as some would have you think.
Assault rifles? Should not be available. But one thing that I find interesting, it doesn't seem like the shootings I have heard of used these weapons or at least not in fully automatic mode. It is easy enough to alter one to become fully auto that even I could do it.
Huge clips. If you can't bring down a deer with the 7 or 8 in a regular clip, you don't need the rest.
The part about securing your weapons is a good one. With a dangerous person around the house (she evidently told a caregiver at one point to never turn you back on him), why were the weapons available?
Why don't Switzerland, Sweden and the others have the kind of violence we do? And why does Mexico have terrible violence despite guns being illegal?
Bob - I do not know why the violent crime rate in Sweden, Switzerland and Mexico is what it is. Do you?
You are trying to confuse the issue.
I do know that guns are obviously too easy to obtain in the US of A. The evidence? The number of deaths by shooting?
The US has a gun problem, and we had better face up to it.
Let me put it another way. I don't know the answer to violence, and I don't know if anyone else does either.
But I do know, and the whole rest of the world knows, that the answer to gun violence is fewer guns.
I certainly don't have the answers, but I know that the violent crime rate in the US is half what it was in the 1980's. The "intentional homicide" rate as reported by the UN in the US is 4.2 per 100,000 people, and Mexico is 16.9. Brazil is 21.0. I didn't look up Sweden and Switzerland.
I also know that most of these mass shootings occur in "Gun-Free Zones."
I totally agree with Heitor's comment about the headlines. They sell newspapers and Americans watch stock car racing for the wrecks.
I'm not sure I think your trivializing the murder of children in China, by whatever means, is entirely appropriate.
The NYT study in 2000 concluded that 47 out of 100 "rampage murderers" were mentally ill. The rate of mental health beds in the US is at the level of the mid-19th century, 150 years ago, and despite studies that connect incidence of violent crimes to the difficulty of forcing patients into an institution, the decline goes on.
Connecticut has a law, since 1993, banning assault weapons. None of the weapons at the school qualified.
You have also scoffed at my contention that carriers of legal concealed carry permits could be helpful, there are multiple incidents like Shoney's Restaurant in Anniston, Alabama. Uncomfirmed, the shooting at the Clackamas Mall may have been deterred because of a person with a legal permit.
So far, I haven't heard that many incidents of people with legal concealed carry permits committing crimes, except your conviction of the guy Zimmerman in Florida.
In the interest of fairness, the Connecticut law has to be pretty ineffective when the AR-15 used is not considered an "assault rifle."
Also, comparing the US murder rate to the Congo or El Salvador isn't really fair. But I could argue that comparing ours to the UK isn't fair, either.
The fact is that these Sandy-Hook type crimes are increasing while the "murder rate with firearms" decreased from 6.6 per to 3.2 per between 1993 and 2011 indicates a disconnect. There is something going on that is unusual, and I think the "Gun-Free Zone" is just ridiculous. Which one of the crazies approaches the school/church or whatever and ditches his gun when he sees the sign?
One statistic I would like to see: how many firearm crimes are committed by citizens who have legal, valid concealed carry permits?
We have had the "simple solution to complex problem" discussion many times, and I think this is more complex than that you can buy a gun.
Your suggestion is a good one that people who own guns, particularly of the AK-47 type or with big clips, need to be held responsible if used in a crime. Of course, unless I had not hidden my guns effectively and the robbers not been interrupted, I suppose I could have been one of those people, altho I don't own assault types or big clips.
Now, try to define an assault weapon. I don't exactly know how to do that...but just because it looks like what I think one ought to look like, is it? And no "quacking and ducks."
I don´t care about gun free zones, and I don't care about how many crimes are committed by persons with legal permits.
I'm concerned about the AK47 type of weapon, and the multiple-round clips. I'm concerned that there are insufficient safeguards about the sale of weapons and practically zero ability to track them afterwards.
Of course no individual state's laws are worth diddly if they can be circumvented by going out of state. This is an area where there is an obvious need for a Federal Law.
You have no arguments or statistics that alter the basic fact that there will be fewer gun deaths when there are fewer guns.
However, there is a serious problem that Daniel Patrick Moynihan identified back in the mid 90s. No matter what guns are made illegal, the ones in existence are fairly simple pieces of machinery that can last in a functioning form for another couple of centuries.
The answer that I believe he suggested and which I like is one hell of a tax on bullets. And, while he didn't mention it, why can't shell casings be marked and trackable?
As for trivializing the deaths in China, I deny doing so. You introduced the subject, and I made what I intended to be a sarcastic remark pointing out the apples to oranges aspect of it.
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