And then came news of the massacre in Uvalde, Texas.
Before starting this post, I reviewed what I had written in the past. Fortunately, my blog can be researched by topic, so I read the 3 posts which were under the heading Gun Control, two for which I am providing a link.
And then I remembered that I stopped labeling these kind of posts as gun control and started using violence control. Sadly, there were 21 posts under that title. Here are links to a few of them.
In the beginning, my posts were my thoughts on violence control in the area related to our overwhelming affection for guns, and the glorification of using guns to express our disagreements with each other and our government. But as time went on, I was often motivated by especially horrendous examples of mass killings, and so there were posts following past mass killings such as those in Tuscon, Arizona, Las Vegas, NV, Sandy Hook, CT, Parkland, Fl, and (unfortunately) other places, and even a post about the murder in DC during a GOP softball game, and after a murder in my own small town.
Far too many posts concerning a subject that, for me, defies logic. It is not rocket science. Study after study demonstrates that more guns mean more gun violence and more death, and where gun laws are lax, gun violence is greater. So, when your state legislature passes open carry laws, or removes the requirement for a permit to purchase a gun, or does not require background checks, or eschews training when a gun is purchased, they are increasing your chance of dying from gun violence. In other words, you have voted to increase the chance that you or your spouse or your child, will be killed by someone with a gun.
But what I also noted from my posts, is my emphasis on the belief that stricter gun laws which ban assault weapons and multi round magazines, that require background checks, that attempt to keep guns out of the hands of those who are mentally unstable or have a history of violence, may reduce, but will not prevent gun killings until we decide that violence is not an acceptable response to frustration, not a solution to bridging the rift between our various religious and political ideologies, not the Christian way to interact with one another.
Until we admit that we are the outliers among those countries that we deem civilized in the way we allow our children to die at school, allow those with mental challenges to snuff out their own lives, and allow the misplaced dogma that links manliness and strength with guns and violence, to continue to be our yardstick.
I would offer the solution that we vote on a binding referendum in the November election with the following 5 questions, but I fear that even if the electorate votes yes on some or all of these laws, there would be endless court hearings on the constitutionality of such an idea or, most likely, court rulings that would even prevent such an act of democracy from occurring. Can you imagine the outcry from the gun industry and those politicians in their pockets, allowing the American voter to decide one way or the other to
- ban all assault weapons as defined by weapons that can shoot multiple rounds in seconds
- institute a national background check system which confirms that an applicant has not been convicted or recently been accused of committing a violent crime
-ban all multi round magazines
-require a license for all new gun sales which includes mandatory training and care and storage of the weapon
-require a national registry of all guns and the immediate reporting of the theft of a gun
As I have said multiple times to my wife, friends, relatives, we know what to do, even towards solving the most complex problems. We just lack the will to do it, even when most Americans are in agreement on a possible way forward, let alone when every single utterance and issue instantly becomes the symbol of some type of political stance, or is countered by the most widely absurd conspiracy theory.
For the last few years in which data is available, we have been killing each other and ourselves at the tune of 40 to 45,000 people per year through gun violence. And, while it is true that we will never bring that number to zero, it is the height of stupidity, not to mention, cruelty, to not try to save future American families from the sadness of losing a family member to suicide, or the intense grief from losing someone to a sudden, violent death, or the incomprehensible horror of losing a child after dropping her off at school.
Perhaps we are just caught in the natural pendulum of backlash that occurs when social change outpaces the ability of a large percentage of society to absorb it. It wasn't that long ago that violence was on the rise after a tumultuous time of social change. Just look at the amount of unrest and violence that occurred in the 1970's following the changes which marked the Civil Rights breakthroughs of the 1960's.
Maybe in another decade or two, when the white nationalist rhetoric revival related to the first elected Black President of the United States, has been summarily rejected by those just now coming of age, just as the more base beliefs that marked the early 21st century concerning the inherent inferiority of those without pale skin have been shown to be childish and mean, we will embrace the idea that treating others as we would want to be treated precludes the use of guns and violence. In the meantime, use your voice and your vote to demand that your legislatures pass laws that protect you and reduce gun violence, not encourage it.
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