Myth: Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. Fact: Places with strict gun laws have a whole lot fewer shootings than those without. The United States has the highest per capita penetration of civilian guns on earth. And civilian murders with guns too. And while our forefathers, almost a quarter of a millennium ago, envisioned citizen soldiers in patriotic militias under the Second Amendment, they probably couldn’t foresee assault rifles, automatic/rapid fire guns and large magazines being routinely used by rogue gangs and crazed murders.
We are a culture of violence, and the rest of the world stands abhorrent at our obsession with guns. They do not get it. And I really don’t think that our forefathers would have foreseen 20 little children (and six adults) gunned down this morning by a maniac with automatic pistols with oversized magazines. He left the assault rifle in his car. I doubt they would permit people even to have such weapons, no matter the reason. So today, these pictures speak loudly to the facts, even if the National Rifle Association thinks this is unpatriotic.
We kind of stand out on this map don’t we?!
How about gun homicides per 100,000 people?
And if you look at where the majority of gun deaths occur within the United States….
And lay it over a map of the states with the strongest and weakest gun control laws (trust me Alaska – not pictured – is very lax), it kind of shoots the National Rifle Association’s misguided mission right in the temple.
States with weaker gun laws (red-hued); states with stricter gun laws (blue-shaded). (Credit: Mayors Against Illegal Guns, 2010)
Aside from the U.S., what other countries have this right to bear arms as a constitutional right? “Mexico, Haiti, and Guatemala all enshrine the right to pack heat in their constitutions. Guatemala's Article 38 is the only one that's as broad as our Second Amendment (it guarantees ‘the right of possession of arms for personal use’). Article 10 of the Mexican constitution and Article 268-1 of Haiti's constitution limit the right to the confines of the home and allow the government to pass laws significantly restricting ownership. Mexicans, for example, are supposed to get a permit, renewable every year, from the military, and all firearms must be registered. (The law is widely ignored. Only 4,300 licenses have been issued for Mexico's 105 million people.) Handguns must be .380 caliber or less, shotguns can't be greater than 12 gauge, and rifles must be .30 caliber or smaller.” Slate.com, December 14th.
In the United States, the guns vs. gun control struggle is part of the bigger battle between farm states with vast tracts of land and states with high concentrations of urban masses. It is the story of the last election and reflects the bitter polarization that defines America today. And guns travel from lax states to strict states like water flowing down a stream. I’m not talking about sportsmen or hunting (even if I don’t like these activities). I’m talking about weapons purchased to be used against other people. And to the moron who said that the solution for Newtown, CT teachers was to give them guns, you have got to be kidding! Let me just say clearly: the way the Second Amendment is interpreted to allow such a free flow of anti-personnel firearms just doesn’t work anymore. We don’t need more weapons! We need to get them out of our homes, schools, and businesses. However long it takes, we need to begin that process! Now!
I’m Peter Dekom, and exactly whom do these guns-of-any-kind advocates think they are fooling?
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1 comment:
Again, right on, Peter. Interestingly, as an anthropologist and historian I can say that gun ownership when this country came into being was very low. Every man did not own a gun, though I'm sure he wished he did, and once he got one it was probably the most precious object in the house. Once again I think the 'founding fathers' (an ancestor of mine, Roger Sherman included) were thinking of themselves, the white European upper class, landed gentry) when they made up this and all the other amendments protecting their rights. A century earlier when the 'pilgrims' came to settle the northeast coast they came as a corporation, hired to settle territory and begin providing much needed straight grown trees for ship building (a mandate that had zero to do with religious freedom, it simply was true that the people who could be talked into such a rash scheme were religious outcasts in their own country desperate to find a better living, economics=religious freedom well enough). They didn't have guns, they were accompanied by a small militia of English soldiers who provided armed protection. The idea that every resident male over the age of ten had his own firearm is ridiculous. I suspect we can blame the proliferation of weapons on the Civil War, where armies had to be armed or….how could you call them 'armies'?
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