My Father’s Guns

Absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, is going to stop mass shooting in the United States until access to weapons designed to maximize killing people is completely impossible. We have to start somewhere, and every little bit helps. Let’s start with the proposition that the Second Amendment is hardly an absolute right to own guns or an absolute right for military-grade assault weapons of any kind to be sold anywhere in the United States, even by authorized gun dealers. That, simply put, is the law.

States and the federal government are within the four squares of the Constitution in completely banning such weapons, specialized military-grade ammunition designed to inflict maximum anti-personnel damage and high-capacity magazines. Sorry NRA and others whose ability to read legal precedents and constitutional language is either distorted or non-existent. Do the research!!! It’s not a secret.

Background checks help. Coordination between governmental agencies helps. Taking guns out of the hands of those accused of violence or evincing mental illness helps. But nothing short of removing weapons, as slow and tedious and challenging as that process might be, is going to stem the tide of mass murder and individual criminal homicide by gun. I have blogged repeatedly, with strong statistical support, that for every claimed justifiable civilian gun homicide in the United States there are 30 unjustified civilian gun homicides, from murder, manslaughter, and accidental shootings to suicides.

Further, as far as I know, there is no built-in monitor to verify exactly when a “good guy with a gun” crosses over, even if just for a very angry instant, and becomes “a bad guy with a gun” or when that “good guy’s” guns are taken and used by someone else.

But just as one more mass shooter killed ten more victims at a school in Santa Fe, Texas on Friday, May 18th, nothing is more real than the notion of “anyone who wants a gun can get a gun” and completely circumvent the best laid practices aimed at keeping arms away from those who should never have access to them. On May 18th, it seems that the shooter simply borrowed his father’s guns. In this case apparently a shotgun and a 38 revolver; had it been an AR-15, the death toll could have been much, much worse. Because so many such shootings are perpetrated with high-speed semi-automatic weapons (think what a shotgun blast can inflict too), the thought of being able to have a locally-armed guard able to act fast enough (assuming he or she is not clearly outgunned) to stop such now-routinized carnage is nothing short of ludicrous. Especially if that guard has a bad guy moment. Here’s what happen in that Houston suburb:

“Ten people were killed in a shooting Friday morning at a high school here in Southeast Texas, and a student was taken into custody amid the carnage, authorities said. Police were also investigating explosive devices found at the school and away from the campus.

“Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said that in addition to the 10 people slain, another 10 people were injured in the rampage at Santa Fe High School, about 34 miles southeast of Houston… Most of those killed in the school were students, said Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, who said the shooting occurred shortly before 8 a.m.

“The massacre came just three months after a gunman in Parkland, Fla., killed 17 students and staff members at a high school. The rampage in Santa Fe was the latest in the seemingly endless string of shootings at schools, churches, movie theaters, government offices, holiday parties, nightclubs and other otherwise safe places where people in America have been cut down by sudden, horrific spasms of gunfire, bloodshed and terror.” The Washington Post, May 18th.

Donald Trump tweeted a now-standard and totally meaningless aphorism at the tragedy: “We grieve for the terrible loss of life, and send our support and love to everyone affected by this horrible attack in Texas. To the students, families, teachers and personnel at Santa Fe High School – we are with you in this tragic hour, and we will be with you forever...” That your and your party’s policies, lap-dogs to National Rifle Association, are part of the reason so many children die seems not to be a topic for discussion. There nothing on the horizon at the state of federal level that would contain or limit access to such powerful weapons or remove them entirely from our nation.

For those who claim such an effort could never work in a nation with as many guns as people and a strong rural constituency that can easily be defined as a gun culture, I am reminded of Australia, a nation with a similar conservative rural value system. On April 28, 1996, 28-year-old Martin Bryant shot, literally massacred, 35 men, women and children in Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia. Thought to have an extremely low IQ and mentally handicapped, Bryant shouldered an assault rifle and began his carnage.

Australia responded thereafter: “Under federal government co-ordination, all states and territories of Australia restricted the legal ownership and use of self-loading rifles, self-loading shotguns, and tightened controls on their legal use by recreational shooters. The government initiated a mandatory ‘buy-back’ scheme with the owners paid according to a table of valuations. Some 643,000 firearms were handed in at a cost of $350 million which was funded by a temporary increase in the Medicare levy which raised $500 million.” Wikipedia. There have only been two (relatively small) mass gun homicides in Australia since. Compare that to the United States.

While U.S. mass shootings have occurred in night clubs, churches, concerts and open space, they are particularly heinous when the victims are children. As the Washington Post points out, it’s not just those killed or injured by the bullets that are the victims. “[The Post] has spent the past year determining how many [American] children have been exposed to gun violence during school hours since the Columbine High massacre in 1999… Beyond the dead and wounded, children who witness the violence or cower behind locked doors to hide from it can be profoundly traumatized.

“The federal government does not track school shootings  [thanks to an NRA-lobbied bill to prevent the feds from spending money to do so], so The Post pieced together its numbers from news articles, open-source databases, law enforcement reports and calls to schools and police departments.

“The children impacted grew with each round of reporting: from 135,000 students in at least 164 primary and secondary schools to more than 187,000 on 193 campuses… Since March, The Post has taken a closer look at states with fewer local news sources and searched more deeply for less visible public suicides and accidents that led to injury… The count now stands at more than 214,000 children at 216 schools… The Post has found that at least 140 children, educators and other people have been killed in assaults, and another 286 have been injured.” The Washington Post, May 18th.

I love ultra-conservative right-to-lifers who favor the widespread and relatively restriction-free right to assault weapons. Especially those who favor the death penalty despite the sickening number of those on death row who are found to be innocent, some a tad too late. What exactly is a “right to life” to you? There isn’t a justifiable reason on earth, and most certainly no constitutional basis, why any civilians in this country should have high capacity magazines, military-grade anti-personnel ammunition or assault rifles. None. To those aiders and abettors of child-killers, killers of innocent victims in so many other instances as well, may God have mercy on your souls. If there is justice in the after-life, perhaps “thy will be done”…

I’m Peter Dekom, and what does the world think of a society that cherishes the right to own mass-killing guns over the lives of its most innocent children?