Exactly What Big Cities Need – Legal Concealed Weapons

 

    June 17th Chart from Mother Jones

Mass Shootings (4+ deaths) from 1982-2022

“The Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, writing the majority opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. vs Bruen, Superintendent of New York State Police, June 23rd

As Republicans decry the rise in violent crime and desperate “replacement” asylum seekers waiting at our southern border, they blame liberals for “soft on crime, anti-police” and “open border” sentiments. Yet, they also continue to press for increased liberalization of gun laws, allowing for token federal efforts to implement sorely lacking background checks and red flag enforcement (inspired by the Uvalde massacre), that have led to a litany of right-to-carry (RTC) laws and a proliferation of semi-automatic assault weapons (15 million according to the NRA) across the land. Live in a blue state with even modest gun control laws and want an AR-15? Drive to your nearby red state and buy one… bring it back and enjoy. There are more guns in the United States than people, a fact which deeply disturbs all other developed nations.

Let’s start with the facts: “Examining decades of crime data, Stanford Law Professor John Donohue’s analysis shows that violent crime in RTC states was estimated to be 13 to 15 percent higher – over a period of 10 years – than it would have been had the state not adopted the law.” NewsStanford.edu, 6/21/17. “Gun violence is a preventable public health tragedy affecting communities all over the United States. Every day, more than 100 Americans die by gun violence, including 64 who die by firearm suicide, 39 Americans who die by firearm homicide, and 3 who are killed by other forms of gun violence. In addition, every day nearly 200 Americans visit the emergency department for nonfatal firearm injuries. Over half of these cases are a result of a firearm assault and an additional 37% are unintentional injuries. Overwhelming evidence shows that firearm ownership and access is associated with increased suicide, homicide, unintentional firearm deaths, and injuries. These injuries and deaths are preventable, and we must advocate for evidence-based solutions to make gun violence in the U.S. rare and abnormal.” Efsgv.org (a non-profit that tracks gun violence).

In Mexico, there is only one legal gun store in the entire country. There are no weapons on display, and it takes years and extensive background checks and training to buy one, even as the right to own guns is enshrined in the Mexican constitution. Compare that to the approximately 50,000 U.S. gun stores (not to mention open gun markets) where weapons are proudly displayed. Yet in Mexico, there are illegal guns everywhere. In the past decade, hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens have been shot to death, rising annually by sizeable percentages as AR-15s fly south. Gangs and cartels can easily secure illegal weapons, virtually all purchased legally in the United States and smuggled south. According to a recent report on arms trafficking by Mexico's governmental research service, known as the CESOP, an estimated 2,000 weapons illegally enter Mexico from the United States every day. 

Writing for the November 26, 2021 Los Angeles Times, Jean Guerrero (who lost a cousin to cartel gun violence), explains the magnitude of the problem from Mexico’s perspective: “Between 70% and 90% of guns found at crime scenes in Mexico come from the U.S., including guns designed to appeal to the Mexican market such as a Colt .38-caliber pistol featuring an image of the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata and the phrase: ‘It is better to die standing than to live on your knees.’

“Earlier this year, the Mexican government filed a lawsuit against several U.S. gun companies, accusing them of knowingly flooding the country with illicit firearms, which have brought horrific levels of bloodshed… In a brief filed on [November 22, 2021], the gun companies asked a federal judge in Boston to dismiss the lawsuit… The companies — Smith & Wesson, Glock, Ruger & Co. and others — postured as the good guys, invoking stereotypes of Mexico as a lawless place. ‘At bottom, this case implicates a clash of national values,’ their attorneys wrote. They characterized Mexico’s lawsuit as a threat to ‘America’s constitutional freedoms.’” It seems that those “replacement” asylum seekers are running for their lives from the corruption and physical danger enabled by American guns.

Until an egregiously activist misinterpretation of the Second Amendment written by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in the 2008 Heller vs DC – where British guns laws from the 18th century were woefully miscited and the reference to “well regulated militia” substantially ignored – the United States had never recognized a universal right to bear arms for over two centuries. Following that decision, it was a red state feast of open and permitless concealed carry guns, “stand your ground” laws that enabled legitimized murder and unleashed restrictions on oversized magazines and military-grade semiautomatic assault weapons. Violent crime rates have risen ever since. Efforts to stem gun crime have been stymied by Republican legislators.

So, it came as no surprise that a newly configured and profoundly activist right-wing Supreme Court, already eroding the barrier between church and state and on the verge of repealing yet another constitutional precedent (Roe vs Wade), just made the United States vastly more dangerous. The Court on Thursday (6/23) ruled “Americans generally have a right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense and that a New York law requiring special need for such a permit is too restrictive… The vote was 6 to 3, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing for the majority and the court’s three liberals in dissent… ‘The Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home,’ Thomas wrote, saying New York’s requirement of a specific need to carry a weapon violates that right.

In dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote: ‘Many States have tried to address some of the dangers of gun violence … by passing laws that limit, in various ways, who may purchase, carry, or use firearms of different kinds. The Court today severely burdens States’ efforts to do so.’” Washington Post, June 23rd. We know statistically that more guns are directly and proportionally responsible for more violent crime, particularly mass shootings which began to rise dramatically after the 2008 Supreme Court ruling. Next time you are in a public space, ask yourself who around you just might be armed. Especially as gun controls in big cities are blown away under that June 23rd ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. vs Bruen, Superintendent of New York State Police. 

Innocent bystanders and school children? “That the price we must pay for living in a free society.” That’s the primary rationale for right-wing gun zealots. They seem to accept that only one in thirty-five civilian gun homicides are justified. So much for self-defense, no matter how Clarence Thomas opines.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the NRA has now joined the evangelical religious movement as one of the two primary arbiters of judicial rulings from the highest count in the land, a flagrant rejection of the opinions and beliefs of the majority of Americans.