Gun Violence in America

Yesterday there was yet another shooting on a school campus. We do not know anything about the shooter, at this point, except for his name. But it is likely that he had severe mental issues that brought him to the place of doing this kind of violence. What we do know is that religion seems to have had a confusing dimension to his furry. The event has, of course, brought out all the familiar arguments — e.g., “if more people were armed with guns, shooters would be neutralized before too many people are injured,” “people kill people, not guns,” etc. And, of course, there is a wild-and-crazy segment of our population that believes (really believes) that the Federal government is actually out there preparing to take away their sacred guns and will do anything to prevent that. 

After we mourn the loss of yet another bunch of people, perhaps Americans could spend a few moments simply contemplating the facts (just dry old simple facts). There have been about 45 campus shootings this year. At maybe ten fatal injuries per incident (which is actually high) that makes about 450 school fatalities this year. However, there have already been almost 40,000 gun-related incidents and 10,000 deaths in this country this year. Campus shootings get a lot of press time, but no one looks seriously at the actual carnage that goes on. More than 40 people will be killed with guns TODAY. 

These are not really dry statistics; it is a national disgrace. No other modern or “developed” country in the world has anything like this kind of record!

So, about the argument that we should arm school cops. Just yesterday 30 other people were probably shot dead beyond the poor young people in Oregon. What would an armed school cop have done about that? How do you know which 30 people were about to die so you could arm their nearest neighbors. The answer is that you don’t. Arming everyone just puts a whole lot more guns in people’s hands and increases the likelihood that some one with real mental problems can get armed. 

The saddest thing of all is that our government is completely unable to do anything about this because the National Rifle Association literally owns the legislative wing of government and rules over it with an iron hand. And poor slobs continue to fund the NRA with their annual dues because the NRA keeps telling them the government is coming to take away their precious guns and keeps telling them that having their guns is their absolute Second-Amendment right. We love to fixate on that right — with all it’s weird 18th Century language about militias and dreadful fears about the English disarming them — but I honestly think that the intelligent authors of our Constitution and Bill of Rights would be horrified, today, to see what has happened.