It's Just Not Going Away

It's a good thing that so many people and news outlets and bloggers are now paying attention to the proliferation of guns.   The DailyKos blog site is tracking news stories about a ridiculously long list of "gun fails" in which people have shot themselves, friends, neighbors, pets, and floors by accident or incompetence or both.   Some of these incidents are actually funny in a sick sort of way, such as the Indiana case of a police officer responding to an emergency call to find a drunk guy with a pistol and shotgun, a jug of urine, along with a bunch of shot up television sets.  Some are more disturbing, like the guy hired by a Michigan school as a guard after the Newtown murders, who left his pistol in a restroom "for a few moments."  Read over this list at DailyKos and remember these people are all around us. 

Can We Get Any Crazier?

Is it possible for America to get any more paranoid and schizoid about weapons in general and automatic weapons in particular?   I think not, but I am not taking any bets on that.

So we've had 20 kindergarten and 1st grade children murdered by a man with an assault rifle, a bunch of people gunned down in a movie theater by another guy with an arsenal on his back, a couple of volunteer firefighters murdered when they responded to a fire alarm by another man with an assault rifle, and the NRA has come up with a plan to fix our gun violence by putting armed guards in every school in the country.   That was before the NRA put out an ad calling the President a hypocrite because he is opposed to arming all the schools while his daughters have armed guards (aka, Secret Service) in their school.  Clearly the NRA has abandoned all pretense that they are anywhere near a mainstream organization and even some conservatives are now labeling them a "fringe group."

Never mind that it would cost in the neighborhood of $15 BILLION per year to put armed guards in all 100,000 schools in the country.  Never mind that it's unlikely that even spending that kind of wealth would even prevent loss of life.  Never mind that there is a flourishing conspiracy movement out there that has already declared the Newtown school murders didn't even happen.

One of the major problems is that the availability of military style weapons (or IMO any clearly non-hunting firearms) allows anyone to become a horrendous killer at the drop of a hat.  It's the people who "snap" and have access to these weapons that worry me.  These are people who will easily pass a serious background check (which too often doesn't even happen due to loopholes in current laws) because they haven't previously done anything horrible.   But it seems that past behavior is not necessarily an indicator of future behavior (along the lines of that financial disclaimer that companies provide with their stock prospectuses: past performance is not indicator of future return).  The person who has been law-abiding in the past may very well "snap" in the midst of a child support battle, buy an easily obtainable automatic (or semi-automatic) weapon, and kill his girlfriend and a couple of her family members.  It would inarguably be harder to do such a thing with a 22 rifle or a shotgun; not impossible, but more difficult than with a semi-automatic pistol.  As I said in a previous post, the U.S. in 2013 is simply not the same country it was in 1789 when the Constitution and its amendments were produced.

By the way, it's hard to know exactly when the guy in Tennessee "snapped."   Was it when he went out to buy the pistol and acted "perfectly normal?"  Or was it five hours later when he killed his girlfriend?   Does "snapping" preclude premeditation?  

No, I don't think we can get any crazier.   We will, however, undoubtedly have more examples of our collective craziness in the future.  And that is very sad indeed.
  

A Graphic That Says It All

I believe that Americans who are sick and tired of innocents being gunned down in public places, like movie theaters and schools, need to take control of the public dialogue from the National Rifle Association.  This graphic pretty much sums up the very least that we must do.

Another Tragedy

This time in Connecticut, where a gunman opened fire in an elementary school and killed 27 people, including, apparently, himself.  There will be lots of pundits pontificating on why and how it happened, and the NRA can be counted on to repeat it's tired "guns don't kill, people kill" mantra. 

There was a comment thread on the Democracy for America Facebook page that called for "serious dialogue about gun control."  My comment was: "We're way past time for "a serious dialogue about gun control." It's time to tell the NRA to get lost and enact serious control measures. We don't live in the late 18th century anymore. We have way too many people living in much more dense communities than 1789 and it's time to recognize that."

I'm dismayed that so many people on a liberal page like DFA were still mouthing NRA  platitudes and refusing to recognize that the Founders didn't do as great a job on the Second Amendment as they did on the rest of the Constitution.   Times have changed.   A lot.  

Back during the formation of our nation, we had essentially a foreign army on our soil (the British army and its hired mercenaries) and we were largely an agrarian society.  In that context, it may have made sense to guarantee "the right to bear arms" for the citizens who were largely on their own for defense.  And when the new country declared independence and needed to quickly pull together an army to drive out the "foreign" troops, the American recruits brought their own weapons with them.

Times have changed and the context has changed.  We have robust police departments at the local and state levels to protect us, but the odds are currently stacked against them.
 
Life is a lot more crowded these days.   US Population in 1790: 3.9 Million.  US Population in 2010: 308.7 Million. That's an increase of nearly 800% (although my math skills may not be up to par; correct me if my arithmetic is off).  Population density has also changed drastically.  In 1790, we had our population spread across about 865,000 square miles, or 4.5 persons per sq. mile.  In 2000, our population was spread across 3.5 million sq. miles, or about 80 persons per sq. mile.  We live much closer together and with the huge increase in sheer numbers, IMO there are simply a lot more unbalanced people out there.  

We can no longer justify the rationale that had merit 223 years ago.  The rest of the developed world has nowhere near our firearm murder rates and it's past time for us to grow up and pass serious, nationwide, gun control laws. 

Murders In Arizona

The State that prides itself in having citizens routinely carrying loaded weapons around, experienced multiple murders today at a shopping center.  The target was Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford, who was critically injured, while several others, including a 9 year old girl and a Federal judge, were killed.   The NY Times, as well as every other newspaper in the country, has a detailed report.  It contains a rather remarkable comment by the Tucson Sheriff, on a possible cause for the shootings.  As reported by numerous outlets, including the Huffington Post, Sheriff Dupnik told reporters:

"When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," said the sheriff. "And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry... All I can tell you is that there's reason to believe is that this individual may have a mental issue. And I think that people who are unbalanced are especially susceptible to vitriol."

Well said, Sheriff, well said.

Feeling Safer In PA?

Back in August I posted twice about gun control (once about gun nuts protesting President Obama in Arizona and a follow-up about Travel Guru Arthur Frommer recommending tourists avoid Arizona because of their lack of gun control). There was no actual violence mentioned in either post, just the potential.

Unfortunately, this article is all about violence. It seems that Melanie Hain was a major gun proponent, and once made her point by carrying a loaded gun to her daughter's soccer game. And Melanie Hain is now dead, apparently at her husband's hand.

A soccer mom who gained national attention when she openly carried a loaded gun to her 5-year-old daughter's game was shot dead Wednesday along with her husband in what appeared to be a murder-suicide, police said.

So this 31 year old mother of three was having "marital trouble" for about a week and things spiraled out of control. It seems to me that a week or two of marital problems shouldn't end up with two coffins and three orphaned children.

Oh right, except for those guns the couple loudly insisted on having in their lives. They proved to be a convenient and effective way to end the "marital trouble." Permanently.

Footnote: Feeling Safer?

Just days after I wrote about the Phoenix, AZ "protest" involving people carrying firearms, including an assault rifle, outside a visit by President Obama, a prominent travel advisor noticed it as well. It seems that the author of numerous travel guides, Arthur Frommer, has announced he won't be spending any travel money or time in Arizona, since that State's "laws allow people he described as "thugs" and "extremists" to openly carry firearms."

I'm sure that everyone carrying firearms in Arizona under this law is not a "thug" or "extremist." That said, it seems that any "thugs" or "extremists" who choose to carry guns around in Arizona apparently are free to do so. And that doesn't sound particularly safe or reassuring to me. A friend recently told me that "gun nuts" and "nuts with guns" are not the same, but I'm still waiting for him to explain the difference.

I'm with you Arthur.

Feeling Safer?

Well, it's legal to carry around loaded guns, including assault rifles, in Arizona, even at an appearance of President Obama. Sigh. I don't get how more people carrying firearms makes us safer. The main problem for me is that I think that as our population has risen, so too has the number of mentally unbalanced and irrational among us. Even in states that don't allow "concealed carry," the number of people whipping out guns to "settle" disputes is staggering. There was a recent news article in which a few guys got into a fight over cutting in line at a roadside food cart in Tampa, FL. After one punch was thrown, one pulled out a gun, shot the other guy in the dispute, and also shot a bystander, who later died.

I just don't get how adding more guns, and concealed ones at that, makes any of us safer. It sure doesn't feel safer. Doesn't the Secret Service have enough to do without also having to watch people marching around the perimeter of a Presidential rally with firearms? How many more school kids in Chicago are going to die in gun violence before Americans get fed up with the National Rifle Association and its unbridled and well-funded campaign to put guns in everyone's hand?

The reality in which we live in 2009 is vastly different than the America of the late 18th century when the Constitution (including the Second Amendment) was adopted. Even if the Founding Fathers really believed everyone should have the right to own a firearm back then, I sincerely doubt they anticipated the largely non-agricultural and densely populated nation we've become. Furthermore, they certainly wouldn't have anticipated the changes in the weapons themselves. I might not object to everyone having a musket to carry around, as opposed to an AK47 assault rifle. The musket took a long time to load, long enough for the others in line for the food cart to get out of the way. Or to beat the crap out of the musket carrier as he was reloading...