Another mass shooting, this one at a school where nineteen kids and two adults were killed has resulted in the usual media attention, speeches, investigations, and calls for gun control or the outright banning of guns. The war cry of the anti-gun group is "Guns kill people." The pro-gun group response is that "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." It seems to me that a more accurate statement is that people often use guns to kill people.
The pro-gun folks site the Second Amendment to justify their right to own and carry guns. It reads:" A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
A question I have is what is a well regulated militia today? When the amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791 a well regulated militia was a group of males of arms-bearing age who met at regular intervals in the town square to practice military maneuvers and shooting. The purpose for their existence was to augment the regular army in times of need. I seriously doubt that the framers of the amendment would consider millions of Americans owning and many carrying guns, never undergoing training, and probably never firing those guns after the initial purchase as a well regulated militia. And they certainly would not have intended to convey to psychopaths the right to purchase guns.
As horrific as the mass shootings are, they really don't begin to tell the story of gun violence in America. The chart below paints a gruesome picture.
Factoring out the suicides, legal intervention, unintentional and undetermined numbers, we're left with 17,838 gun homicides. In the year 2020, forty nine people were shot dead every day of the year. That is more than double the number killed at the Uvalde school shooting, but those facts don't get attention because they're not mass shootings and normally don't include young kids. We've become desensitized. We accept 50 shooting deaths daily as a part of life in America, as long as they're not of the spectacular variety.
IF we wanted to stop gun deaths - IF we wanted to go beyond strong rhetoric and minor legislation that would "make it tougher to get guns", what could we do? The answer is nothing...nothing that wouldn't have some group screaming that their rights were being infringed upon. Here's some examples:
-Background checks by the FBI going back 20 years for anyone wanting to buy a gun.
-Following an approved background check, a six month waiting period before purchase.
-A mandatory semi-annual psychiatric evaluation for all gun owners.
-Guns must be kept at federal warehouses where the owner gets and returns the gun like a library book.
I doubt that anyone would submit to those requirements so instead we:
-Ban private ownership of all guns. A national police force would conduct periodic no-knock searches of all homes, garages, sheds, businesses, churches and anywhere else that guns could be hidden to collect those guns already in the hands of citizens.
None of those suggestions will ever happen in the United States. Nor should they. They would result in a police state that would lead to outright rebellion. The best we can do is to enact reasonable measures that would make it difficult for psychopaths and criminals to buy guns, and I freely admit that I have no idea what those measures would be.
Maybe something workable and constructive will come as a result of the Uvalde shooting. I hope so, but in the meantime I'll have my gun with me when I'm shopping at Kohl's, eating at Applebee's, or catching a movie at AMC. Let me finish with a warning to any nut job who may be planning to shoot up one of the places I've mentioned while I am there...I will not wait 77 minutes before returning fire.
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