The Tipping Point on Gun Violence
I haven’t talked much in the Salon about gun violence, but it has been one of my focuses for the last decade. First, I am a gun owner; I own shotguns, long guns, revolvers, and semi-auto handguns. I have a Texas license to carry a handgun, will carry on occasion, and shoot sporting clays and birds. Second, I do not own an assault style rifle because these weapons have no place in civilized society. Third, I resigned from the NRA over 30 years ago after it went nuts and Charleton Heston started shouting, “From my cold, dead hands!” Lastly, my position on guns has been evolving since Gabby Giffords was gunned down during a constituent event in 2011. That tragedy, and all the ensuing tragedies, have continued to drive a personal urgency to push new public policy.
I have always been a Second Amendment supporter, but have also also believed that gun policy should be established and enforced by adults, not gun nuts and weirdos, which is our current reality in the US. Unfortunately, with the sole exception of the assault weapons ban, we’ve been going backwards on gun policy since the late ’80s. We took a giant step backwards when Congress stupidly allowed the ban to expire in 2004, marking the beginning of a new and growing chapter of gun violence in America. About five years ago, I established a Facebook group called Gun Owners for Reform, to discuss gun ownership and public policy around guns. For those five years, we have been calling for gun law reform, attempting to be a reasoned voice to balance gun rights with common sense.
Here’s the issue…beginning in 1977, when the NRA was taken over by the gun manufacturing industry, it became one of the strongest lobbying groups in the US, deploying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to politicians who vote with them, and unleashing hoards of drooling gun nuts against those who don’t toe the line. For over 30 years, the NRA has maintained a stranglehold on Congress and statehouses all over the country. Since then, we’ve seen research on gun violence at the CDC and NIH banned, a porous background check system implemented which includes the odd feature of making state crime reporting to the database voluntary. It has vehemently defended the private sale and gun show loopholes, which allow private sales and exchanges of weapons without background (or even ID) checks. It has pushed internet sales of guns and ammo in unlimited quantities. It has bribed state politicians all over the country to weaken, and even eliminate gun safety laws. Ironically, as pointed out by the Smithsonian, gun laws in Tombstone Arizona are now weaker than when Wyatt Earp was the town marshall in the 1880’s.
The NRA has even pushed the US government to turn a blind eye to the threat of “ghost guns”, those that are assembled from partially finished parts and components, completely circumventing ATF laws and regulations. Even worse, they have steadfastly pushed the proliferation of assault style weapons like the AR-15 and variants. These high capacity, high powered weapons were designed for the battlefield, intended to inflict massive wounds with lightweight, high velocity rounds. The ammo fired from the AR-15 travels at 3 times that of normal handgun rounds, resulting in massive wounds and shreded internal organs and arteries. The AR-15 is now known as the weapon of choice for mass shooters and anti-government weirdos, and it’s long past time to take these weapons out of our society. Finally, legislation pushed by the NRA forbids a permanent registry of guns sold in the US. Why? Because the NRA has successfully brainwashed the gun culture that ANY record keeping of gun sales is an automatic gun registry that allows the government to come for their guns. The notion is completely idiotic, as if some beer-filled redneck is going to fend off the US military with an AR-15 and a box full of ammo. Stupid.
My position for years has been that banning these weapons now that there are unknown millions in circulation is not practical. I always pushed for magazine limits and lethality limits on ammo sold to the public. For this position, I’ve been called everything from a snowflake to a communist, and I and my family have been harassed, apparently by “good guys” with guns, unhappy with my opinions.
I’ve finally decided that enough is enough. The Second Amendment is a relic of 18th century America in a time of slave-holding. The Amendment was added to the Constitution to defend the states and the new federal government from standing armies (like the British). The US was never supposed to have a standing army, but now we do, rendering the Second Amendment unecessary. The other reason the amendment was adopted was to protect locals from insurrection (read slave insurrection) which was bad for plantation business. The Second Amendment has no more place in the Constitution today than the article that allotted 3/5 personhood to each slave for the purposes of apportioning congressional districts. It’s long past time for it to be repealed, replaced with sane gun laws that protect everyone, not just goofballs and weirdos waving guns around in demonstrations in front of the Alamo.
I’m not naive enough to think repeal, at least for now, is very likely; however, banning assault style weapons and associated ammo, is. Also, enacting universal background checks for ALL gun transfers is common sense that the vast majority of Americans support. Limiting magazine capacity, making crime and mental data available in the NICS (instant background check system) should have been done decades ago. All of these steps should be enacted immediately.
Lastly, we adults in the US have failed our children miserably, and the school massacre in Parkland Florida was 100% avoidable. This kind of violence happens nowhere in the developed world but the US. Now that we’ve failed, our children and grandchildren are shaming us into doing something about gun violence in America. It’s long past time for us to stand up on our hind legs and do the right thing. Our entire society depends on it, and the whole world is watching.
Hopefully we can come to our collective senses, and regulate guns like cars, planes, etc.
1Thank you El Jefe, for stating so succinctly – and elegantly – what many of us have had sloshing around in our heads for years now. I well recall the session in basic training where the DI, in very explicit terms explained the purpose, use and end result of the M16. A recent article in The Atlantic should be required reading for anyone that possesses one of these weapons. You stated very well the results of a wound from an AR15. Hearing the same from a doctor in an emergency room simply adds gravitas to your words. (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-saw-treating-the-victims-from-parkland-should-change-the-debate-on-guns/553937/)
Thanks to you and Susan for what you do. This a battle we simply must win!
2El Jefe, please keep fighting the good fight and thank you for your long history in this effort.
Three million guns on the street seems daunting, but we can pick them off one by one from the hands in which they never should have been. One law or several laws won’t solve the entire problem of gun violence. However, laws will stay the line, until this epidemic is under control.
3el jefe–Add my voice to those who sing the praises of this piece (no pun intended; sorry about that!).
Your Facebook group sounds like a good idea, but I wonder if it’s time for responsible gun owners to start a new “association” that better meets their needs than the NRA does now. I completely agree that the “NRA” now is just code for “national association of gun dealers” (and clearly “NAGD” doesn’t have the cachet of “NRA”), but it might be nice for responsible gun owners to be able to belong to a group that promotes safe, sporting uses of guns.
I don’t think it could be called anything like “gun owners for reform” because that would be too limiting. But would there be any hope for something like a “National Association of Sporting Gun Enthusiasts” or something?
Just wonderin’….
4Amen.
My heart broke listening to the father of a child who was killed in the latest school shooting, when he was told of the decision by the head of the Dick’s Sporting Goods store to do more to protect children from gun violence than our government, he nearly broke down saying, this is the only good news in the worst two weeks of my life.
Other countries do this, Australia did this and it works.
Amen and God Bless you for keeping up the good fight!
5May I add my thanks also for this very informative piece, El Jefe. I found especially interesting the 2nd amendment being adopted in part to protect against slave insurrection. The slave uprising in Haiti started in 1791, the same year the 2nd amendment was ratified. The possibility of events like that happening in the U.S. most surely were on their minds.
6I wish you would submit this to the NYTimes/WashPost/Wall St Journal/any other paper with a national readership. No sane person could find fault with it.
7Teach, brother Jefe, teach! Amendment 2 has metastisized into a cancer on American society. Time to cut it out.
8ALthough an expert shot, I never owned and will never own a gun. They make killing too easy, and they are no real defense against the military or even crooked cops nor a group of crooks. The 2nd Amendment, despite the gun-nuts does NOT say you can own any or all guns, so the cries from gun-nuts is pure BS!! I have and know how to use bow&arrow, crossbows, throwing axes, spears, stars, knives, and other primitive weapons. The nice thing about any of these is you CANNOT have one go off by accident, and most 3yr olds can not do much with them if taken from your really large purse!
9And if 3 or less come to my home to do evil then I have more than enough stuff to kill them all!
On the city streets? I go armed everywhere but not with a gun, as they are next to useless for self defense.
I have bet gun owners to draw and pull the trigger (NO BULLETS) before I can knock them down (assault them) & I have yet to lose!
Bravo, El Jefe! Bravo!
10Just make anything resembleing an assault weapon plus the .223 rounds illegal, plus any accessory for such weapons. Include silencers, any clip beyond 8 rounds for all weapons.
Mandate surrender and destruction of them all within 30 days.
11Failure to do so is a felony and counts as a “viol ent” felony to ensure it goes against any 3 strikes law. Each weapon, clip and accessory is a separate felony so an individual with an ar-15 chambered for a .223 round and an extended magazine is liable for life imprisonment under any 3 strikes law.
All weapons must be registered and licensed. Anyone who owns a weapon or live in proximity must have regular 3 month psych evaulations paid for by them and using a pool of doctors where they must visit whichever one that they draw. They get no choice or preferences. Failure to comply means an automatic felony charge. No mitigating circumstances accepted.
And just like laws around drugs anybody, including family members, who are guilty of these crimes are banned from working for, or on, any government contracts even as employee of sub contractor or any government benefits including pensions, housing or social security.
No prosecutorial discretion, plea deals, probation, deferred prosecution allowed.
Just like other public health risks such as toxic fertilizer ( what most pro murder arguements consist of) NO reimbursement for these tools of murder.
I have owned weapons in environments where they are useful tools in protection from bears etc ( Kodiak and fishing vessels) never needed or become romantically involved with weapons as so many ammosexuals have.
All other positions are just like the bigots during civil rights era telling people of color to just be patient and wait another 100 years or so before their children would be allowed to own homes in “almost” any place they can afford but even then it would be unfair to push enclaves of white bigots to open up to others. You know it is a “life style” or ” a cultural thing”.
You know gradulism to soften the blow against the ignorant, selfish and narrow minded having to face the absurdity of their delusions.
So it is with the tools of slaughter. Just another manifestation of cowardice and bigotry against reason and logic.
El Jefe has put into words what those of us who have beseeched our leaders to do and why. Unfortunately, the Democrats running in midterms have been cautioned not to take a stand like this for fear of Republican, NRA and voter retaliation. We must demand that our members of Congress and the Senate stand firmly against assault weapons, huge magazines of bullets, bump stocks and loopholes in the registration and regulating of these death machines. No room for cowards.
12They still have the 3/5 rule, it is now referred to as the Electoral College.
13If you want to tell who the real gun nuts are, propose that we end the murder of over 8,000 people each year with second hand guns by doing this: Have a law that says, “If you are the first purchaser of a gun, you will be responsible for its use until the day it is rendered unrecognizable and unusable as a weapon. If you lose, sell, pawn, give or let it in any other way pass from your control, you will be held as an accomplice in any crime committed in which it is used, no matter how many years later it might happen.”
The ones I have dealt with are almost as nuts about having the “right” to treat their weapon like another microwave oven and ditch it any time they want, rather than destroy it to save lives. But I do point out to them the Second Amendment only protects their right to GET guns, not give them away willy-nilly. They don’t cotton to the idea of being members of a warrior class who must keep their weapons out of the hands of the unworthy, and they will not change their slogan to, “You can have my gun when you dissolve the Super Glue on my cold, dead hands….”
14Thank you for saying this.
15@cgregor
I’m not a Supreme Court Justice nor have I portrayed on the electric tv, but I’m thinking that your idea won’t pass muster. I can’t think of a similar example where the original consumer is ultimately responsible for its use by a nth owner. Doesn’t happen in real estate for example. You buy a previously owned property and you bought potential liabilities as well. The owner previous to you is probably clear from the date money changed hands.
You do strike an economic chord on this gun issue. Any banning legislation will of necessity include grandfathering existing firearms. Even in 1994-2004 one could purchase high-capacity “pre-ban” magazines, whose existence was grandfathered. New magazines could not be manufactured nor imported from the world.
Of course surrendering a firearm is as easy as handing it over to the local police after making your aims clearly understood. I recommend not walking into a police station carrying a firearm.
@k
Suppressors are taxed and regulated by NFA 1934. Every sale of the suppressor makes it $200 more expensive because all owners want to get the price of the tax stamp back when they sell the suppressor on.
Only 8 states hold their possession illegal.
Btw, as long as you can buy soda in 3 liter bottles or know how to do paper mache improvising an otherwise effective suppressor is easy cheesy.
16@Micr Watch HR 367 where the national thuglicans are pushing to unregulate silencers nationaly and once again betray their hypocrisy but overriding states wishes on this, but every time they prepare for final push we get another mass butchery from their fellow “legal” gun owners. And they are all “legal” up until the the time they slaughter the first innocent.
17@cgregor
The way I understood your post was that once a person buys a handgun they are responsible for it until they show they have show legal documentation that they disposd of it in a legal manner or report it stolen to police, and insurance company, within hours of it disappearing. This would be legal since it is similar with laws about vehicles where it is a responsibility of the seller to ensure that the paperwork on title transfer is filed. If not owner of record is still liable unless they can prove it was stolen.
I agree. All gun owners should be required to have unlimited liability insurance for every weapon, policies written for each weapon plus separate policy for anyone who even handles it.
Mandate that there is no such thing as an “accidental” firing of weapon. If a weapon goes of anywhere near people it is assualt with a deadly weapon, anyone gets injured in any way ( even smll nick from concrete chips where slug hit it) is attempted murder and if anyone dies it is murder.
Any one takes gun where it doesn’t belong mandatory arrest, hold on remand, manadory prison time and fine. Plus only “smart” guns are allowed to be sold, manufactored, owned by civilians, and that includes police.
Time to start treating these things like radioactive materials and/or poisons.
Occasionaly necessary but only under very strict control and under threat of dire penalties.
Plus I always liked Chris Rocks suggestion that the taxes on guns and ammunition become punative. a $1,000 tax per round sounds good to me. That would also apply to reloaders as well.
After years of coddleing and comforting these cowardly ammosexuals and being met with no comprimise its time to turn the tables. As draconian bills possible to punish and ostercize these mentally deficient twits who are afraid to face the world without there steel talisman they can rub and caress.
After 10 or 20 years start to consider some modest comprimises if the ammosexuals are still with us. Hopefully like mercury and the “mad hatters” or cigerettes with time this illness will disappear when the purveyors of the poison are stopped.
@micr
18“Any banning legislation will of necessity include grandfathering existing firearms.”
No it doesn’t. When the 1932 firearms act was passed it allowed people to continue to own one only if they paid a tax of $200, in 1932 approx. $3,500 today, registration of guns with ATF including serial #’s on the gun and component parts.
When thalitimide was banned no one grandfathered in existing stocks of that poison. When dangerous items are banned because of safety issues grandfathering in is not always necessary.
PS outlaw any sale, or transfer, of these weapons ever to anyone. If someone wants to retain it they can never sell it or transfer it only surrender it. Ownership can NEVER be transferred. Owner dies for whatever reason the weapon must be surrendered to ATF.
@K
Respectfully, I understand your urge to ban AR-15 style rifles. In most respects I agree with you. I don’t position myself to defend AR-15s specifically or assault rifles generally. I’ll go so far as to say that I don’t understand the attraction of ammosexuals to the style. to transition semi-automatic rifles from a legal product to posses and use to a product which can neither be possessed nor used is not a trivial exercise. Entire states will push back against such an effort. For too many people this is the only political issue about which they care. Health care, equal rights, voting, etc pale in comparison. This I don’t understand either.
So at this point I respectfully disagree and depart.
19El Jefe:
20Great post. It should be published elsewhere as others have suggested.
Also, the WaPo story you linked to is fantastic. I’m certain I’ve read it before, probably from a link here.
There’s also a Business Insider story from 2013. “How the gun industry funnels tens of millions of dollars to the N.R.A.”
@ Micr and always respectfully.
I understand your point.
21The militia that 2A was supposed to be in aid of was never anything but a passel of drunks, cowards and murderers. The Founders made some mistakes.
I believe that the proportion of voters willing to repeal 2A is large enough to start working with; surely it as large as the proportion of abolitionists was when Garrison started the Liberator.
22I posted this to my facebook page, and have urged everyone on my list to pass it along. If it’s not in one of the big papers, we can move it along anyhow.
23El Jefe, about the only time that I agreed with Antonin Scalia was when he wrote the court decision on Heller. The man actually made sense on this issue. Cannot understand why the RWN’s either refuse to read or when they do, berate it and the judge. Aren’t they supposed to be totally with a capitol T law and order?
24Linda Phipps, speaking only for myself, thanks.
25Just saw another story from Vox 3 days ago that completes the beginning of this thread in my head. “The Real Reason the N.R.A.’s Money Matters in Elections”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/3/2/17050610/guns-shootings-studies-rand-charts-maps
New study about guns turns the NRA upside down?
26http://jobsanger.blogspot.com/2018/03/vonnegut-on-guns.html
27McConnell has already said there won’t be any discussion of gun laws inn the Senate: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/mcconnell-won-t-commit-senate-debate-guns-n852511
28MICR, actually, there is at least one law in place that holds a person responsible for a product over which he has NO– much less an extremely tenuous– control.
Manufacturers of a previously defunct line of aircraft (e.g., in the case I know of, the Great Lakes biplane) are required to carry insurance against suits involving ANY previously manufactured craft. They can be sued for a case involving a plane which was built before the owner of the company was even born.
So, it can be very strongly argued that gun owners who are bored with their once-exciting appliance can be held liable for failing to exercise the utmost care that it never pass into unworthy hands.
29Thanks, Jefe. Well put, and do know that you’re not alone in your anger and revulsion at the NRA.
Of course, the NRA isn’t alone, either:
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/01/590076949/depth-of-russian-politicians-cultivation-of-nra-ties-revealed
30@cgregor
I’d be interested in knowing more about this insurance required of manufacturers of Great Lakes biplanes.
31Damn
32About the only good thing recently is that the issue of slaughter and discussion did not include any mention of the scam artist’s from alaska and now bill maher had to ruin it by, rightfully, stating that jared is dumb enough to qualify for that damaged gene pool.
Thanks for this very thoughtful piece.
33El Jefe: A heartfelt +1.
34Agreed. I’m also a gun owner, living in the country with an occasional need for same. (Including putting meat on the table.) I have stuck with small caliber weapons so far, because they’ve taken care of the job, but if the feral hogs get on our place, I will need to go to something that will kill hogs because they ruin the land for anything else, in the numbers that are now within a few miles of us. Be that as it may, no *civilized* nation would be as determinedly callous about the lives lost to gun violence as ours is, and the NRA is a huge part of that.
35