“Can you explain to me why gun violence is worse than, or even different from, truck violence?”
–by Steve Henigson —
A favorite cousin, herself one of the parents of a young-adult son and a ‘teenage daughter, has just written to me (her go-to “gun guy”) as follows:
“…Of course, our thoughts have also turned to you in light of yet another shooting. Perhaps you can explain why AR-15 military-grade weaponry is permitted and available? While I am not a hunter, I certainly support my friends who own hunting rifles. I’m just having a hard time understanding this dimension of [it all]. Hoping you can help me wrap my head around this…”
So I replied, in part:
Dear [cousin];
First of all, “military-grade” weaponry is not [normally] available to the law-abiding citizen.
Only those who operate outside of the law have access to stolen (from the military) military-grade equipment.
Responsible, law-abiding people [who are not specially licensed] are limited to rifles and pistols which fire only one shot at a time, even if they reload the following shot on their own (“semi-automatic”). Military stuff shoots continually, as long as the user keeps its trigger depressed.
Non-military guns may be military-looking, but that’s just a matter of cosmetics. Mere appearance has absolutely nothing to do with function.
But that’s not really the issue here. The real issue is discipline and responsibility.
The Florida murderer was still a minor, although permitted by law to purchase a rifle and its ammunition. Where had his parents been, while he was growing up with “anger issues” (as several of his classmates observed)? Where were they when he brought his rifle home? Why had they not exercised some amount of control, teaching him right from wrong and correcting him when he headed in the wrong direction? Why hadn’t they instilled some amount of self-control in him, during his formative years?
You are one of the parents of two young people. Would [your son] do something like this? Would [your daughter]?
We both know that they wouldn’t. So, why wouldn’t they? How do they differ from the 19-year-old killer in Florida?
If you gave [your son] a rifle, what would he do with it? Why wouldn’t he misuse it? Why wouldn’t he kill the people he doesn’t like?
[My daughter] was taught about guns, and how to shoot. She grew up in a home in which there was always at least one fully-loaded pistol at hand.
Why did [she] never access that loaded pistol? Why didn’t she take it to school, and do away with the people she didn’t like?
How does [she] differ from the Florida killer?
You have to remember that the term “gun violence” is composed of two separate concepts.
“Gun” is merely an adjective, which modifies “violence.” The gun is only a tool in the hands of a violent person, and that person would be violent even without the gun.
Further, an uncontrolledly violent person without a gun might accomplish even greater mayhem. Think of Timothy McVey, who destroyed more than 100 people with a bomb made of readily-available, uncontrollable and unrestrictable materials.
Also think of the very different outcome possible, if some qualified teachers and administrators in that Florida school had been armed.
But we “protect” our children by declaring that schools are “gun-free zones.” Did the Florida killer respect that “gun free” designation? Or did it disarm the very people upon whom the children depended for their safety and well-being? (See also the Connecticut shooting of a few years ago.)
By and large, only the uncontrollably violent and the asocial people among us misuse weaponry, which, by the way, includes not only guns, but also knives, baseball bats, and even rocks.
We have now gone through three generations, at least, of people, each of whom has been taught that he (or she) is the most important person on earth, rather than that everybody else is important too, or even, in a sense, more important. These people have never been taught personal responsibility and self-control, and, as a result, many of them are uncontrollably violent and a few of them are clinically asocial.
I suggest that it will take at least three more generations to work our society out of this mess, and yet we have not even begun to try to address the problem.
Instead, we keep focussing on the tool, and, by doing so, remain blind to the person wielding it.
So my point is that the tool used is not at issue. It is the mindset of the tool user that is the problem.
Deny the use of one particular tool, and the malevolent will merely find another tool: Say, for instance, a truck driven into a mass of revelers. That’s what happens in countries in which guns are not quite so readily available.
Can you explain to me why gun violence is worse than, or even different from, truck violence? Or fertilizer-bomb violence?
You can’t.
Love,
Steve
The easy availability of guns IS the issue. The two countries in the world with the highest gun ownership also have the highest gun death rate: the U.S. and Yemen. Numerous studies have shown that our mental illness rate is not higher than that of other countries. Experience has also demonstrated that countries that responded to mass shootings (like UK and Australia) by severely restricting the ability to purchase guns have not had another incident of mass execution. We had one incident of a guy with a shoe bomb on a plane and now for years we have had to remove our shoes to get on a flight; we have lost hundreds to gun violence and we turn away because it might impinge on someone’s right to own an AK-47 type weapon.
We’re all aware of the corruption effect of money in politics ($54M from NRA in the last election alone). But even more insidious is the reality that gun supporters are louder, more vocal, more engaged than the vast majority of Americans who support basic laws to reduce gun violence. NRA fanatics are more likely to contact their elected officials, more likely to donate, and yes more likely to write letters to the editor. A small but vocal minority terrorizing the majority. And this week we saw the results.
So call your representatives. Write letters. Send checks. (Polish your rainbows.) And hug your kids.
To paraphrase a recent president (a bit contorted, I’ll admit), “It’s the guns, stupid!”
Well said Steve. Gun free zones are an invitation to those who want to kill as many as they can. We have armed security at our courthouses, airports, the US capital and even at concerts and sporting events. We have armed Marshalls on airplanes but not in our schools. Any teacher that wants to be armed should be. As long as they are trained sufficiently there is not a compelling reason to declare schools gun free zones. If we really want to keep our children safe this needs to change.
Orcas Issues, why print crap like this letter to the editor?
Excellent, intelegent response Steve; not a hysterical rant. You solve problems by curing (or treating) the cause – not the effect.
Good letter Steve. Too many people want a “feel good” quick fix to an extremely complicated issue without acknowledging that there really isn’t one. The cry for a ban on “assault weapons” makes no sense at all for many reasons to anyone that knows anything about firearms, and even when it was tried it did nothing to reduce gun murders, but it plays well in the press. I never hear anyone advocating for more gun laws saying “If this new law had been passed it would have prevented this latest tragedy”, because sadly it wouldn’t.
Dan C. – you’ve heard of freedom of speech, right? censorship?
Steve,
(Plug your ears readers, I’m going to swear)
I like you, but the beginning of you letter is prefaced on complete and utter bullshit.
You blame the parents of this child and asked where they are. They are dead. How about you do a little research and try again.
The man is 19, he is not a minor. Both his parents, adoptive parents, mind you, were dead before he bought the gun. At some point it was mentioned in the press he has some kind of brain damage or developmental issue. He purchased his weapon legally. This is not an ideal world where all kids are neurotypical and grow up in a perfectly functional family. Saying parents should have been around and clearly failed to raise their children properly in the event they do something illegal or immoral has two glaring logical flaws:
1) People get sick, get hurt and die. We do not have complete control over our destinies. Most of us do the best we can by our kids, but there really are issues beyond our control.
2) Free will and personal responsibility mean that when a man chooses to commit murder, he does so regardless of his upbringing and according to his will. The impulse to kill is his alone. He chooses his tools from those available to him.
Perhaps since it is evident we cannot change the will of man, or woman, to kill, we should at least limit the tools available to those which have not been used for mass murder.
Wow…I would think one child’s life would be as valuable and worth protecting as another’s…
but “we” have been shredding thousands of children indiscriminately in Iraq, Seria, Yemen (by proxy) and how many other countries now?
Someone really needs to explain the difference between lives that matter and the lives that don’t, because I clearly don’t get it… maybe this kid was just following a behavioral example perfected by his government.
Guns… trucks… stinger missiles… seems like the problem here runs quite a bit deeper.
It’s like expecting to solve the problem of racism by banning swastikas….
Very interesting how if someone has an ax to grind, they will use any venue to do so…. This situation, letter and comments are not about the military so we should not be distracted by innuendos.
In addition, this young man was not always a 19 year old with no parents…. His personality was formed way before that, and as a society, our willingness to spend time and money on our educational system, treatment of mental health problems, and safety nets for those who need them is sorely lacking.
NRA members and people with concealed carry permits are not the problem, it’s the mentally ill and criminals who are the problem. We do not enforce the laws we already have, so passing more laws we don’t enforce will not fix anything.
The main problem is that our political system is broken, with non-civil discourse, outright fabrication of ‘facts’ and verbal abuse or actual violence towards those who disagree with you being normalized. Until politicians decide that they love their country more than getting re-elected, things will not get better.
So it is up to all of us to let all our politicians know that they need to compromise and agree on concrete, incremental solutions that really solve problems.
Terry, not sure if you were referring to my post, but there are no axes being ground.
Just trying to bring a bit of honesty to a discourse that always seems to focus on the little picture.
To pretend that there is no correlation between a society deeply influenced by a political and military culture that relies on violence or the threat of violence to force compliance abroad, the willingness to kill scores of innocents, the glorification of that violence here at home and the violent behavior of a certain percentage of young people seems a bit absurd.
Violence begets violence, kids are impressionable…
Hey Steve. Since you asked about his parents:
Nikolis Cruz doesn’t know his biological parents as they gave him up for adoption. Nikolas comes from a small adopted family that consisted of his older parents and his younger, biological brother. Friends and family members say he grew up in a loving home, but tragedy struck twice with the death of his father when he was a young child, and then the death of his mother just a few months ago. His father had worked in advertising and his mother, Lynda Cruz, was a stay-at-home mom. When he was only six, his father Roger Cruz died of a heart attack. Despite suddenly being a single parent, she kept a close eye on her children and got Nikolas help whenever she thought he needed it. She did the best she could. She knew in school he needed extra help and got it for him both before and after he was diagnosed with autism.
Although his mother was still in good health at the age of 68, she came down with the flu this past year. She died of pneumonia just a few months ago.
I know you Steve. You’re smarter and better than your commentary suggests.
Thank you, Christopher Evan for painting a more accurate and human face on this. Things are never as simplistic as they seem when everyone wants something or someone to blame for tragedies like these.
I still don’t see the rationale for anyone “needing” an automatic or semi-automatic assault weapon, no matter what their arguments or aims; especially when there are no safety nets for people who are physiologically OR situationally mentally disturbed, poor, homeless, lost, hurting, and angry. We can’t solve this by just making it about the guns!
My letter was written, and published, before the details of Cruz’s family had been made public.
It was also written and published before details of the many visits made by local police to the Cruz home on complaints of his violence, and the negligence of the FBI in the matter, had been brought to light.
But the people who focus upon my errors in these details miss the point of my letter.
You might reread your own letter to remind yourself what you wrote:
Steve: “But that’s not really the issue. The real issue is discipline and responsibility.”
Then you went into 3 paragraphs of shame and blame about the family.
So, what exactly is your point?
Steve says, “Can you explain to me why gun violence is worse than, or even different from, truck violence? Or fertilizer-bomb violence? You can’t.”
Here’s your explanation, Steve: For every one American killed by truck violence, fertilizer-bomb or other act of terrorism, more than 1,000 Americans died from gun violence!
Likely, none of these comments to your letter will alter your pro-gun opinions, but maybe you could have been a little more sensitive to our Orcas Issues readers who join most of the rest of our nation reeling in pain and mourning.
I can’t believe you would even publish crap like this from an idiot. It’s not the gun and guns aren’t the issue? Really? I am cancelling my subscription immediately. Anyone who thinks an AR15 is a right or is needed for hunting and sport is an idiot; and, any publication that spews and/or republishes such crap is a messenger of the NRA that I want nothing to do with. I can’t control what kind of crap you publish, but I can control what kind of crap I read and pay for.
TaTa!
Roy Smith
— from the publisher–
Thank you for writing, Roy. As Steve Henigson’s article stated his opinion, it was not an Orcas Issues‘ editorial. We would not be serving our diverse community if we only published opinions we agreed with. I think the comments provoked by Steve’s article bring up points will be helpful to all of us as the young students of Parkland lead us out of this horrible era of mass shootings, at-home terrorism. I’m proud of our readers and commenters, even though I often don’t agree with them.
Sincerely,
Margie Doyle
About the only thing that seems really clear to me is that trying to improve the effectiveness of our weapons’ regulation to prevent mass murder is not going to be simple and straightforward. It would be extremely beneficial to everyone if those who really understand the complexity of our current weaponry would take a leadership role in crafting legislation that might be effective. Or at least support research that might lead to effective legislation. It seems clear that other countries have been able to solve this problem. So we can too. Will we?
As a sidebar and in support of Margie’s points, I want to say that this discussion is provocative, I benefitted from (won’t say I was pleased by) reading opinions of fellow citizens with whom I don’t agree. I really need to keep doing that, trying to listen, trying to address others’ positions pro and con with facts and reasoned arguments. This topic sure hurts, but the discussion provided by Orcas Issues is a good use of my brain time. It’s not all about talk, it’s about deciding what kinds of legislation and what kinds of legislators to back, our best judgment toward at least some partial solutions.