Chris on 
I have never served in the military. I am not a hunter. I have lived in America my entire life. I am a three-time victim of gun violence. I have no idea about guns, none what so ever. The voices that I hear talking about guns seem so shrill to me that I cannot really hear them; they are like dog whistles. I know they are talking, but I am so not a part of the world they are speaking in.
None of us understand what the young man who killed children was thinking. It is irresponsible to try to put thoughts in his head, but we sure love the profiling of evil or madness in America, so that is everywhere. There a reports that the young man was mentally ill, so the internet is rich with talk about mental illness in America. This seems opportunistic.
The reality is we should have a better mental health care system in this county. I would like to see this come together like we have STI testing. We should demystify mental health, make getting a mental health check up like getting a herpes test, something that is almost expected. Especially if you have risk factors.
I know this though — guns are dangerous. But Dino, so are cars, and so is booze, and and and and. I got it. Let me respond by saying, cars are not specifically designed with killing in mind. Further, in this case, I do not really think I need to have a dialogue about the statement that Guns Are Dangerous.
By my hinting at the response to Guns are Dangerous, I think we can see where this is going. I do not have an idea about guns, what to do with them, how to change our attitude, how to stop people from shooting other poeple. Because that is really the problem, isn’t it? People shooting people. But Dino…but but but…yeah, I got it. People stabbing people. People hitting people with cars. People this, people that. FOREVER. Got it.
So far my statements are…Guns are dangerous. People shooting people is a problem. And we need a better mental health care system in this country. I do not think that any of this is in dispute, and if it is, I feel sorry for you.
In the front of my mind I recall Columbine, the Batman shooting, the Portland Mall shooting, the thing in Oak Creek at the Temple, the guy pushed in front of the subway, and now children in Connecticut. While I am fine that you are discussing guns, by all means talk about guns, I think that the larger issue is…
In at least 5 instances in my immediate memory there has been escalating interpersonal violence in this country. Most recently a human being went into a school and murdered children in a direct hands-on sort of way. This is a new thing, this is a new escalation.
I think that this is all somehow related to the idea of disconnection and dehumanization. I do not think you shoot something you see as a person if you are connected to the world. I just do not.
I wanted to close with this story, and it does relate. My best friend in college was a man named Kirk. Kirk was a Quaker, which turns out is a pretty cool thing to be (go ahead, tell me it is not). Kirk met a woman named Karen, fell in love, and wanted to get married. Karen was Catholic, and Kirk was Quaker. So, they split up the ceremony, had it in a pretty Catholic Church, but had a Priest, and whatever a Quaker church leader is called.
At the end, the Quaker explained to us all that when we left we would be asked to sign a document. It was not a document of witness, but a Contract of Responsibility. We were not witnessing the marriage, instead as friends and family we were taking responsibility for our beloved Kirk and Karen. I am prone to crying, but this made me cry.
We signed it. And we took responsibility for Kirk and Karen and their union. I was not just a guy in a tux with a hangover, I had signed a contract and felt responsible.
Maybe that contract is what we need, with each other. Maybe by stressing interpersonal connection we will be less likely to shoot each other.
Sure, it is not sexy like banning thirty round clips, but honestly I have no answers for the violence problem.
Damn. I’m pretty sure hell is freezing over. First, I agree with Tom Neal about something in this same debate. Now I agree with Dino. Never thought I would see the day. The breakdown of our humanity towards each other seems to be increasing at an alarming rate, even if the actual frequency of these events is not. When we cannot see other people as people, but merely targets, we have gone horribly wrong.
I’m not a gun owner, probably never will be. It seems to me that blaming access to guns is the easy and most obvious thing to do. Writing legislation to outlaw this or that is far cleaner and easier than taking a hard look at ourselves and possibly admitting that the gun is just a means to an end. If it wasn’t a semi-auto could it not be a revolver or a knife as happens in China such as this – http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/12/22-kids-slashed-in-china-elementary-school-knife-attack/
It seems to me that these incidents happen far more frequently since Columbine. Maybe that was a turning point, maybe not, but what has happened since then? 9/11, color coded terror warnings, a dozen more mass shootings, 24hr sensationalist news coverage, limitless connectivity to it, daily death tolls from 2 senseless wars and much more.
I personally am tired of it. I miss meaningful personal communication, empathy, life before social media, writing on paper. It seems as if its too painful to look at ourselves, our working habits, our lifestyles and what we may have traded in favor of an immediate gratification way of life.
Mike,
You wrote: “If it wasn’t a semi-auto could it not be a revolver or a knife as happens in China such as this ”
The difference? With a knife, 22 students were *injured*. With the guns, 20 students were *dead*. That is a major difference.
Also, Dino, while I applaud your call for greater interpersonal connection, I don’t know that you’re correct that we’re a more violent country than we used to be. Numerous studies have shown that violent crime (and gun ownership) have gone down in recent U.S. history, and – while the U.S. remains far above the rest of the industrialized world in terms of gun violence – the overall trends are toward less crime and fewer guns. So I’m not sure that it’s totally legitimate to argue that we’re in an unprecedentedly violent period. (The 19th century was a far more violent century, in terms of individual acts. Plus, I’m not sure the victims of lynching or the Indian wars would agree that we used to be less violent as a people.)
This isn’t to say that there aren’t important differences between the past and the present, many of which you point out. I also agree with most of your underlying arguments. But, if we’re going to have the honest conversation that you’re trying to get started here, I think we should keep it as factually based as possible. I was surprised by a lot of these numbers, but they seem sound.
(My main source for this is a piece from the Washington Post, which links to some other relevant studies: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/)
@clhughes my point, is that the violence is clearly symptomatic of a bigger problem. If our only means of keeping score is a body count then by all means ban the guns. I personally oppose banning certain types of guns, the War on Drugs could provide some cues on a potential outcome.
Mike, it’s hard to verify that violence in society is symptomatic of a “bigger problem” without, one, stating what that bigger problem is and, two, demonstrating the link between it and increased violence. It’s not clear at all that there is a new problem in society that has led to this increased violence. Maybe I just don’t see it, but I think the problems we experience now are basically the same problems we have experienced in the past.
What is different now is that people who choose to act out violently have more potent and deadly means at their disposal. clhughes’s comment about the nineteenth century is historically accurate, but shooters then did not have the capacity to fire hundreds of rounds in a minute or two. The problems are the same but the means of destruction are infinitely more sopisticated and deadly. and the means of reporting about them is equally more efficient.
As clhughes says it is important to have a meaningful discussion about these things. But that discussion has to be based in fact. You can’t solve a problem until you have a reasonable grasp on what the problem really is.
While you may be tired of certain aspects of modern day life, that doesn’t mean that these things are somehow the casue of violent acts. After all, Mike, these things that distract you and disappoint you with the emphasis on immediate gratification do not appear to have led you to lash out violently.
There were semi auto hand guns long before these shootings began to happen so frequently, so respectfully the argument that new weapons allow for more deadly attacks doesn’t hold much water with me. Again, just my opinion.
Maybe it’s just my perspective, but during my lifetime I have seen a huge shift in the way children are raised today and he impact that it has as these kids enter adulthood. Does it apply to all kids, no if course not naturally some parents do a better job than others. It would be very difficult for argue that children today aren’t exposed to things at much earlier age and growing up earlier than kids did when I was growing up.
My argument is that I think how we raise kids today has a hell of a lot more to do with with the problem than access to guns or gun technology does.
I am sorry if what I wrote is not MEANINGFUL enough for you. If I did not live up to some standard imposed.
I wrote something.
You are free to write your own idea, submit it, and we will publish it.
Then I am sure it will be meaningful enough for you, live up to your standards, and all of that.
Until that time, sadly, you are going to have to read what I write.
That is until you want to send us something.
Assault style guns were banned from 1994 til 2004. According to a study done by the Unversity of Pennsylvania the number of people killed in mass murders did go down during those years (except for 1999 the year of the Columbine shootings). The study also found that crimes involving those types of weapons declined by 72% during those years. Since the ban was repealed the number of mass shootings has doubled, but more importantly, the number of victims has tripled. Three of the four bloodiest years on record have occurred since the ban was lifted. Does that hold water with you, Mike? The point is assault style weapons aren’t the cause for the attacks, but they are the cause of the high number of fatalities.
Does that mean that the repeal of the weapons ban has caused the flurry of mass murders? No, but it does suggest that making these weapons more available has contributed to the increase in shootings – and, it seems undeniable – made the carnage and death greater.
Your comment about semi auto hand guns does not apply to this case since the police have confirmed that all of the murders were done with the Bushmaster assault style rifle. Your belief about how we raise children is your opinion, but it is not your “argument” since you offer no evidence that it is true. What can be documented, though, is that since these assault style rifles have become more available both the number of incidents and the number of victims have increased dramatically. Does that make them the cause of the increase in the attacks? No, the killer(s) were motivated by other things. But it does make the killers more deadly. And it can be argued that even if the attackers still lashed out at society, the destruction of life would be reduced because they would not have these weapons at their disposal. Ridding society of assault style weapons probably would not stop these kind of attacks, but it almost certainly would make them less deadly.
Doesn’t it make sense that while society continues to try to identify potential mass killers (or, better yet prevent them from developing through some kind of intervention) getting rid of the weapons that make them so deadly is a smart thing to do?
I guess I’m interested in addressing the cause for the attacks, not the mitigating the fatalities that come as a result of them.
If you can’t see the change in people’s attitudes toward one another; that how we achieve contentment and happiness has changed than I have little to say.
This reminds me of the energy issue and whether we should be focusing on conservation, increasing production of conventional fuels or moving toward renewables. It’s a false choice, because an effective strategy could and should employ all three. Likewise, I’m tired of hearing that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” That’s bull. While we can’t eliminate all murders, we can do something about the efficiency of the tools that are being employed to carry them out. Gee, what if we could only cut the problem by 25 percent with some thoughtful firearms regulations? Or what if only 10 kids and 4 adults had been killed in Newtown? What if some other incident wouldn’t have occurred at all? We don’t have to choose between effective regulations and doing something about the underlying issues, including mental health. These things are not mutually exclusive and nobody should be allowed to divert attention from the overall issue by trotting out a one-trick pony. A comprehensive strategy will necessarily involve a number of different measures and we should not expect them to all be necessarily bundled together and accomplished all at once. How do you eat an elephant? One fork full at a time.
Excellent points Jim on both issues. Here is some additional information I stumbled upon, an index of school shootings/hostage situations etc associated with usage of or withdrawal from antidepressants by date/location. http://ssristories.com/index.php?p=school
David Hemenway, Professor of Health Policy has studied this issue. Some comments:
“I think the most shocking thing is to compare ourselves to the other developed countries. People think we have a violence problem in the United States, but we really don’t. We’re an average country in terms of all the violence measures you can think of, in terms of crime. But where we’re very different is guns. We have lots more guns than anybody else, particularly handguns. A lot of countries have hunting rifles, but we have these handguns, and then we have these assault weapons. Secondly, we have by far the most permissive gun control laws, the weakest gun policies of any country. It’s not even close. Not surprisingly, we have more gun crime and more gun homicide.”
“here are the statistics for 5- to 14-year-olds. A child in the United States compared to a child in Finland or France or New Zealand is not 20 percent more likely to be killed in a gun homicide, or 50 percent more likely, or twice as likely, or five times as likely. It’s 13 times higher.”
when asked about the evidence concerning mass shootings:
“We have more of these [than other countries], too. The interesting thing is, it seems like most of these are suicides. These are often people who aren’t criminals in the normal sense. They look more like suicidal people, and that’s what they are. In every one of these mass shootings, the person has either committed suicide or suicide-by-cop, or was immediately arrested and incarcerated forever. So the notion that you might, by arming other people, deter anything is crazy. For these people, this is their last basic act on earth.”
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/12/looking-for-lessons-in-newtown/
Hemenway further says that these suggestions that there is a pervasive environment of violence that produces says the evidence does not support that. Studies demonstrate that youth in all industrial countries see the same movies, play the same video games, listen to the same music. But the incidence of gun violence including mass killings is much higher in the USA. And the only consistent variable to explain that is that all guns, including assault style weapons, are much more available in the US.
Australia banned assault style weapons in 1996. That was after thirteen mass shootings in eighteen years. In the ten and one-half years after that there has not been a single instance of a mass shooting (the results were studied in 2006). What did increase was the rate of physical assaults. But it would be very hard for a person, regardless of a motive, to walk into a school and beat thirty people to death, wouldn’t it?
http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/12/6/365.full
Jim is right about a multi faceted approach. But simple statements like we need to get along and love and respect each other, as true as they are, do not point us toward any specific actions. On the other hand, saying that the evidence is clear – mass shootings are much more common in places (the US) where assault style weaponry is available – points us to a specific course of action, doesn’t it? Get rid of the guns. Is it the only thing to do? No, but if the concern is to prevent further mass shootings it seems the logical place to begin. Get rid of the guns. After all it was the gun that killed those children. Adam Lanza could have been filled with just as much hatred and possessed every other trait that he had on Friday, but if he wasn’t armed with that Bushmaster assault weapon he could not have killed all thirty of those people.
Guns. Mental health. Guns or mental health. Maybe guns and mental health. Until we can dig deeper and look at the root of these issues we’re going to keep revisiting the same scenarios.
I too have never served in the military (although almost every other male in my close and extended family has), I am not a hunter (However, I did grow up hunting) and I have also been on the business end of a gun a few times.
But I do have an idea about guns.
I’ve been exposed to guns for as long as I can remember. Whether that means the toys (read: training tools) were giving as children, the low caliber gateway weapons of adolescence or the deadly serious firearms used for hunting and, ostensibly, self-defense. I’ve even had a few unsavory acquaintances that have owned guns specifically design to kill people. A gun is a gun is a gun. It’s a device intended to hurtle a projectile at terminal velocity. It’s the logical progression of the same basic strategy our species has used since we figured out that throwing sharp sticks will wound or kill prey. It’s how we acquired meat for a really long time and why it’s so hard to extricate hunting from discussions of gun control.
I could not agree more with your simple, honest statement that, “guns are dangerous”. All firearms are dangerous and all guns should be controlled to a certain extent (like registration, licensing and compulsory training). However, not all guns are designed to kill human beings en masse with military efficiency. I think it’s important to compartmentalize the discussions. The citizenry’s right of access to firearms is drastically different from the existence of a military and the tools a military needs to fulfill its purpose. Average citizens don’t need to possess tactical, semi or fully automatic weapons. No reason. None. Never.
I want to be clear. I do not think hunting rifles or shotguns pose the same kind of threat semi of fully automatic weapons do. I also want to make it very clear that easily concealable weapons like handguns or short-barrel guns are unnecessary. Even in hunting situations, no one NEEDS a handgun.
Pro-Gun folks tend to muddy the waters in this regard. To them every slope is slippery and if any ground is conceded on “control” we will inevitably slide into passivity. AND THEN WHAT? The stormtroopers will come and take away their right to cheap beer, trucks and football? Criminals will rape their dogs before their eyes? No! It’s stupid. Dystopia is as logical as Utopia. Neither will happen outside of our imaginations.
But the arguments made against gun control are valid from a certain perspective. However, that’s the key phrase “…from a certain perspective”. There are some pretty ginormous logical leaps of faith one must make to think that:
Freedom is acquired or maintained through force alone.
Without legal access to guns “only criminals will have guns”.
A totalitarian, militant government (foreign or domestic) will take over the nation or world and that a self-directed militia of energy drink fueled, overweight cheese eaters will rise up to save humanity.
Seriously, these arguments are specious and have to stop.
You’ve touched on the key points for starting to find solutions though: Mental health and socialization (the Quaker thing). First of all, the socialization aspect is huge but it’s also pretty simple. If we, as a community, focused more on mutual responsibility (instead of individual freedom), cooperation (instead of competition) and solutions (instead of problems) we could start to change the perceptions that drive these behaviors.
Unfortunately, solving these problems means confronting some things many people aren’t ready to face. Which is why mental health suffers in America today. It’s worth admitting that Scientologists aren’t the only crazies who believe that psychology is pseudoscience. Many people put psychiatrists under the same ignorant umbrella they reserve for chiropractors, dentists and especially non-allopathic practitioners: nice that we have them but “they’re not REAL doctors”.
The fact is neuroscience and the advances in medical imaging is pushing our understanding of how and why our brains work to unprecedented frontiers. But good luck attempting to engage a creationist (of any flavor) about neurological and psychiatric disorders. I can give you their response right now.
“God works in mysterious ways”.
It’s been hard enough getting religious zealots to accept the Universe isn’t 4,000 Y/O. It is almost 2013 and we can’t get them to understand the need for female reproductive wellness. Too many people think that any science that counters their religion is verboten. How do I know mental health (MH) is still off the table? These are the same people that can’t accept anything but heterosexuality as “normal”. And yet we expect they’re going sit in a circle and discuss best practices and parameters for MH screening or have an adult conversation about MH mandates, requirements and/or how it will fit into the insurance ecosystem?
I’d like to say it needs to start with education, that when every high school student is comfortable correcting their parent’s misconceptions about neuroanatomy we’ll be on the right track. But at the same time we can’t get these people (who undeniably vote on the same ticket) to willingly pay the taxes that fund education or healthcare.
Until cognitive, behavioral and clinical neuroscientific research and diagnostic treatment is as common as antibiotic prescriptions: NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE.
Here’s a thought experiment on the topic of humanity’s propensity for violence: Anatomically we’ve been the same for 200,000 years. It’s safe to say that the human experience, the core things that make us what we are has always been inside us. I’d argue that our emotional landscape has been essentially the same as well. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that protohumans loved, feared, hated and felt sadness, too. I’d also suggest that the complex things we like to imagine only we can feel like awkwardness or shame; ingenuity or mania are not our exclusive provinces. This means that mental illness and brain defects have been with us all along as well.
We’ve created so many amazing things. We have developed and explored. We’ve formulated myths and populated them with deities and turned those ideas into religions. Our societies have developed from small bands into global pluralistic abstractions. We’ve gone from laying on our backs wondering what the twinkling lights above us could be, through connecting those dots and into traveling off this planet to see for ourselves. We are nothing short of amazing.
Yet at the same time we’ve murdered, enslaved and tortured each other. We have destroyed entire species, polluted our planet and continue unabated. We lie, cheat, steal. We rape and maim. There are those among us who kill because they enjoy it. Some say this is the way it has always been and the way it will always be.
My questions:
Are we to assume that the same neurological processes that drove us to sharpen sticks for hunting is also the impetus for touchscreen pocket computers?
Is the desire to see what’s over the next hill the same as the drive to perfect space travel?
Is there such a thing as the biological imperative to reproduce and by extension a genetic drive towards territorialism and competition?
Were early humans more or less prone to mass-violence?
Can we control the mechanisms in our brains that spur violence?
We’re never going to know any of these things unless we embrace the study of our minds and brains. Self awareness and introspection would have been the same for our ancestors as it is for us. Which is to say, hard work. It’s not easy to stare at one’s reflection seeking answers to the big questions. However, understanding the mechanisms of our brains is something only we can do. Early humans didn’t have FMRI or CT machines.
Perhaps, neuroscience can help frame a better conversation, give us the data to make more informed choices. But ultimately, the issue of holistic mental health is going to be contentious. It is going to take us decades to even find the common ground, let alone rough out the arguments. Refining the details? Getting a clear consensus on what a mentally healthy modern human being should think or feel? And after all that, we’ll still have to decide who’s healthy enough to own guns. This is important work but it’s not going to happen soon enough and maybe not in my lifetime.
So are we really going to wait for this game to play out? I’m not saying it’s the perfect solution but I, for one, vote we give up our guns.
I’d rather have you take my guns from my warm, alive hands than of have any more children with cold, dead hands.
“Until cognitive, behavioral and clinical neuroscientific research and diagnostic treatment is as common as antibiotic prescriptions: NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE.”
So many shining points in your essay here. Nicely done. This one encompasses all the others for me.
Quick thought…I have been to other countries where any weapon you wanted to own was legal to buy. The catch was it had to be stored at a place you could actually use it. If you wanted to used your weapon at a different location, it was safely moved for you.
Could this be a nice compromise for guns owners? Hunting riffles would still be able to be kept at home, because hunting is legal. But assault weapons would be kept at shooting ranges where you could actually use them.
One minor flaw with Tyler’s concept… I believe the end is near. The Mayans may have been wrong, but you can’t look at our country’s current geo-economic-political situation and think that some type of revolution is a valid possiblity.
As thus, my assault weapons are for the defense of me and my home in the event the social fabric that holds us together falls apart.
The AR-15′s, the M-4, the AK-47′s, the lone AK-74, the Barrett .50 cal, the Hi Point 995…. they are there to make sure that when people are forced to take a side, that my independent neutrality is honored.
So.. the legal place where I plan to use my weapons… my home.
The reason I go to the range from time to time… to keep my skill set with each of them fresh, make sure they properly function as needed, and every now and then… sending a few hundred rounds down range is a good stress reliever.
John, with all due respect, your thinking is a big part of the problem.
It has always been the end of the world somewhere, and for some. Always will be.
So .. every home on the planet has the armaments you do, what is the logical outcome of this? At what point would you stop taking the risk of having your own guns used on you?
When all of us are equally armed with the ability to kill hundreds per minute?
When half of us are?
I disagree that my thinking is part of the problem. Those people who don’t think at all are part of the problem.
Although the odds of my guns being used against me are very low, I will admit they are not zero. All of the “good stuff” is locked up (although I will admit that last week the safe was open with a few hundred rounds in magazines, just in case). No one has the combo but me in my head, not even Mrs. Rent.
I do have a few personal protection weapons that are not under lock and key, but they are not the high count magazine, reach out and touch some one type of weapons. They are more of the up close and personal last line of defense deterrants. Although not locked, they are also not out in the open. Good luck in finding them.
My thinking would only be part of the problem if I was thinking I needed to be the agressor and take them out on a shooting spree… and that is not my thinking.
My thinking is that I may have been many things, am many things, and will be many things… but one thing I promise that I will NOT be is a helpless victim.