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In the weeks to come, we will learn more about the shooter responsible for the Sandy Hook massacre than we ever wanted to know. Here’s what I know—the shooter and I were peers because he shot guns and I shoot guns.
That’s a tough pill to swallow for every person in America who, like me, enjoys the sport of shooting on a regular basis. No doubt, at this very moment, there are cries from gun owners saying, “that’s not me, that’s not who we are, I would never do that!” But the fact remains, he came from a gun-owning household. And the gun community must not shrink from that.
The gun community must also admit to the failings of the arguments it has continuously put forth. For instance, “It’s the criminals, not the law-abiding gun owners, who are the issue.” I just copy and pasted that off the National Rifle Association (NRA) website from a section called “Wayne’s Commentary,” where NRA president Wayne LaPierre holds forth with similar arguments on a regular basis. Of course the problem is that the most recent mass shootings, Aurora, Tuscon, Virginia Tech, were committed by individuals who did not have a criminal past and the guns were purchased legally. And this most recent tragedy began at the home of a legal gun owner, with a lovely house on a quiet street in an upscale neighborhood.
Immediately following the Sandy Hook tragedy, the pro-gun lobby was conspicuously silent on the Sunday morning news programs. The lone pro-gun legislator who stepped forward was Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Republican from Texas who offered this:
I wish to God she (Sandy Hook principal, Dawn Hochsprung) had had an M-4 in her office, locked up so when she heard gunfire, she pulls it out and she didn’t have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands and takes him out and takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids....This is the old, “more guns make us safer” argument. But Representative Gohmert fails to note that the shooter’s first victim, his mother, was a gun owner who had the means to stop him with her Glock or Sig Sauer.
And then there will be those who will insist that regular incidents like Sandy Hook are the price we pay for living in a free society. To my ears that is just a handy excuse to throw up our hands and say the problem can’t be solved, and I refuse to believe that we can’t do better. The price for living in a free society should be along the lines of the Westboro Baptist Church and MTV’s The Jersey Shore, not a roomful of dead children.
This article originally began in the wake of the Jovan Belcher murder-suicide. The argument for more guns was made in that instance as well. But the truth is: no gun, no murder-suicide. The gun lobby was out in full force following that tragedy. But everyone, me, Wayne LaPierre, every law-abiding gun owner I’ve shared the range with, knows that this will not go away. The pain those parents feel, the shock the children endured who lived through that tragedy, the questions the survivors will ask for the rest of their lives will not go away.
The owners, retailers, manufacturers, advocates and lobbyists, we who collectively make up the “gun culture” of this nation, failed the children and teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary School. In the coming weeks, months, and years, people who are involved with guns must make some choices. It is not enough that we “advise” owners to secure their firearms. We must demand it. And when it does not happen, consequences must be severe. The law-abiding gun enthusiasts that I have encountered, who are sane, reasonable people and bear no resemblance to the “camo-clad, toothless, tobacco chewing, gun fetishists” that are the fever dream of every East Bay liberal who has never held, much less fired a gun, must make their presence known and be on the lookout for those who would cause grave harm to those we love. The NRA insists that better education is part of the answer. Fine, train retailers to look for tell-tale behaviors and ask questions that will assist in identifying individuals who seek to be gun owners for the wrong reasons. Revise the NRA curriculum to include a comprehensive course that deals with gun ownership—it’s responsibilities, consequences, and alleged benefits. Currently instruction regarding safety focuses primarily on preventing accidents such as, “I didn’t think it was loaded.”
Finally, our attitude must change. In 2004, while performing in a production of Assassins, I met a community college instructor and gun enthusiast who had this to say about gun ownership, “Everyone is this country has the right to own a gun, but not everyone should own a gun.” That sums up for me the attitude the NRA, the gun retailers, range operators—everyone in the gun community—should have. I have no desire to protect the rights of a few individuals who should not possess a gun so that I may claim victory in the preservation of some 18th-century ideal.
I am a teacher by trade. I teach theater at the college level. But I’m also certified by the NRA to teach firearm courses for pistol and rifle. These courses seek to teach students the knowledge, skill, and attitude necessary to safely use a gun at a firing range. And it is stressed that attitude is the most important of the aforementioned three. Without the proper attitude, knowledge and skill are meaningless. And if we were to engage all the gun owners in this country in a conversation, I believe that we would find that they share the same viewpoint. But for too long we have not heard this point of view. We have instead heard rhetoric that champions more guns and fewer attempts at ensuring that those who should not possess a gun do not.
Change must happen in the gun culture, and it will take time. But I believe the work must begin or the non-gun owning citizens of this nation will lose patience and demand that private gun ownership be banned. There are 40 grieving parents who have lost much more than just their patience.
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Copyright © 2012 by James Knudsen
| Please comment |
James, I agree with everything you wrote—the mindlessness of recommending more gun ownership to reduce gun violence, the need for gun education and proficiency, vigilance about who possesses (or wants to possess) a gun but shouldn't. What troubles me is what you didn't write. Nothing about fuller disclosure before a sale. Nothing about making disclosure requirements uniform across every state, city, and hamlet. Nothing about integrated data bases that can be readily searched before a sale. Nothing about disincentives to gun ownership (for example, imposing steep taxes on purchases and levying licensing/relicensing fees). Nothing about setting limits on the number of guns that one can own or on the kind or amount of ammo that can be sold. Nothing about the types of weapons that should never be in the hands of civilians. These missing pieces are what non-owners think of when when they talk about gun control. Apparently, your piece is not addressed to non-owners.
ReplyDeleteAny time I hear a gun owner say that "something must be done" or "things have to change," the missing elements in your piece are also missing from their description of remedial action. The only conclusion I can reach is that they are determined to offer non-answers framed as answers. It's hard to protect the lives of innocent people with solutions that do not make a serious attempt to address the problem.
James, I agree with much of what you wrote. And Ken, I agree with much of what you wrote. I would also like to say it is nice to say a ray of rational, coherent thought peeking through the cloud banks of obfuscation and rhetoric.
ReplyDeleteJames, yes, the Connecticut shooter's mother, who reportedly helped train her son how to use weapons and contributed to his irrational mindset about using them, did have guns with which to defend herself. News reports say she was asleep when he killed her, however, so the mother's situation has no bearing on what a fully awake and properly trained armed guard, or armed principal, or armed teacher may, or may not, have been able to do when the shooter showed up at the school.
Ken, your suggestions for uniform licensing and disclosure could make things better in some distant future, but we need to take practical steps now. It is just like with cars: in some future time we may all, instead of just Google, have self-driving automobiles. And someday the public may also stand for computer-controlled speed settings to make us all safer, and a sensor that prevents a drunk from starting a car. Until that day comes, however, we need traffic cops and radar to keep people in line, and guardrails to keep them safely out of ditches when they get out of line. Just as we need a 911 emergency phone system and police at the ready until we reach that idyllic point where all people become rational and quit killing each other with whatever weapon they can find.
Unfortunately we all live in reality, not in nirvana, and there are millions of guns out there and a few nuts willing to use them to commit mass killings. After the endless hours of overwrought news coverage, there are probably many unstable people planning their killing spree right now, in the hope of topping the tally at Connecticut, or Virginia Tech, so they can achieve immortality through infamy, sad as that is.
Since there is just no way to cure all the mentally unstable people, or get all guns off the street before some copycat launches the next attack, why is it such a bad idea to take the same immediate precautions against the next mass shooter that we take against dangerous drivers? Third World banks, businesses and schools find a way to pay armed and trained security guards, so America can surely afford the same.
As much as I despise the idea of agreeing with a Republican legislator from Texas, and as much as I dislike the idea of agreeing with the NRA about how to deal with a problem they helped create, so far those folks have put forth the only practical suggestions for preventing more mass shootings now. I would love for us to all someday live in nirvana. Until that happens I will agree with whatever practical steps anyone can take to help keep us alive in our present reality. If you have a practical, workable, and enforceable plan that tops the proposal made by the NRA and the Texan, let's hear it! Until you have that better plan, let's not rule theirs out just because we don't like their politics.
Ken, you're right. I did not include fuller disclosure in my article and I should have. I probably assumed what I was thinking in my head was making it on to the page and it didn't, as well as the other points you bring up that I left out. In my defense, I have been in a "running gun battle" of sorts over on the "Enough is Enough" page where some of those things have been addressed. The comment I found most helpful is the one that ends your first paragraph- "These missing pieces are what non-owners think of when when they talk about gun control. Apparently, your piece is not addressed to non-owners."
DeleteFirst I'd like to point out here that to date, I have still spent most of my adult life as a non-gun owner. Since becoming a gun owner I find it interesting to note what has not changed about me. I'm still a left- leaning voter. I'm pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-take “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance- in short I think you'd find that I agree with “non-gun owners” on a number of things. But other things have NOT happened. That gun I bought in my final year of grad school has never gone off by itself. It has never accidentally or intentionally shot anyone. I have not become afraid of my neighbors. I have never taken a gun out in public for protection. And the size of my penis has not changed for good or ill. But how I view guns has changed. The mystery is gone. The sense of them being of some other world is gone. And my understanding of a large segment of the population has improved. The other side of that is that when I hear, “ban assault weapons” I know every hole in that argument. So, maybe, Motomynd, the answer is not necessarily more guns, but more owners/enthusiasts/gun “literate” citizens...
...how's that for a segue? Yes, the shooter's mother was asleep and that's very different from a conscious, armed individual. But the factor I didn't point to was that she in all liklihood would never had needed a gun. I did some research and the crime index for Newtown, according to City-Data.com is 61. For Los Angeles it's 301. I'd love to have an insurance agent weigh in with the various risk factors regarding that scenario. I also appreciate that you recognize the dilemma we face as a consequence of living in the world we live in. There are a lot of guns in this country and as confiscating them is probably not possible and I can't perform some Vulcan mind meld on all my fellow gun owners to make them as enlightened as me, the problem of some of those guns being in the hands of the wrong people will persist. At the same time we need to protect children. Yet even as I write those words my stomach tightens at the idea that the only solution is armed guards at schools. And I hope it's not because it is an idea from the Republican/right/conservative end of the political spectrum. Rather I hope, I believe it is because I remain somewhat of an idealist and really do have higher aspirations for our country.
LL, I say in all sincerity that you are no doubt a model gun owner. Your reasoned perceptions and your frank disclosure of yourself tell me this. I also suspect that a great many gun owners, perhaps even a majority, are as responsible as you are. Yet I also have the sense that you will not give ground when fellow citizens suggest that the availability of guns needs to be controlled and firepower reduced. I'm not in favor of confiscation either, but I am in favor of disclosure hurdles, purchase restrictions, and cost burdens. You needn't repeat the pros and cons we've discussed earlier. I'd just like to hear you say, "Yes, I'm in favor of these things, too." Then I'll know that you'll be part of the solution to gun violence.
DeleteI know you hold the view that what I've experienced in California has no bearing. But, I live with an assault weapons ban, 10 round limit for all magazines and one new handgun purchase per month. So if I can live with those things in my state I can certainly live with them nationwide. And as California goes so goes the nation has been true in other issues- public smoking ban, auto emission standards to name two. My question would be- what is the difference between limiting availability based on the individual seeking the gun versus, banning certain guns altogether. I know there's a difference but my semester of logic and reasoning was 25 years ago. What I really hope comes out of this is an awakening within the community of the more reasonable owners among us who will press for a radical change in culture and attitude so that future generations grow up with a more... for lack of a better word, progressive view of gun ownership.
DeletePropagating the CA model wouldn't come near a solution, LL. You should realize that. What's an "assault" weapon? We'd have to be precise about that. To me, 10 rounds is a large magazine—a lot of bang for the buck, literally. And how many magazines are allowed? One new handgun a month is a joke. 12 a year, and that's OK?
DeleteWhat's the difference between limiting availability and banning certain guns altogether?
Clearly we can do both, and both would ratchet down the sum of firepower in private hands. Don't we need to ratchet down the available firepower?
The net of your position as I see it... You hope for some gun owners (the reasonable ones) to press for a change in culture and attitude. That's it. LL, I find that timid, defensive, and deliberately vague. If politicians try to allay the agony over the Newtown horror with such generalities, who knows where the revulsion will end?
lonliestliberal wrote...
DeleteLet's see if I have enough battery to get through this...
...I started this before Christmas and then the whole disappeared as I tried to post it. But I remember most of it- let's see, I started with the last line which I covered in the last lines of my article. Then I jumped to the part about buying 12 handguns in one year. Never done it myself, but to me that's not the point. More to the point is, try carrying 12 handguns. I've actually covered this earlier over on "Enough is Enough." Next topic, "assault weapons and does anyone know what they really are?" Not to worry, as soon as they do, someone will find away around the definition. Magazines are very strictly regulated in some places as David Gregory is finding out.
That's pretty much what I had written except for the David Gregory bit. Here's what I want to point out, there's an enormous inventory of "assault weapons", high-capacity magazines and plain vanilla guns (whatever those are) in this country which no one wants to confiscate. So that means we're stuck with whatever is out there. Laws that restrict purchases will help going forward. But what about the existing inventory in private hands? That is where I believe my approach may have an effect. But I've also stated that figuring out who shouldn't own a gun through background checks must be part of the solution. So near as I can tell where I fail is the part where I point out that limiting the number I purchase may sound good, but in a real world scenario it doesn't pan out. Magazine capacity may help and ammunition hasn't been touched on.
Finally, I've been called vague, shallow, dismissive and timid... aren't I at least allowed defensive?
If the NRA are the bad guys but it's right
ReplyDeleteWhat LaPiere says about guns on their website,
Then the good guys,
If they are wise,
May have to use guns for their NRA fight.
Hopefully this posts in rhyme,
ReplyDeletesince I took the time,
if not the thought will hopefully still share,
of how we will all have to beware,
if anti-gun types enter the fray,
by taking guns to the NRA.
If anti-gun types enter the fray,
DeleteBy taking guns to the NRA,
Will we have to beware
'Cause they'll shoot in the air
And bystanders'll be their prey?
Thus far I’ve stayed out of the debate on guns that has taken place on Moristotle, both the public aspect and a series of emails between the contributing editors. This was because I couldn’t express my reaction to the differing views of the issue in any verbal form. Basically, I disagreed with the reasoning of all the positions articulated, that their frames of reference assumed a rationality the subject I doubted existed; but I wasn’t clear why. The last couple of days, watching the public posturing of pro and anti gun control advocates, I finally “got it”. In United States’ society guns are fetish objects.
ReplyDeleteA century ago Freud, writing Totem and Taboo, observed that irrational and unconscious motivations were behind attachment to fetishes. A fetish is a source of power, or an object of fear; protecting the possessor, or a threat, depending on who has it. The response to the Newtown atrocity, from all sides over the last couple of weeks, highlighted the depths of that irrationality. Even the realistic, responsible, reasoned discussions have had a subtext that seems more about defense or domination than communication. That’s because the subconscious need of each viewpoint to control their version of the fetish dominates the conversation.
Not that any real “conversation” is occurring. Which puts it on the same level as every other public policy debate of the moment. But this one is, I suspect, even more intransigent because it taps into one of the oldest mythologies of the country. A myth that remains unexamined. I’m not going to get into the semantic problems of the Second Amendment, but it must be one of the worst written pieces of legislation ever drafted. So mythology about the “original intent” lies strictly in the eye of the beholder. And the beholders have created one heck of a mess, since at root their positions are irrationally based.
The prospect that this society will “reason together”, and arrive at a compromise, seems very small. The economic and social stress of the present day do not promote trust or moderation. A significant part of the population are “clutching their gun and their bible” while watching Fox News, another segment is reading The New York Times and wondering when the next incident of gun violence will occur; neither group believes in the good intentions of the other. As for the political classes, they keep hoping someone else will bell the cat, while trying to say nothing that will come back to haunt them come the next election. Impasse is the only word for it.
This society is close to the situation of the 1850s, when North-South politics could no longer ignore slavery. Then, as now, the Constitution was waved around, with each side creating its own reality. We recall how that impasse was broken, let’s try to not go there again.
I’m highly pessimistic that anyone is likely to display good sense, and doubt that anything will come of the current alarm. When Obama’s letting a fool like Joe Biden assume leadership how could it? So, what are those of us who do not have a dog in this fight to do? As Sergio Leone once put it: "Giù la Testa" (Duck, you sucker!)
Interested in the correlation between more guns and more homicides or between strict gun laws and homicide rates? Then take a look:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/opinion/the-gun-challenge-strict-laws-work.html