It’s a familiar story.
Yesterday, in Rock Hill, SC, five people died as result of gunshots, including four from the same family. The alleged killer was a former professional football player armed with a .45 caliber pistol. He later took his own life. It was the fourth high profile mass shooting to occur in the United States in the span of twenty-two days.
On March 16, a 21-year-old man armed with a Glock semiautomatic pistol attacked three massage spas in the Atlanta area, killing eight people, including six women of Asian descent. Six days later, another 21-year-old man wearing an armored vest and carrying a modified Ruger AR-556 pistol and a semiautomatic handgun, murdered ten people in and around a Boulder, CO, supermarket. The Ruger firearm is a shortened version of the semiautomatic AR-15. And on April 2, four individuals, including a nine-year-old boy were slain in Orange, CA, by a 44-year-old man also armed with a semiautomatic pistol.
All weapons used by the killers in the first three incidents were apparently bought legally. The source of the firearm involved in yesterday’s massacre has not been revealed.
Members of the media and assorted politicians immediately began speculating as to the motives of the shooters and their possible mental health. The Atlanta gunman claimed to be a sex addict, which conflicted with his strict religious beliefs, but he denied being racist. The Boulder slayer is a naturalized US citizen with a history of paranoia and problems with anger management. The Orange killer apparently had a business-related gripe, although that hardly explains murdering a nine-year old kid. Possible motives for the Rock Hill shooter have not been identified.
Given the presence of so many firearms in the US and the lax character of our gun safety regulations, neither the motives nor the mental health disorders of the gunmen seem relevant. With approximately 400 million lethal weapons easily accessible there likely is always going to be someone with a grievance or a personality defect who can acquire a firearm in America and slaughter several of his fellow citizens.
Our lax gun safety regulations make it impossible to determine exactly how many US homes have a firearm or how many Americans actually own a firearm, but survey data does provide us some reasonable estimates. According to a Gallup poll in 2019, there are firearms in only about 40 percent of US households, and only about 22 percent of Americans own such a weapon. On a per capita basis the US leads the developed world with 120.5 firearms for every 100 people. Canada has 34.7 and England only 4.6.
While only a minority of Americans own firearms, those who do apparently are obsessed with owning more. USA Today reported in February that Americans bought nearly 40,000,000 guns in 2020 and an additional 4,137,480 in January 2021. Closer to home, residents of South Carolina bought 52,622 guns in January and residents of North Carolina bought 86,017.
And while shootings that result in four or more deaths receive the greatest media attention and give the most energy to debates about guns in America, they are not the worse aspect of our irrational gun violence. Suicides, a growing public health crisis in the US, are responsible for nearly two-thirds of all gun deaths annually, including the highly visible mass shootings. More than half of all suicides involve a firearm.
Some mental health specialists believe that an attempted suicide is a plea for help. Unfortunately, when a gun is used, help is seldom an option.
Given the circumstances, one would expect a responsible debate among the nation’s political leadership as to how to reduce the trauma of gun violence. That is sadly not the case.
At a hearing of the US Senate Judiciary Committee about gun safety
shortly after the Atlanta massacre, US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) issued a blanket
dismissal of any legislative action, “What happens in this committee after every mass shooting is Democrats
propose taking away guns from law-abiding
citizens (italics added) because that's their political objective,” His words and attitude are hardly an indication
of an open mind or the basis for finding common ground.
On April 1, US Senator Lindsey
Graham (R-SC) and South Carolina Attorney General Allan Wilson visited the
newly opened facility of a SC-based firearms company in Greenville. The
company’s mission statement is quite clear: “We want to sell as many AR-15 and
AK-47 rifles as we can and put them into common use in America today.” Graham did
not disappoint his host, stating emphatically his opposition to any ban on
assault rifles. He also touted the value of guns for self-protection, citing
three cases in South Carolina where citizens had used guns to defend themselves.
Reports of the visit did
not indicate comments by either politician about the 40 South Carolina children
under 18 who died as result of firearms in 2020. According to the SC Victims
Assistance Network, in half of the home with guns in the state, firearms are
kept unlocked and loaded.
The simple truth is there
are too many firearms in the US today and there is no meaningful system in
place to insure a reasonable degree of safety from gun violence for the public.
Gun manufacturers are producing weapons that are more and more lethal and have
been relieved by Congress of any responsibility for how those weapons might be
used.
Background checks are
riddled with loopholes, making them a sad joke. The so-called “Charleston
loophole,” which allows a purchaser to buy a firearm after three days
regardless of whether or not the background check has been completed, is still
in place. It has been six years since it made possible the massacre at Charleston’s
Emanuel African American Methodist Church in June 2015.
Not only can virtually
anyone buy a firearm in the US, rarely are there any qualifications or training
required for ownership. Neither are there any restrictions on the number of
firearms an individual can own. Nor are gun owners required to insure their firearms
are not easily stolen or accessed by children.
The January 6 insurrection
at the US Capitol should be a wake-up call. Consider what could have happened
if firearms had been carried by most of those who sought to disrupt the
legitimate processes of the US government. Farfetched? Already there are more semiautomatic firearms
in civilian hands in the US than are available to American law enforcement and
military.
Specifically, there should
be national legislation banning the sale of semiautomatic firearms to the
general public. High-capacity ammunition magazines and armored-piercing
ammunition should not be generally available to civilians. Examinations should
be required for all firearm purchasers proving they have the skills and
knowledge to operate safely and efficiently the weapon they wish to buy. And
insuring firearms against theft or from falling into the hands of underage
youth should not be left to chance. There should be a regular system to confirm
proper security.
Perhaps I am foolish to
suggest such a set of regulations for gun safety. But the fact is the proposals
listed are in place in many other developed countries today---countries that
have far lower gun death rates that the US.
Our gun death rate of 3.4 (per 100,000) is the highest by far among
developed countries, seven times higher than any other developed country.
Our failure to act is a
form of national suicide.
