As published in
July 25, 2012
Only
in America.
The massacre in the Aurora movie theater
should surprise no one. After Virginia
Tech, after Columbine, after Jordan Lee Loughner’s assault on Gabby Giffords, it
should surprise no one. And that’s just
the latest. Count on it, it’s going to
happen again.
We’ve created a perfect storm for random
violence. The blame reaches far and
wide, and pundits’ psycho-babble, legitimate and otherwise, is already raining
down around us, again. Societal permissiveness. Violence in the media. Video games.
Parental acquiescence. The
pressure to succeed. Ultra-conservative
dogma. Promiscuity. Movie madness. Penn State. Digital replacement of personal
relationships. Heavy metal music.
All of it – and none of it - true. And one more thing: the absurdly easy access to guns, enabled by champions
of the loose interpretations of “the right to bear arms.” And the unwillingness of, well, anybody, to
confront the NRA.
All of it, uniquely American. Who to blame?
You, me, Republicans, Tea Partiers, Democrats. All of us.
The statistics are mind-numbing, and
undeniable. There’s nearly one gun in
America for each one of its citizens. Of
the estimated 300 million firearms, owned by some 70 to 80 million adults, 100
million are handguns (“Firearms Fact Card, 2010. National Rifle Association”). We lead the civilized world in homicides by
firearms (Nationmaster.com/ crime statistics).
The AR-15, one of the weapons the Aurora
suspect carried, is a lightweight, air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed
semi-automatic rifle. Automatic variants
have a three-position rotating selective fire switch, allowing the operator to
select between three modes: safe,
semi-automatic and either automatic or three round burst, depending on the
model (Wikipedia, AR-15). It was banned
– and compatible magazines were limited to ten rounds - in 1994, but all of it rescinded
10 yrs later by a Republican-led congress under pressure from the National
Rifle Association. Today a legal AR-15
is capable of firing 800 rounds per minute, and a drum magazine with a 100
round capacity – which the Aurora suspect carried - is also legal in most
states. In fact you can buy an AR-15
online with minimum qualifications.
This is America’s weapon of mass
destruction. It is designed for one
purpose, and one purpose only: to kill a
lot of people. There is no reason for it
to exist, much less be owned, outside the military.
But it does, and is, in America.
Equally unique to America are the arguments
defending such madness, including:
The
second Amendment guarantees the “right for individuals to bear arms.”
Except there’s an equally compelling argument that the founding fathers
intended the amendment to provide for states’ rights to mount armed
militias. As ratified by the States and
authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State: “A well
regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the
right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” This clause in the Bill of Rights is subject
to as much interpretation as the Bible – and those that chose to take either
one literally reveal a rigidity unfit for today’s world.
Banning
assault weapons signals the beginning of a slippery slope toward an
unconstitutional denial of our right to bear arms. Did
banning the “F” word on network television lead to rampant censorship, or
denial of freedom of speech? Did
removing the Ten Commandments display from the Arkansas State House lead to
reckless denial of religious freedoms? And
so it goes.
There’s
so many guns already out there, most of them owned by bad guys, that the only
way to protect ourselves is to, well, own one.
And so we do, one
for every citizen in the country. But
some studies show that “in homes with guns, the homicide of a household member
is almost 3 times more likely to occur than in homes without guns” (“Gun
Control Facts,” by James D Agresti and Reid K. Smith. Just Facts, Sept 13, 2010).
We impose speed limits to make the highways
safer.
We legislate fuel efficiencies to combat
pollution.
We remove sugary drinks from grade schools
to confront childhood obesity.
We regulate medications in an attempt to
mitigate abuse.
But we do not regulated gun ownership. And the
damage done by guns is more obvious, more linear and less forgivable.
Like the single raison
d’etre of an AR-15, there’s
one reason politicians don’t address gun control – they want to be elected more
than anything else. Their need to hold
office supersedes ethics. It’s why Mitt Romney has changed his mind on
every significant issue. Republicans are
beholden to the NRA and gun rights advocates.
Tellingly, nearly twice as many Republicans own guns as Democrats (41%
vs 23% - with 27% Independent. “Gun
Ownership and Use in America, Joseph Carroll, Gallup Nationwide Poll, Nov 22,
2005”). According to the Federal
Election Commission, a full 85% of all financial contributions from gun rights
advocates went to Republicans in the two decades from 1990 to 2010 ("Gun
Rights: Long-Term Contribution Trends." Center for Responsive Politics.
Accessed September 2, 2010).
Isn’t there something in Romney’s
“deep-seated” religious faith that moves him to support even some form of
limited gun control?
No matter; it seems neither party is willing
to confront this issue head on.
I’m with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg
(“a leader in the search for sensible answers about guns” – NY Times Editorial
page, July 21, 2012), who said, “Maybe it’s time the two people who want to be
president of the United States stand up and tell us what they’re going to do
about it
Louie Gohmert, Republican Representative
from Texas, drew a bizarre connection between the horror in Colorado and
“ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” (NY Times, Editorial, July 21,
2012). He also said this, “It does make
me wonder, you know, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody (else)
that was carrying? That could have
stopped this guy more quickly?”
(Colorado is one of 38 “shall issue” states, meaning that if a person
passes certain minimal requirements, then the state must issue them a concealed
weapons “carry” permit).
But think about what Gohmert – and millions
of other NRA sycophants - would have: a fully armed populace, armed and ready
to defend themselves against all threats, real or imagined. And an armed threat in a movie theater far
exceeds the gray area provided for in Florida’s perverse “Stand Your Ground”
law. It’s there, it’s real, and, until
he starts firing, he’s legal under America’s right to bear arms and Colorado’s
right to carry concealed weapons. But,
so would other carriers. Imagine: the
“Joker,” as the Aurora wacko called himself, opens fire with his AR-15.
Instantly, another carrier responds with, say, a Glock – a popular
semi-automatic pistol from Austria, also legal, also available online, and
capable of firing 33 rounds from a high-capacity magazine. (The “Joker’s”
carrying one of these, too). He misses – but he’s got 32 rounds left, and
continues firing. Then a half-dozen more legal carriers engage, firing at,
who? The Joker? Or, the first defender – or each other? - because,
after all, how would they know, there in the dark of the movie theater, who was
who?
And so ensues America at its finest. More movie goers rise to the occasion, all
legally armed and carrying, pickling off rounds of semi-automatic ammo in the
dark, scoring hits, misses, wreaking havoc, killing … other movie goers, their
children and each other. And in short
order, there’s but a single soul left standing, having exercised his or her
right to bear arms and defend his own American self.
Alas, he’s mortally wounded, too.
A metaphor for what’s to come. This is what we’ve created.
Only in America.
Tim Arnold
