Updated Feb. 16, 9:30 p.m. to reflect corrected shooting numbers.
It’s been about 24 hours since an 19-year-old former student shot up his Florida high school, killing 17 and wounding many others (in what was the 18th school and 30th mass shooting this year. That’s three school shootings and five mass shootings a week, a school shooting once every two and a half days and a mass shooting every day and a half.) That’s both. terrifying and almost impossible to understand.
How in a nation of almost immeasurable wealth, of seemingly unbounded freedom, does this keep happening, especially given the way in which we aggressively respond with “thoughts and prayers.”?
“Thoughts and prayers,” you say, do not amount to action? So let’s talk.
That’s what U.S. Rep. Tom MacArthur, who represents southern New Jersey in the House, seems to be calling for in this tweet:
Schools are places that children and staff should go without fear and we must have an open and honest conversation to look for real solutions about how to prevent these mass shootings, which have become far too common.
Such a brave stance, such a — such a load of crap. MacArthur is offering the kind of pablum we get from conservatives each time a shooting hits the news. No mention of guns, of their easy availability. Nothing, just another call for conversations and “real solutions.” Blah. Blah. Blah.
So what can we say about the Florida shooting, which I refuse to call a tragedy. It’s a travesty, preventable if we only had the will, if our politics were not polluted by NRA money and distorted priorities. I’m not anti-gun, but any honest appraisal firearm landscape would admit that there are just too many guns. We are awash in guns, and not just pistols or revolver. Not just hand guns, but assault rifles. Semi-automatics that spew dozens, hundreds of bullets in seconds and minutes. The shooter yesterday — Nikolas Cruz — walked into the school with a legally purchased AR-15, an assault-style weapon that “is essentially the semi-automatic version — one pull of the trigger, one shot — of the M-16,” according to Time magazine. It had been covered under the assault weapon ban that expired in 2004, Time says, but is not relatively easy to get — it costs about $1,000 and is not subject to waiting periods in many states.
But guns are not the issue, or so Republicans say (yes, this has been an overly and disturbingly partisan debate for years). President Donald Trump called on Twitter for thoughts and prayers, and then followed up by calling for school safety measures and a focus on mental health — with some Republicans finally acknowledging the potential dangers of allowing easy access to guns to those suffering from suicidal or homicidal tendencies. This will be difficult, if not nearly impossible to make happen — questions of privacy and stigmatization, even criminalization, cast a huge shadow over any attempt to single out the mentally ill.
Consider comments made by Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel. The AP reports that Israel has “called for giving law enforcement more power to detain people who make threats.”
“What I’m asking our lawmakers to do is go back to places like Tallahassee and Washington, D.C., to give police the power,” the sheriff said, to detain people who make graphic threats or post disturbing material online, and bring them involuntarily to mental health professionals to be examined.
The danger is that this kind of thinking can metastasize and spread, leading to the curtailment of the rights of many classes of Americans, including those who disagree with those in power.
Any law limiting access would need to be tailored narrowly, which likely would limit its effectiveness. And even if this obstacle could be surmounted and we could keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, of those on the No-Fly list, of domestic abusers, ex-cons, etc. — a list of mostly useful proposals — we’ll still be awash in firearms. And that is the issue.
Guns are easy to get. Ammunition is easier. And there is little cost to the gun owner beyond the cost of purchase.
There are just too many guns, the equivalent of one for every American citizen — and our culture is too casual about their use. Guns are central to our conception of ourselves as a nation — to the mythology of the Old West, the gunslinger defending the helpless townies from gun-wielding gangs, Marshall Dillon, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood — and to our views of power and manhood. As long as this is the case, as long as we fetishize firearms and allow them to proliferate like weeds, we will continue to have shootings.
Cultural change is difficult to enact and takes years, so we need to focus on reducing the number of guns in circulation. Target the gun makers — limit what can be manufactured and put into circulation. Require strict firearms training and licensing for owners, on a par with what we do with automobiles, and require every gun owner to have significant liability insurance. And require certification of ownership similar to a car’s title, which would prevent the private sale of guns from becoming a conduit to the black market.
Will these proposals work? I’ll be honest; I don’t know. But I’m tired of thoughts and prayers standing in for action. Enough is enough. Make gun owners pay the real cost of their hobby.