An eye on the other public health crisis...
Guns
Hi, Ari here with a special piece today on a challenge that is often crowded out by other news — America’s gun epidemic…
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Guns on Demand
The pandemic has exploded the death rate in most countries. The numbers are hard to digest—more deaths than most modern wars combined. But the U.S. also has a different death rate than most countries, which is on track to endure long after this pandemic. And it can be changed. The deaths from gun violence.
Consider this headline in today’s New York Times:
Murders Spiked in 2020 in Cities Across the United States
The Times reports the U.S. experiencing the:
..biggest one-year increase on record in homicides in 2020…
21,500 people killed last year - an additional 4,901 homicides compared with the year before… the largest leap since national records started in 1960.
There are many factors for this particular surge, but experts boil it down to the two culprits you’d expect — the pandemic, and America’s easy access to guns on demand:
A number of key factors are driving the violence, including the economic and social toll taken by the pandemic and a sharp increase in gun purchases.
There are many facets to this challenge. Today I’ll dive into just one with you — the weapons of war that are so easily purchasable in the U.S.
Some weapons are just for killing (not self defense)
Think back to presidential primaries of 2020. A “simpler” time before covid.
At one of the Democratic Debates, candidate Beto O’Rourke said probably his most famous line from the campaign: “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.” He singled out that gun for a reason.
It’s a military grade rifle for combat. The Pentagon calls the AR-15 an “M-16,” but it’s the same gun. It is designed to proactively attack and kill efficiently in battle — not to defend a civilian home.
Unlike most democracies, the U.S. has allowed the private sale of these military weapons, but note that initially, few Americans even took the “opportunity.” Then many types of assault weapons were banned in a law signed by Pres. Clinton. (The impetus was a machine gun style attack on civilians in California.) That federal ban was set to automatically expire — one of the compromises that legislators found necessary to get it passed, and it expired in 2004.
These guns proved increasingly popular, promoted by the NRA and gun enthusiasts and companies profiting off a mix of commercialism, rebellion and grandiosity about these weapons. You can find AR-15s with My Little Pony and Hello Kitty decor, which doesn’t make them any less dangerous.
Total supply jumped from about 74,000 in 1990, to over two million in circulation by 2016!
Some people hold these weapons as collectors items. Some claim they intend to use them for self-defense, which is not their purpose, and not a credible goal, since they shoot so quickly and indiscriminately that a shooter can quickly kill many other nearby people other than the putative attacker. Meanwhile, some of the worst shooting sprees in the U.S.—and thus the world—use AR-15s.
The Second Amendment is Real, but Irrelevant Here
As a lawyer and legal reporter, I get plenty of questions about the Constitution. Our rule of law requires respecting the Constitution, whether you agree with it or not. There are controversial rulings people oppose—like the courts finding that the First Amendment protects flag burning, or the Second Amendment protects handguns. People indignantly ask, “Does that make sense?” or “Is that what the Founding Fathers really had in mind?”
But those issues don’t even apply here.
The Second Amendment does not protect assault weapons, period.
They can be banned anytime, just like grenades.
They were banned before.
As America faces one of the highest murder rates in decades, and tries to rebound from this march of death during the pandemic, isn’t keeping weapons of war off the streets a valid place to start?
P.S. Do you have any personal experience with America’s unique and intense gun culture? I grew up in a house with shotguns. What’s your experience, and do you think Americans are growing more attached to weaponry and gun culture? Leave a comment and I’ll respond to some of them:
Hi Ari. We did not have guns in our home growing up. Not sure if this has anything to do with anything, but my parents were European, and they never bought into the American gun culture. I don’t think they understood it. And I sure don’t. But a couple of years ago, at a family dinner, my nephew was so excited to surprise me with something. He took my hand and proudly led me to a room with a hidden safe. He opened it, and to my horror, inside were several, legally purchased what I think are machine guns. Nausea and sadness set in. He couldn’t understand my reaction as much as I couldn’t understand his pride and need to have these. Politically, we are worlds apart, and on gun control (which should not be political and is not always political), we are too.
How do we change this culture? Even if we have stricter gun control measures, how do we change people’s desire for, need for, obsession with guns?
My dad had a gun cabinet and I hunted as a kid. I also played duck hunt on my Nintendo (!!!). Today, when I see the video games and violence we expose kids to on TV it takes my breath away. I work on international crimes -many of which involve intentional violence perpetrated on a massive scale - the reality is that guns in the stream of commerce increase the lethality of intencional violence. We need to take guns - especially the most lethal ones - out of the stream of commerce to reduce gun violence and intentional killings and stop normalizing and even glorifying violence. Oh, and COVID has exposed and exacerbated the mental health crisis in the US, a crisis that we have increasingly leaned on the criminal legal system to address - which, of course, is inadequate. Our regulation of guns must also ensure that individuals struggling with mental health issues do not possess or otherwise have access to firearms.