My heart broke again this afternoon when I read that a three-year old in SC died after mistaking a pink, loaded handgun for a toy (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/toddler-dies-playing-pink-gun-mistaken-toy-article-1.1256597).
I made the mistake and read some of the comments. The same old, same old. The parents are to blame. They were "irresponsible" gun owners. Any responsible gun owner would NEVER keep a gun where a child could get it. They should be prosecuted, blah, blah, blah. But assuming that the gun was purchased legally, the parents were being responsible, by the NRA's standards, for keeping a gun in their home to protect them from the bogey man and jack-booted government thugs.
Sometimes it seems as if the NRA has such a strangle hold on our public policy and collective psyche that we will never make any headway on this issue. But then I think of the big tobacco battles of the 1990s. Those seemed impossible. I was an idealistic, newly minted, public health advocate back then. I worked with the folks on the front lines of the tobacco wars. It seemed like we would never break the tobacco industry's grip on our nation's health - no matter how many studies were conducted, no matter how many law suits were filed, the tobacco lobby was too strong.
But inch by inch, the American public has begun to reclaim it's health from an industry bent on destroying it. We have regulated the hell out of cigarettes. You can't smoke in most restaurants and clubs anymore. Try lighting up in an airplane. You'll get quite a reception when you land. Smoking cessation counseling is a routine part of primary health care. School health programs preach about the dangers of smoking to kids. We tax and tax cigarettes.
The result? Smoking rates in the U.S. have been dropping consistently from year to year. States such as California have achieved record lows in the rates of adult smoking. They've also see drops in rates of heart disease, lung cancer, and other smoking-related illnesses. http://www.cdph.ca.gov/Pages/NR11-031.aspx
And guess what - we have not BANNED cigarettes!!!! You can't smoke anywhere or anytime you want. It may be uncomfortable or inconvenient for you to suck on that cancer stick, but you can still smoke your life away if you want. But you're not going to be endangering my health or the health of my children any more.
Maybe it's time to revisit the tobacco wars and see what strategies we can adapt to the gun wars. Maybe we start by teaching young children what bullets do to human flesh (who remembers seeing the diseased lung in science class?). Maybe state Attorneys General start prosecuting manufacturers for marketing guns to children (pink guns, really? It's like the fruit-flavored cigarettes they tried to sell in the 90s). Maybe we put more money into public health research into the prevention of gun violence. Maybe a public education campaign like The Truth Campaign (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448237/) to fight the bogus claims of gun safety promoted by the NRA (which is the gun manufacturers' version of the Tobacco Research Institute).
Maybe, just maybe we can save some lives and you'll be able to keep your guns too.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
It's time for the gun lobby to find some new arguements
I am SICK AND TIRED of "gun rights" people making straw man arguments about SENSIBLE gun control policies. The latest screeds I've been reading on Facebook and Twitter are using the examples of the decorated navy sniper being shot dead at the gun range by another veteran and the ongoing hostage situation in Alabama in which a Viet Nam veteran killed a bus driver, kidnapped a 5 year old boy and is holding him hostage in an underground bunker as examples of why gun control policies don't work.
I am hearing "gun rights" folks crowing with thinly veiled glee that these tragedies disprove gun control supporters' arguments that only the military and police should be allowed to own guns. See! See! We need our guns to protect us from a dangerous, tyrannical army! See! See! Our military can't be trusted with guns!
Apparently these "gun rights" folks need a vocabulary lesson and a better understanding of chronology. See, these shooters weren't military. They were VETERANS. Miriam Webster's dictionary defines a veteran as a FORMER member of the armed forces. "Former" means "a : coming before in time; b : of, relating to, or occurring in the past." I know, it's a difficult concept to grasp. Let me see if i can explain explain it: someone who is CURRENT military is actually in the armed forces RIGHT NOW. Someone who is FORMER military used to be in the armed forces but isn't anymore.
But would gun control policies have been able to prevent these tragedies? I don't know, but let's suppose for just a minute that we had some serious gun control policies in place. Let's imagine for a moment that we required anyone owning a firearm NOT have a criminal record of firearms abuse (like unlawfully brandishing a firearm or using a firearm to threaten bodily harm to his neighbors) or violence (like beating a dog to death with a metal pipe), then MAYBE the old guy in Alabama may have lost his right to own a gun. Maybe, just maybe, that INNOCENT 5 year old wouldn't be in that bunker right now.
"But he could have just bought a gun at a gun show or from a private seller'" argue the gun lovers. Well, let's imagine that we require that ALL gun sales, private sales and gun shows included, require a background check and that all gun sales be registered with a law enforcement agency. It sure would have made it a hell of a lot harder for the old coot to get a gun.
But then the gun "advocates" bring up the brilliant argument that he could have just gotten a gun on the black market or stolen one. After all - only the good guys obey the law. Seriously guys, you are joking, right? You do see the holes in this logic? Holes big enough to drive a tank-mounted Howitzer through? Following your logic we should throw out the laws about rape, since only non-rapists will obey them. Let's get rid of drunk driving laws because only people who know better than to drink and drive will obey them. And let's forget about making murder illegal since only non-murders will obey them. Seriously guys - you gotta give up the ghost on that argument. It just makes you look ignorant and desperate.
Now back to the killing on the gun range. I won't argue the logic about taking someone with combat-related PTSD to a gun range to unwind and blow off steam. Exposure therapy is a valid way to treat PTSD but I can think of some safer ways to treat it than to hand the patient a loaded weapon - like maybe using blanks or a video simulation. And exposure therapy really should be handled by a licensed psychiatrist in a controlled setting. But second guessing these guys' judgement aside, let's imagine that we had gun laws that required anyone wanting to handle live ammo at a shooting range to present a current and valid license to operate a firearm. And let's imagine that that getting said license is tied to a real-time criminal and mental health background check. Maybe that vet with a diagnosis of PTSD wouldn't have been handed a loaded weapon that he then used to kill the man who was trying to help him. I mean seriously, if my 7 year old daughter has to have a valid fishing license to use her Barbie fishing pole which couldn't even bag a goldfish, is it too much too ask that someone have a valid firearms license before using a weapon that could kill a couple of dozen people?
"Well maybe they would have gone to a empty field to shoot at bottles and the same thing would have happened." Yep. And the rapist will still rape and the thief will still steal. Does that mean that we don't try to stop them? Or do we just keep things as they are until we can't walk out the front door with out stepping over the bodies of those whom you've sacrificed on the alter of the 2nd Amendment?
You guys are right about one thing though. It is time to stand up against tyranny - the tyranny of the gun lobby and the tyranny of the gun nuts who feel that their right to own a weapon of mass destruction out weighs our rights to free speech and our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I am hearing "gun rights" folks crowing with thinly veiled glee that these tragedies disprove gun control supporters' arguments that only the military and police should be allowed to own guns. See! See! We need our guns to protect us from a dangerous, tyrannical army! See! See! Our military can't be trusted with guns!
Apparently these "gun rights" folks need a vocabulary lesson and a better understanding of chronology. See, these shooters weren't military. They were VETERANS. Miriam Webster's dictionary defines a veteran as a FORMER member of the armed forces. "Former" means "a : coming before in time; b : of, relating to, or occurring in the past." I know, it's a difficult concept to grasp. Let me see if i can explain explain it: someone who is CURRENT military is actually in the armed forces RIGHT NOW. Someone who is FORMER military used to be in the armed forces but isn't anymore.
But would gun control policies have been able to prevent these tragedies? I don't know, but let's suppose for just a minute that we had some serious gun control policies in place. Let's imagine for a moment that we required anyone owning a firearm NOT have a criminal record of firearms abuse (like unlawfully brandishing a firearm or using a firearm to threaten bodily harm to his neighbors) or violence (like beating a dog to death with a metal pipe), then MAYBE the old guy in Alabama may have lost his right to own a gun. Maybe, just maybe, that INNOCENT 5 year old wouldn't be in that bunker right now.
"But he could have just bought a gun at a gun show or from a private seller'" argue the gun lovers. Well, let's imagine that we require that ALL gun sales, private sales and gun shows included, require a background check and that all gun sales be registered with a law enforcement agency. It sure would have made it a hell of a lot harder for the old coot to get a gun.
But then the gun "advocates" bring up the brilliant argument that he could have just gotten a gun on the black market or stolen one. After all - only the good guys obey the law. Seriously guys, you are joking, right? You do see the holes in this logic? Holes big enough to drive a tank-mounted Howitzer through? Following your logic we should throw out the laws about rape, since only non-rapists will obey them. Let's get rid of drunk driving laws because only people who know better than to drink and drive will obey them. And let's forget about making murder illegal since only non-murders will obey them. Seriously guys - you gotta give up the ghost on that argument. It just makes you look ignorant and desperate.
Now back to the killing on the gun range. I won't argue the logic about taking someone with combat-related PTSD to a gun range to unwind and blow off steam. Exposure therapy is a valid way to treat PTSD but I can think of some safer ways to treat it than to hand the patient a loaded weapon - like maybe using blanks or a video simulation. And exposure therapy really should be handled by a licensed psychiatrist in a controlled setting. But second guessing these guys' judgement aside, let's imagine that we had gun laws that required anyone wanting to handle live ammo at a shooting range to present a current and valid license to operate a firearm. And let's imagine that that getting said license is tied to a real-time criminal and mental health background check. Maybe that vet with a diagnosis of PTSD wouldn't have been handed a loaded weapon that he then used to kill the man who was trying to help him. I mean seriously, if my 7 year old daughter has to have a valid fishing license to use her Barbie fishing pole which couldn't even bag a goldfish, is it too much too ask that someone have a valid firearms license before using a weapon that could kill a couple of dozen people?
"Well maybe they would have gone to a empty field to shoot at bottles and the same thing would have happened." Yep. And the rapist will still rape and the thief will still steal. Does that mean that we don't try to stop them? Or do we just keep things as they are until we can't walk out the front door with out stepping over the bodies of those whom you've sacrificed on the alter of the 2nd Amendment?
You guys are right about one thing though. It is time to stand up against tyranny - the tyranny of the gun lobby and the tyranny of the gun nuts who feel that their right to own a weapon of mass destruction out weighs our rights to free speech and our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
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