Outgrowing the Guns

My dad was raised a Midwestern hunter and military man and had quite a few guns, which he had me trained to use at our local firing range. In the NRA-sponsored Junior Marksman course, I was drilled not only in shooting rifles and pistols but in taking them apart and cleaning them, and especially in gun safety - a careless wave of a barrel could get one slapped across the head in a manner likely illegal now.  When really young Pop even dressed me in combat fatigues, with toy weapons, including an automatic “tommy gun.” My friends and I “played army” a lot, staging fantasy battles we always won, without losing blood. But a bit later we actually used loaded BB guns and I had a rare double-barreled BB rifle with which I shot out my best friend’s two front teeth (he later sliced my fingers nearly off with a sharp knife so we called it even).

Luckily for me and maybe others, I outgrew guns before any more serious damage was done, other than to the “clay pigeons “ I also blew apart with a shotgun the last few times I went shooting. I didn’t really judge those who kept shooting, but I didn’t really want to be around them - especially when the booze and other drugs were flowing, which was commonly the case. As I grew older and read more about the world, outrage over war seemed right to me, but mainly I had much more fun things to do than loudly blast cans and targets - and certainly not animals, as I rejected that from the start.  In casual chats with my military-contractor dad about whether I would have enlisted if there was still a draft, I half-jokingly said “Maybe, but only in the Coast Guard in Big Sur,” and he just laughed. Later yet, when I told him I’d (futilely) marched the streets to protest the impending Iraq invasion, he almost seemed to approve, as, even though a lifelong Republican, he referred to George W. Bush as “a village idiot.” He would have had much harsher words for Trump.

America, though, hasn’t abandoned guns, as we know. Much to the contrary. Increasing ongoing slaughter reminds us of that.  By the time I got into a career in public health it was clear gun violence was an epidemiological problem that, like say infectious diseases, could be confronted with proven interventions. But that also, such healthy policies have long been thwarted by gun lobbies, representing companies profiting from selling guns and ammunition, and the politicians they donate to.

Most gun owners are responsible about it. Hunters, though a dwindling breed, are usually among the most safety-conscious gun owners. As it turns out, most gun owners aren’t fooled by the likes of the NRA, which was radicalized and corrupted in the 1970s, and support proven gun regulations. Few actually fear the “gun-grabbing” or “tyranny” specter promulgated by extremists. And only a seriously deluded few believe they could fight off the US military in the name of “freedom.”

The much-debated Second Amendment does have limits, as even the late Justice Scalia wrote in his 2008 Heller ruling upholding it: “Nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

The evidence is unequivocal that guns means more gun violence. This essential documented dynamic is true in the home, where guns actually increase the risk of accidental shootings and suicide, and in our streets and schools as we are so tragically regularly reminded. But gun fanatics have opposed even home safety measures; When I worked with the California Academy of Pediatrics to recommend safe storage of guns at home, we were called “gun grabbers” and “pro-criminal” for even raising such commonsense practices. But gun use for self-defense and “a good guy with a gun” saving others are so rare as to be mythical. What they are is pro-gun propaganda.

Gun regulation can and does work, given a real chance, and where it is in place and enforced there are less shootings. Even though guns travel freely in our nation, states and locales with stricter gun laws have less gun violence. And where violence does occur, it’s much less lethal without guns present - on the same day as one American mass shooting where many died, a Chinese man attacked a school with a knife, also injuring dozens - but none died.  It was almost like a macabre scientific study to demonstrate how much more lethal guns are.

Now we have seemingly constant mass shootings, and those are really the tip of the bloody iceberg. What can help? Keeping in mind that most any gun regulations require many years to truly have a lasting impact, likely even decades to truly decrease harm by slowly changing American gun culture, here are a few essentials:

• Background checks, waiting periods, higher age limits, and disqualifying those with mental health or crime problems. 
• Licensing and insurance requirements at least as strict as those for driving.
• Banning military-style weaponry such as the AR-15 rifles used in most mass shootings. 
• Legal liability for those who provide weapons, from manufacturers to sellers to parents and more.  This would make gun profiteers think twice and decrease the bloody free-market American anarchy few if any other nations suffer from.
• Taxes on guns and ammunition to help deter high purchases and to cover gun-related health and other costs.
• Reality-based gun safety education in schools, to counter all the pro-gun and fear-mongering propaganda Americans are exposed to.

Does anybody think all these will “solve” America’s gun carnage? With more guns than people here - although much of that due to a relatively small percentage of gun owners with big arsenals - obviously not.  But the whole package of policies, over extended time, could and likely would have a positive impact, “denormalizing” gun violence, even making guns less “cool” for many, much as a concerted effort has done with tobacco use. As with that once “impossible “ campaign, we surely could save many lives and injuries, and if those were among somebody you knew and cared about, you’d want these changes. We can’t let the minority of extremists continue to determine the status quo. We must vote their craven cowardly politicians out.

If even I, an All-American boy steeped in gun culture in my impressionable youth, can outgrow the love of guns, perhaps our nation can too. Violent crime overall has been significantly declining for decades here. If we can remove guns from the equation whenever possible, it’s a good bet that we’d have a lot less suffering in our future, including fewer murdered children and teachers. Seems worth it to me.