No Silver Bullet
“The last decade has filled so many of us with a growing sense of unreality. Even before the pandemic arrived, we were trapped in a grind of constant change without ever getting the chance to integrate it. Those rolling new cycles, the chatter on social media, the way that our families split along partisan lines, it feels as if we’ve undergone a halving, then a quartering, and now we are some kind of social rubble. If there were a spirit of this age it would look a lot like fear.” —Katherine May
“Something is dying inside the soul of this nation.” —U.S. Senator Chris Murphy
*****
The current stalemate in the U.S. about gun safety scares me. It's tempting to cite statistics about what gun violence is doing to the bodies, minds, and hearts of Americans, especially our children. However, if statistics could help, they would have done so by now. That reality makes me feel not just scared, but also angry, frustrated, and yes, sometimes hopeless. These strong emotions have changed how I think, feel, and move through the hours, days, and weeks of my life.
For example, I never used to think twice about walking into a grocery, big box, or other retail store. I never worried about going to a movie, mall, or parade. The safety of my grown children at work or my grandchildren at school never crossed my mind. I’m not a particularly anxious or fearful person. Yet all these things now give me pause, much as someone living with an abusive spouse or parent might carefully weigh what they say and do to avoid being hurt.
When a six-year-old shoots his teacher in class, something is wrong. When the American Academy of Pediatrics reports that gun violence has been the number one killer of children and teens since 2020, something is terribly wrong. An expert on children and gun safety, Dr. Lois Lee from Boston Children’s Hospital, says it better:
The problem of gun safety and children is not only not going away, it’s getting worse. Each year, over 10,000 U.S. children and teens are killed from firearms, and those are just the deaths. That is a school bus driving off a cliff every three days. If there was a school bus of children driving off a cliff every three days, the community would be outraged. We would rally around and figure out how to make the situation safer. How do you put in guard rails, how do you protect the bus, how do you protect the children? Right now, we’re not doing that. We are literally letting those children drive off the cliff every three days.
A recently retired schoolteacher told me that “stay safe” drills, once practiced in relation to a tornado, fire or an unsafe stranger in the building must now, by district mandate, be called “active shooter” drills. This creates anxiety and fear in her students that “stay safe” drills rarely did. That anxiety invariably leads to more absences, the need for more comfort “stuffies,” more disruptive behavior, more trips to the school counselor.
Other symptoms of emotional distress in her students include questions such as: “What if I am in the bathroom when the shooter comes? What if the door our class is supposed to exit from is the one where the shooter is waiting? What if the shooter kills you—who will protect us?” Learning is undermined repeatedly in this and other ways, not the least of which is a mandated video that follows the drill. “Someone needs to evaluate the opportunity costs of what we are doing and how we are doing it,” this teacher told me. “Our children are being traumatized. It will take years to fully realize the mental and emotional fallout of what is happening today. Drills and No Guns Allowed Signs on every door are not a plan.”
(Sadly, as I write this, several more shootings have taken place around the country—more shootings than there are days in the year so far. It seems I can’t write fast enough to get ahead of them…).
I know others feel differently. They fear having their guns taken away, government overreach, of not being able to protect themselves, their families, or their property. Few seem willing or able to consider that some of their valid and important concerns about issues such as border security and crime are being exploited and manipulated to serve a larger political agenda they may not fully understand or support.
I also listen carefully to arguments about “good guys with guns” and look for data to support the notion that more good guys with guns will make Americans safer from gun violence. I learned that while I would be relieved and grateful if a properly trained good guy with a gun intervened to protect me or someone else from harm, such instances are rare. AP News reported last summer that, according to the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center (ALERRT) at Texas State University “from 2000 to 2021, fewer than 3% of 433 active attacks in the U.S. ended with a civilian firing back.”
On April 12, 2023, the Las Vegas Sun News reported that:
…three times as many mass shooters have been stopped by unarmed civilians as have been stopped by armed ‘good guys with guns.’ And bad guys with guns are almost nine times as likely to shoot themselves as they are to be shot by an armed civilian or good Samaritan.
“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” is technically true. That’s why safety measures such as universal, loophole-free background checks, well-crafted red flag laws, waiting periods, minimum age purchase requirements, and gun safety and storage training are proposed for people who own guns—not for the guns themselves. “Guns are simple, reliable tools for killing. A man with a gun and plenty of ammunition can kill more people, more quickly and with far less physical effort that he can with a knife, a blunt object, or his bare hands” (The Economist). Although we can’t always do something about every weapon a person might use—a bomb, for example, or people driving a vehicle into a crowd (called truck or car ramming)—experts around the country believe there are numerous ways to prevent many instances of gun violence without violating the Second Amendment.
“Criminals don’t follow the law,” so more laws are not the answer some claim. However, when Everytown for Gun Safety scored every state on the strength of its gun laws and compared it with the rate of gun violence in that state, it was clear that “in states where elected officials have taken action to pass gun safety laws, fewer people die by gun violence.”
Then there are Permitless Carry laws, now legal in some form in 26 states. Proponents prefer the term “Constitutional Carry,” which is misleading: the Constitution clearly includes the words “well-regulated.” Permitless Carry is an attempt to convince Americans that increasing the number of people with guns, regardless of the ability to use them responsibly, is the answer to the issue of gun violence. This completely sidesteps the pivotal issue of too easy access to guns. As New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, explained: “…just as some kids will always sneak cigarettes or people will inevitably drive drunk, some criminals will get firearms…we can’t eliminate a dangerous product, [but] we can reduce the toll by regulating who gets access to it.”
I grew up with guns, safely stored, for protection as well as hunting, target practice, or skeet shooting. But something changed since then. In an episode on the podcast Pulling the Thread with Elise Loehnen about the book Gun Fight, author Ryan Busse said:
The NRA and gun owners once signified camaraderie, responsibility, and safety—a bygone Campbell’s soup kind of Americana. I don’t ever remember seeing or hearing about the impending demise of the republic, or how evil every Democrat was, or how we should hate our neighbors or how we should arm ourselves for Civil War or insurrection. That was never part of my upbringing.
There is much speculation about what shifted an entire culture away from guns used for defense and sport toward guns used to defy, intimidate, and control.
Inspired by observations by people such as radio and television host Michael Smerconish about the roots of hyper partisanship in the U.S, the thoughts below emerged. They are less a list of stand-alone possibilities than a series of events and experiences that led me to conclude that collectively, they so alarmed and terrified Americans that we lost our capacity for a reasoned, effective response to a completely different issue: gun violence. In many of these instances, gun sales increased significantly for reasons related to fear of attack or fear of new restrictions on gun purchases, including the possibility of outright bans:
The attacks of September 11, 2001, traumatized the collective psyche of Americans in ways we never acknowledged or perhaps even understood. The shock and fear I and so many others experienced that day is believed by thought leaders such as author and professor Brené Brown to have ushered in a profound and painful panic about our country’s place in the world, our vulnerability, and our future as a nation. “Terrorism is time-released fear,” Brown said.
The Boston Globe’s expose of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church elicited a heartfelt crisis of faith for millions of people. The aftermath, which included widespread revelations of similar abuse in many denominations, created a deeply unsettling and pervasive sense that our country’s most trusted institutions were breaking down in ways that threatened the fabric of life in the U.S.
Cable TV and Radio, newly unhindered by law, unleashed a 24/7 torrent of views that attracted millions of Americans who felt vindicated and understood in ways they hadn’t before. The lucrative ad revenue and popularity of some of its most combative and controversial hosts ensured it a permanent place in the programming lineup. New phrases such as “outrage culture” and “anger-tainment” emerged.
The election of the first black president, Barack Obama. Racism is believed to play a role. However, the president’s position on gun control, before and especially after the killing of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, created a rush to quickly purchase guns and ammunition before any new restrictions could be put in place.
Social Media exploded into the daily life and work of people all over the world. It quickly revealed itself to be an extraordinary influence, both for good and for stoking resentment, hostility, and fear already brewing in the hearts and minds of many Americans.
Covid-19. The global pandemic changed and challenged people all over the world in ways never experienced before.This included overwhelming anxiety related to contracting the virus and possibly dying, exposing loved ones, losing jobs, fears about the safety of getting or not getting the vaccine, confusing mask and other health mandates, and more. Fear-based conspiracy theories skyrocketed.
Consider that between and among all the above are the ongoing, seemingly intractable issues related to climate change, war, drugs, the shrinking middle class, bullying, violent video games, the national debt, child abuse, domestic violence, anti-Semitism, race and class disparities, food insecurity, the future of Social Security and Medicare, and the rising cost of health care, housing, and college tuition. In the last few weeks, several train derailments have taken place, and Chinese spy balloons were caught flying over the U.S. collecting intelligence information. More recently, I watched a television interview with two engineers who specialize in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Apparently, AI may not only replace many of us on the job, it also has the potential to destroy the entire human race within just a few years!
Americans can never buy, beg, or steal enough guns to make us strong enough to counteract the weakness of a country whose leaders prefer arguing about or ignoring issues instead of fixing them. One bright spot is the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act gun safety bill, signed by President Joe Biden in June 2022. “This bill will not end the epidemic of gun violence overnight,” said Senator Chris Murphy, who led the negotiations between Republicans and Democrats. “But it is substantial, it is significant. It will save lives, and it will provide us the momentum to be able to make further changes.”
I wasn’t surprised when a new report from Mental Health America entitled The State of Mental Health in America 2023 revealed disturbing truths about the current state of mental health, addiction, and access to treatment in the U.S. But to better understand the relationship, if any, between mental health and gun violence, I went to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) website. In a statement on gun violence from 60 national organizations, I learned that:
Attempts to connect mental illness to mass shootings….perpetuates a false narrative that encourages stigmatization and discrimination against the millions of Americans living with mental health conditions who are more likely to be victims of gun violence than perpetrators of it…While mental health conditions are common in countries across the globe, the United States is the only country where mass shootings have become disturbingly commonplace…Not coincidentally, the U.S. is also alone in making firearms widely available with few restrictions.
The statement goes on to call gun violence a public health crisis, a call I read again and again as I dove deeper into the issue. I learned that the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the American Psychiatric Association have for years advocated for a public health approach. A recent article in the Orlando Sentinel by journalist Caroline Catherman included their joint statement:
Gun violence should be considered a public health issue, not a political one—an epidemic that needs to be addressed with research and evidence-based strategies that can reduce morbidity and mortality.
Advocates for a public health approach to gun violence, says Catherman, often cite the decades-long public health campaign to reduce motor vehicle deaths in the U.S. as a model. That campaign decreased deaths nearly 80% from 1967 to 2017.
Each firearm-related injury and death leaves a trail of destruction, contagion, post-traumatic stress, future injury, and lost wages behind. We must meet this challenge by approaching firearm injury as a public health epidemic, rather than a debate about gun rights or control.
All this research led me to consider that if some of us are hard wired to assuage fear and anxiety by shopping, overeating, drinking, smoking, gambling, or any number of other ways, perhaps others are compelled to buy or steal—and perhaps stockpile—guns, especially big guns, which I imagine provide an illusion of safety and control that our regular lives no longer seem to offer. It feels like the “fight” part of what psychologist’s call a “fight, flight, or freeze” response when we sense a significant threat, real or imagined, to our physical, mental, or emotional health.
What, I wondered, is the firearm industry doing to help address gun violence today in the U.S.? In terms of safety, the Firearm Industry Trade Association website states:
NSSF goes on to state that in 2022, the industry created, directly or indirectly, more than 375,000 jobs that generated more than $21 billion in wages for a total economic impact of more than $70 billion. They go on to note that:
However, the role of funding and oversight cannot be ignored. “The Gun Industry in America: The Overlooked Player in a National Crisis,” on the Center for American Progress website explains:
…largely absent from the conversation about gun violence is any mention of the industry responsible for putting guns into our communities in the first place…The gun industry in the United States is effectively unregulated. The federal agency charged with oversight of the industry—the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)—has been historically underfunded and politically vulnerable, making it nearly impossible for the agency to conduct consistent, effective regulatory oversight activities….Efforts to reduce gun violence…ignore the role of the gun industry—manufacturers, importers, wholesalers, and retail gun dealers—in manufacturing and distributing the guns that are the instruments of this violence. [They] make decisions that affect the kinds of guns and ammunitions that are made and sold, the safety features included on those guns, the commercial channels in which they are sold, and the safeguards in place at the point of sale to prevent gun trafficking and theft.
So, what does loving well look like in the face of a nationwide impasse as dire and deadly as gun violence? How can I make a difference?
First, I can pray. As someone once said, “You can often do more than pray, but never until you’ve prayed.” While thoughts and prayers alone may not be enough to reduce gun violence in the U.S., prayer, for me, is the most solid and trustworthy foundation on which to build all that might follow.
Second, I can contact my local, state, and federal representatives and express my concerns and the changes I want to see regarding gun safety. Local representatives can be found on most county and state websites. Federal representatives are listed at congress.gov. To reach the U.S. Capital switchboard, call (202)-224-3121.
Third, I can vote. Emotionally intelligent, responsible leadership is critical to ensuring that the world I leave my children and grandchildren is one where they are as safe as possible. I have never been a single-issue voter. However, a candidate’s position, priorities, and plans regarding gun violence now must align with my own to get my vote. If there is no such candidate on the ballot, I will write in the name of the person I believe is best suited for the position. Even if that person stands no chance of winning, I will, in the words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, “Do it anyway.” As such, I will have voted my conscience and taken a stand for a process that, imperfect as it may be, is a hallmark of the Democracy that fellow Americans died to support, protect, and defend.
Finally, as Mr. Fred Rogers instructed confused, upset children (and adults) in the chaos following 9/11, I can look for the helpers and share the information that I find. I did, and I feel more hopeful. Their passion and perseverance are often borne of devastating personal experience with gun violence. They are what leadership consultant Margaret Wheatley might call islands of sanity— “leaders who use their power and influence, their insight and compassion, to lead people back to an understanding of who we are as human beings….”
The national organizations below are working diligently to change the alarming trajectory of gun violence in the U.S. Many have state or local chapters. Together, they eventually will succeed in making America safer from gun violence.
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
American Public Health Foundation
National Alliance on Mental Illness
National Network to End Domestic Violence
Whatever else it may be, America’s gun safety stalemate feels first and foremost like a crisis of spirit, vision, identity, and meaning. I would argue that we must acknowledge that the rapid-fire and seismic events of the last twenty plus years led to an unprecedented and cumulative level of fear and mistrust that may yet destroy the U.S. from within. As Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa once said, “We cannot change the way the world is, but by opening to the world as it is we may discover that gentleness, decency, and bravery are available not only to us, but to all human beings.”
I am still afraid, and many others are, too. Be that as it may, I believe that every right, Constitutional and otherwise, comes with a responsibility to exercise it with accountable, respectful attention to the health, safety, and well-being of others. The Second Amendment is no exception. Regulation of guns that limit terrorizing, injuring, and killing more than 300 people each day is critical to ending the barrage of senseless gun violence in the U.S.
Loving well requires nothing less.
Questions
Advocates on both sides use slogans such as “Your gun, your crime” or “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” to summarize their position as quickly, succinctly, and persuasively as possible. How effective are these slogans? Do they help or hinder efforts to move the conversation forward?
What are the implications of other language used to talk about gun violence—gun “safety” vs gun “control,” for example?
Many gun advocates point out that much of the violence involving guns can be prevented with inexpensive and easily available gun safety locks combined with proper storage. Where should personal accountability end and government intervention begin?