I'd like to say this is not about
blame. But it is. And the vast portion of that blame lies with the
United States Congress, the remainder goes to our state legislatures
and the president. Job One is to make us feel secure in our daily
lives. Remember the Constitution? Way, way before the Second
Amendment, four years before it in the Preamble to be exact, we set
out our intentions in creating these United States to “insure
domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the
general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and
our Posterity.” At minimum, these promises should mean we can send
our loved ones off to school or work, the front porch or their
bedrooms confident that they are safer than if we sent them off to
war. Congress talks a lot about national security, but the worst
threat to our national security is not at the hands of jihadists, but
in the hands of our neighbors, friends and relatives.
As horrifying and tragic as it is, I'd
like to say it's just about the nine innocents who were shot and
killed Thursday or the 20 sweet souls that were lost in Sandy Hook
elementary school. Or the 135 school shootings since Sandy Hook, less
than three years ago. But it's not. It's about the day-in, day-out
carnage by firearms in America: 88 a day; 33,200 in 2013 in the
“greatest country on earth.” Drive-by shootings, police
shootings; police being shot, domestic violence shootings,
crime-related shootings, suicides, accidental shootings. More
Americans have died from firearms-related deaths since 1968
(1,516,863) than in all of the wars we have fought since the
Revolution (1,396,773).
Why is that? What can we do about it?
How do we staunch the epidemic of bloodletting? Is there a member of
Congress (or state legislatures, county commissioners courts or city
councils) out there willing to say, “America can't fix this.” or
“We can fix this, but we won't.”? If not, there simply are no
excuses. Fix it. Work hard. Do not commit another official act until
you can promise yourself and us that protecting domestic tranquility
is more important than getting re-elected. Do not adjourn until you
at least gain a consensus that you have the will to commit your best
thought, your best cooperation, your most altruistic, ethical, moral
leadership, every resource at your disposal to making America safe
from gun deaths.
How have we approached other threats to
the life and safety of Americans?
In 2014, just eight days after the
first of two Ebola deaths in the United States, the U.S Congress
convened hearings on how everyone – from private health
organizations, the Centers for Disease Control and others in U.S.
Government – handled the case and a handful of subsequent cases.
They called in experts: Medical doctors and other scientists; disease
vector specialists; infection control experts. They looked at
protocols that worked well. They held the feet of government agencies
to the fire about how they had gone about doing their jobs. They held
private companies and individuals accountable for their actions.
Everyone got the message: You are
expected to rise to the challenge in whatever piece of the puzzle is
yours to figure out. Because of that we have new protocols and
resources, not just for handling Ebola, but a huge array of known and
even unknown infectious diseases. Dallas is soon to complete both an
adult and a pediatric unit capable of treating Ebola or pandemic flu
victims without exposing health care workers or other patients to
disease.
Because we took intelligent action, all
of our communities are safer today.
So the question is, why don't we apply
the same information-driven, problem-solving, responsibility-
accepting approach to dramatically reducing firearms related deaths
in this country? It is a much harder and more complicated issue and
we are far advanced into the epidemic. Is our country so paralyzed by
partisanship it can no longer solve complex problems?
If we are to prevent more than 32,000
senseless deaths a year, we have to stop being greedy, posturing,
simplistic or nonsensical. To solve a problem, we must honestly
assess what we know as fact. More people are killed by civilian owned
firearms in the U.S. every year than in any other country in the
world. In 2013, guns killed twice as many people in the U.S. than
terrorists killed worldwide. The U.S. gun murder rate is 20 times the
average of the other 31 developed countries of the world. The United
States has lax laws governing gun ownership, possession and purchase,
and no laws assigning financial responsibility for consequences of
gun violence or requiring gun owner insurance to cover such death and
mayhem. Although the U.S. crime rate is not much higher than that of
other developed countries, the lethality of that crime is much
higher. The U.S. system of health care delivery and access,
particularly mental health, care lags behind that of most other
developed nations.
Figures from gun control advocates and
the NRA agree that there are upwards of 310 million civilian owned
guns in the U.S., with about 10 million added per year. Thus, getting
rid of all guns – whether you're in favor of it or fear it – is
no more possible than deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants.
But there is so much we can do to control what happens with those
weapons and the ammunition that feeds them.
Proposals with merit on the gun control
side including requiring titles or licenses, user safety training,
inspections with periodic renewals, a level of health (criminal and
mental health background checks) and liability insurance for each
gun. Similar measures of background checks and proof of liability
could be applied to ammunition. We should ban sales of handguns,
semi-automatic assault weapons, large-capacity magazines, the latter
two of which were banned between 1994 and 2004. Other countries
require some or all of these measures. Add to that criminal and civil
sanctions for giving a gun to someone who can't pass muster on the
controls and for parents of minors who allow their children
unsupervised access to guns. Repeal the Firearm Owners Protection Act
of 1986, that created the gun show loophole in background checks and
include all sales from any source, including online.
On the people side of the equation, we
need community best practices in how to recognize and help those who
show signs of psychological distress. We need states, counties and
cities to invest in public mental health, mental health officers and
mental health courts; community policing. We need to ensure
information sharing among law enforcement on the local level and
between federal, state and local agencies. Rather than schools
teaching kids how to hide or teachers how to shoot, we can train
older kids in peer counseling; how to safely get help for their
troubled friends. We can improve options for those in danger of
family violence. We can reach out to bullied, marginalized and lonely
kids. We can invest in healthy families.
So Congress, get it together. Stop
distracting with ridiculous stunts like shutting down the government,
holding endless hearings on the deaths of four people in 2012 and
votes to give Americans less health care. There are several private
groups, like Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun
Sense in America, that are developing reliable information and
strategies. Start listening to them as representative of the vast
majority of Americans who want sensible gun control. Stop listening
to those who have a financial interest in keeping gun and ammo sales
high. You are responsible. Stop the bloodshed now.
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