I was attending a function in Vienna, Austria, in the early 1990s and during a casual conversation with some functionary or other, the gentleman asked if I was from America. I said yes. He paused, then said he had considered visiting America with his family, but decided against it, because America was “so violent.” At the time, I thought his perception of my country was an overreaction. Not anymore.
It seems that every morning I am assailed by the news of yet another shooting; a mass shooting at a parade or school, or hospital, or a person shooting someone who came to the wrong door, or drove into the wrong drive, or whose basketball rolled into a neighbor’s yard, or someone angered by the noise of a neighbor’s leaf blower, shooting him — a danger not included on the leaf blower’s warning label.
The gun death rate in the U.S. is much higher than in most other nations, particularly developed nations. Tragically, the rate of children killed in gun violence in America far exceeds that of peer countries. No wonder people decide to spend their vacations elsewhere. Governments of other countries have taken to warning their citizens about travel to the U.S., “There’s a risk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” No kidding!
There are more guns in America (~400m) than there are people, and too many people with guns who shouldn’t have them. There are a lot of reasons given by those opposing restrictions on the ownership of firearms. In my opinion, none of them warrant risking our children being eviscerated by a .223 cartridge traveling at 3000 ft/sec, especially not concern about angering the NRA.
I’m sorry if the word “eviscerated” disturbs you. I’m quoting what trauma surgeons who’ve treated victims of such shootings, have said. Let’s not go into detail.
Instead, let’s examine the reasons my Republican state senator gave me for opposing the recently-passed bill (HB-1240) banning certain assault-style firearms. He said: (1) banning a particular firearm won’t make a “meaningful difference” until we address the “root cause” of violence; and (2) the law will be overturned in any case, because "it’s unconstitutional."
On the senator’s first point, perhaps you’ll remember that Republicans blocked research and funding into gun violence in 1996 and it stood for more than 2 decades. It was only in 2018 that the FY2020 federal budget included $25 million for the CDC and NIH to research gun-related deaths and injuries. Republicans blocked that, too. In 2021, gun violence in the U.S. was estimated to cost $280 billion annually. That should tell you the relative worth to Republicans of learning why our friends, and neighbors, and kids are being shot with such dreadful frequency.
While we’re waiting for our Republican leaders to do a “deep dive” into the root causes of gun violence, let’s take an educated guess at the primary cause of gun deaths — guns.
Yes, despite the banal claim by the NRA that, “Guns don’t kill people…,” in fact they do, or more accurately, people with guns kill people. The more people that have guns, and the more lethal the guns are, and the more permissive gun laws are, the more people are going to be killed by guns.
Studies have demonstrated that states with weak gun laws experience significantly more gun deaths. Children and teenagers are the most at risk, although according to a study by the Violence Policy Center, 25% of police killed in the line of duty were killed by an assault weapon. This is why the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) — the world’s largest professional association for police leaders — has been a strong supporter of the assault weapons ban since 1992.
My state senator’s claim that, “banning assault-style weapons won’t make a meaningful difference,” is baloney. He can’t know that unless he could transport to a parallel universe where the U.S. kept the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban in place (after its sunset clause expired in 2004), and never banned gun violence research.
On his Second Point, I fear my state senator might be right. The Supreme Court’s recent Bruen Decision, authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, was said to be based on an historical analysis of regulations in the 18th and 19th centuries. Thomas wrote that judges should no longer consider whether the law serves public interests, like enhancing public safety (my emphasis), but only if it is consistent with the country’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
As you ponder the Thomas Ruling ruling, please do a thought experiment and imagine what sort man-portable firearm might be available to individual Americans in say 2100, and then consider how the “right to bear arms” might be “infringed” at that time.
The M41A Pulse Rifle is an air cooled, fully automatic, short- to mid-range combat rifle. Made of light alloy plates, it fires 10x24mm Armor Piercing Caseless Rounds from a 100 round U-bend magazine in either semi automatic, four round burst, or fully automatic rates of fire. The magazines could only practically hold 99 rounds and were usually underloaded to 95% capacity to avoid jamming. The Pulse rifle has a small battery powered digital readout screen that displays number of rounds left in the magazine; the battery is located in the handgrip. With a retractable stock and an underslung 30 mm PN grenade launcher, this weapon can be used as a carbine and an assault rifle.
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