More than one mass shooting, every day of the year

A photo of the Memorial Service for the Santa Clarita victims.

I’ve been meaning to post some links on gun violence, but like with politics these days, it’s hard to keep up. So, I’ll *try* not to pile on too much stuff. But there has been lots of interesting research coming out lately, along with the constant refrain of mass shootings--along with all the other kinds of shootings. 

First, here’s a good overview of school shootings from CNN:

“‘To prevent school shootings, experts agree we need comprehensive and reliable data. Without that research, we’re going blind into a “deadly future,” cautions Mark Rosenberg, who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 20 years and led its gun violence research.

“‘You need those interventions that reduce gun violence and save lives, but that also protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners,” says Rosenberg. “But we don’t know what works … and we’re not looking. That’s the disgrace.’”

Here's a update on what we know about the Santa Clarita school shooter. This is a tragedy for his family, as well as for the families of the victims. It's hard to know what to say. But the information is important. When others dispute the notion that owning guns increases risk for yourself and your community, I don't know how they can ignore stories like this. Guns are dangerous. They shouldn't be treated casually, including when it comes to storage.

A point that I keep pounding is that we should look at more than deaths in assessing the problem of gun violence. For example, the FBI defines a mass shooting as four or more killed. But the recent Santa Clarita shooting resulted in three dead (including the shooter) and three wounded. That’s not a mass shooting? The ongoing costs and scars left on the wounded and the community seem to me understated by the FBI standard—and by the lack of followup in the media—as we all move on to the next mass shooting, which has already happened. Not paying attention to the injured, and the costs they bear, along with society, seems to me to be a big mistake. 

From Vice: “Everytown for Gun Safety found that for every gun-related death in the U.S., another two people hit by gun violence are left injured, maimed, or incapacitated. The societal costs of those life-altering injuries are far-reaching, ranging from the victims' long-term reliance on federal health care services to their permanent exit from the tax-providing workforce.”

By the way, Gun Violence Archive, which includes wounded in its mass-shooting measurement, lists 371 mass shootings in the US so far in 2019. More than one for every day of the year. 

CNN also did this story on survivors of the El Paso shooting:

“It's been three months since the gunman, targeting Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, shattered the well-being of this community. Dozens of survivors are fighting to get their lives back. While they slowly recover from severe physical injuries, many still see the bloodshed in the form of vivid nightmares. They struggle financially because they can't return to work just yet.”

Finally, some good news… I push academic studies because I believe that highly-trained people who study these issues with scientific rigor should be listened to. I think data is important. No study is the final word, but most can shed light on a subject. So, I feel an obligation to share a study that should be welcome by my pro-gun friends. This study shows that gun violence goes down during hunting season. It’s one study, and of course it’s kind of focused on a specialized group, but I think it raises some interesting points. Worth reading.

Update: I recently found that the FBI actually has no category for mass shootings. It has a category for "mass killings" instead, defined as four or more people killed, not counting the assailant. So my statement above is mistaken. I'm curious as to why the FBI hasn't updated the category in a way that better reflects the current circumstances we find ourselves in. Mass shootings have become a near-daily part of our lives, tragically. 

Beto’s Gun-Grab is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things!

Beto is firing up the "ColdDeadHands" brigade.

One of the most controversial statements to come out of the recent Democratic debate in Houston was Beto O’Rourke saying, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We’re not going to allow [those] to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.”

A lot of people were unhappy with this statement, and they might not be who you would think. Yes, gun-rights activists immediately jumped on the statement as confirmation that progressives do indeed want to take away everyone’s guns.

But many who have been arguing in favor of stronger gun control laws also were displeased, to some degree, with Beto’s statement. “Thanks a lot, Beto,” was probably going through a lot of people’s minds. 

For years, we’ve had to deal with the paranoia of gun-rights activists who insist, with little evidence, that Democrats are coming for their guns. I have had many arguments with these folks and they nearly always make a similar charge: “You won’t be happy until all Americans are disarmed,” or some variation of that statement. When they argue with me about gun control, they pretty much assume that I believe that all Americans should give up all their guns.

It doesn’t matter how much I try to correct the record: “I don’t want to take your guns, I just think background checks should cover all purchases,” I say, but they will not listen. They know my real agenda, much better than I do, apparently.

Now Beto has fed their suspicions by saying yes, he wants a program that will take military-style assault rifles away from Americans. He supports a mandatory buyback, instead of a voluntary one, for such weapons. This goes further than most Democrats have gone in the past—and further than the other Dem candidates for the Presidency.

O’Rourke has handed 2^ndAmendment absolutists a hammer with which to pound all Democratic candidates who support gun control, the thinking goes. And the pounding will be relentless.

Sure enough, my most pro-gun Facebook friend recently posted: “If you think that candidate O’Rourke’s opinion on gun control is any different from the other Democratic candidates he faces, you’re being duped.”

Again, the assumption is that what Democrats *really* want is to take away people’s guns. That they march in lockstep. That the gun-control agenda seeks to deny people their rights, not save people’s lives. The pro-gun position on this issue is clear, consistent, and now has new fuel.

But here’s my conclusion about the political dangers of Beto’s willingness to “go there” on this particular issue: It doesn’t matter.

Gun-rights activists are going to say this anyhow. They’ve been saying it. They will continue to say it, no matter how much we protest, or show them evidence that taking away all guns is not our ultimate goal. In this debate, too often, facts don’t matter. Intentions don’t matter. Heck, results don’t even matter.

All we can do is what we always have done: be a voice of reason. Point out that different candidates have different positions. Point out that buybacks of assault weapons have been done in other countries to good effect—and gun violence rates there have dropped. Point out that the focus of most gun control groups has been on background checks and red flag laws—measures that most Americans, most gun owners, and most NRA members actually agree on. And most of all, point out the intolerable cost of continuing to do nothing, while our fellow Americans die on a daily basis.

There is a huge amount of support for reasonable gun control reforms in the United States. We should be glad that this is front and center in our national debate, though we grieve for the incidents that have made it so. This is an issue Democrats have been winning on. They will continue to win on it, because they have the support of the American people, including gun owners.

I believe Beto is sincere about his position on a mandatory buyback. I don’t happen to agree that the policy, as described so far, is the best solution to our gun violence problem. I believe it would be difficult if not impossible to enact a mandatory buyback program, not to mention very expensive. I also note that it’s a very politically expedient position for O’Rourke as well, boosting his stature and popularity in a presidential campaign that had been flagging. All these points can be discussed rationally among people of good will.

But that won’t happen with those locked into an irrational and unproductive position on a deadly serious problem. So, let them say what they want. The rest of us, the majority of Americans, can keep working on a solution to make our people, and our future, safer. 

Five reasons why the Slippery Slope argument won’t stand up

Trump visits victims of a mass shooting. Apparently it went fabulously.  

Recently, President Donald Trump changed his mind again about universal background checks on gun sales. As he had before, he went from supporting expanded background checks to opposing them, and he used a well-known phrase to justify his opposition.

“A lot of the people that put me where I am are strong believers in the Second Amendment,” Trump said. “And we have to be very careful about that, you know, they call it the slippery slope. And all of a sudden everything is taken away; we’re not going to let that happen.” 

Trump’s mention of the slippery slope argument is typical of the dance he’s done after mass shooting events. In the days after such tragedies, Trump often moderates his tone toward gun control, only to harden it again when lobbied by the National Rifle Association (NRA).

But what is the slippery slope argument we hear about so often? First, we should note that any slippery slope argument is generally considered to be a “logical fallacy.” If a small step A is taken, the argument goes, then steps B, C, etc., will follow, until some bad final outcome is achieved.

But what first step leads us down the slippery slope? That’s the first problem with the slippery slope argument on firearms:

1) Slippery starting points—any change is bad.

Gun control opponents use the slippery slope argument frequently, but the descriptions of how the process will start often change, depending on who you talk to. Will it be the act of banning a specific weapon? Enacting more stringent background checks? Passing Red Flag laws?

“YES—all of the above!” say gun rights advocates. So, any state trying to get a handle on mass shootings or other gun violence is going to hear the slippery slope argument, no matter how benign or non-restrictive the proposal may be. Even universal background checks, which according to a Fox News poll, have 90 percent support from all voters and 89 percent support among Republicans, is considered the beginning of the long slide toward widspread gun confiscation.

It’s an argument against any action at all, no matter how reasonable.

2) It happens every time, except all the times it hasn’t.

America’s gun violence problem has a long history, and many times governmental bodies have passed laws to address the issue. They did so in the early years of the country, they did so in the Wild West days, and they did so during the Prohibition era, when machine guns and sawed-off shotguns were restricted. 

If the slippery slope argument is correct, how can it be that millions of Americans still own guns today? Why didn’t all these earlier efforts lead to confiscation of guns and the disarming of American civilians?

3) Europe’s example: much lower rates of gun violence; no tyranny.

The slippery slope argument also hasn’t worked out in modern Europe—a continent with some of the most free and prosperous nations on Earth.

Since the 1950s, we've seen almost 70 years of European democracies enjoying strong economies and high standards of living. Nearly all have more stringent gun regulations than the US and much lower rates of gun violence. 

Western European countries have not collapsed into tyranny or forsaken their commitment to civil rights. None of them have turned out the way gun rights advocates say that countries turn out when you deny people unfettered rights to guns. Could it be that guns aren’t the only—or even the main—guarantor of freedom and good government?

4) Brutal dictatorships aren’t caused by gun regulation.

Guns rights advocates often point to Nazi Germany, the USSR under Stalin, and other historical cases of genocide, and link these acts to gun control. In most of these cases, brutal military dictatorships stripped away any number of rights, including the right to bear arms, from ethnic or religious minorities, as part of their murderous regimes. These arguments oversimplify history and suggest that guns are a panacea against oppression. But the truth is more complicated. 

Armed-to-the-teeth civilian populations may be popular in movies or other fictional venues, but in real life, each situation is unique, and there is no silver bullet, so to speak, to address authoritarian governments. There are also many cases of oppressive regimes overthrown with peaceful protest. In general, it could be said that “guns don’t stop tyranny, people stop tyranny.”

5) Are we really so insecure about the Constitution? A strong democracy protects our rights without gunfire. 

The US has one of the most robust democracies in the history of the world. We don't need to stockpile weapons to preserve our way of life. Our system of checks and balances has ensured that even during difficult times, we can move forward as a nation and not descend into the chaos that has destroyed or crippled other countries. 

Expanding background checks, creating red flag laws, even banning assault rifles, none of these constitute an existential threat to our democracy. Mass shooters and everyday gun violence in the U.S. is an existential threat to all of us.

As our history shows, we can address gun violence without taking away all privately-owned guns. There is zero chance of the U.S. government taking “everything” away when it comes to gun ownership. But there is plenty of reason to fear the next mass shooting—and we shouldn’t use irrational excuses to avoid addressing our gun violence problem. 

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Hmmm, this must be the place...

After another long break, it's time to dust off Mod Lang again.

I've been working on a longer opinion piece about gun violence, something that seemed to need a different platform than the usual Facebook rant. So here I am. I considered submitting this to the local paper but I'm just too long-winded--I couldn't get near their 700-word limit. Maybe just as well.

So, welcome back, might as well use our namesake tune to kick it off...