If you've spent even 30 seconds over over the past couple of weeks since the shooting of US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords ( who was just successfully moved to intensive care at Texas Medical Center) thinking about gun control, you owe it to yourself to read this fine article by Gerald Caplan in yesterday's Toronto Globe and Mail.
It's such a great piece, I wish I'd written it myself. Here are the first two paragraphs...
"Why is the United States so much more violent than Canada?
Canadians receive, even welcome, violence-based American mass culture pumped out 24/7 by the mammoth entertainment industry. Yet our society remains dramatically less violent than theirs. Take guns.
"The United States has by far the highest gun homicide rate in the industrialized world. In a study of 23 of these nations, the American rate was nearly 20 times higher than the others. Some 100,000 shootings take place in the U.S. every year, 30,000 of them fatal. In Canada, with about one-tenth the U.S. population, 190 people were killed by guns in 2006. More than a million Americans have died from gun violence, whether by murders, suicides or accidents, since Martin Luther King was gunned down in 1968."
Caplan goes on to remind us that the NRA's annual budget is $307 million and represents some 4 million members. The pernicious effect of this group's power, according to Caplan:
"Here’s the paradox you need to grasp about the NRA: Its ferocious opposition to any form of gun control is motivated precisely by the American orgy of gun violence. Because of this violence, it will maintain its relentless pressure for government to eliminate (except for children) literally every possible constraint on owning and carrying guns – and the deadlier the gun, better."
Gun violence in America: how can anyone believe that MORE guns make people safer? Aren't 300 million guns enough, if that strategy made any sense at all?
Perhaps this is all because the US public school system has failed to instill critical thinking in its students and graduates.
Or maybe it's the relentless marketing of violence and guns in the movies and other media, the 'product placement' most of us seem to ignore. Weapons are among the biggest of US--and world, especially permanent members of the UN Security Council--business.
This is not just about the NRA...it's about the corruption of the political process.
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Gerry Caplan is a Canadian academic, public policy analyst, commentator and political activist. He has worked in academia, as a political organizer for the New Democratic Party, an education advocate, in broadcasting and African affairs and as a commentator in various Canadian media. He was educated at the University of Toronto and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, which accorded him a doctorate in African history, according to Wikipedia.
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Beverly Akerman is a Montreal writer; her first collection of short fiction, The Meaning of Children, will soon be released by Exile Editions.
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Comments
There's always hope that by talking calmly and with patience that we can make headway. Feel free to send the link to this piece to anyone you think might listen to reason.
Best to you,
Further, violent crime has gone down on the order of seven percent per year for the past 20 years despite the proliferation of concealed carry permits across 40 states and the largest consumer demand for guns in US history.
How do you explain the facts with the 'more guns, more crime' theology?
“The statistics ARE stunning. And counter-intuitive. The National Academy of Sciences issued a 328-page report on gun-control laws in the US and could not find any evidence that gun control policy reduced mortality. Dr. John Lott published peer-reviewed papers on how right-to-carry laws decrease violent crime.
Further, violent crime has gone down on the order of seven percent per year for the past 20 years despite the proliferation of concealed carry permits across 40 states and the largest consumer demand for guns in US history.
How do you explain the facts with the 'more guns, more crime' theology?”
So, what’s your point? How about the numerous peer-reviewed publications (probably a ratio of 5/1) that show the complete opposite of what you’re claiming? You need to stop cherry-picking information and look at the entire research on this topic (at least if you would understand the NAS report, that would be a good start). If you do, you’ll see that a complete different picture emerges*.
I just checked John Lott’s academic record. Like Gary Mauser, he’s a nobody!
Your second point is very easy to answer and it’s not related at all to the ‘more gun=safer society theory’. This is what happens when you have no clue what you’re talking about.
*Here’s an example:
Hoskin, A. (2011) Household gun prevalence and rates of violent crime: A test of competing gun theories. Criminal Justice Studies 24 (1), 125-136.
This study analyzes the reciprocal relationship between a direct measure of gun availability and three types of violent crime across the 120 most populous counties in the USA. Survey data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System are used to construct a measure of household gun prevalence. Hypotheses derived from four competing perspectives concerning the role of guns in the production of violence are tested. Strong support is found for the view that easy access to guns raises the risk of serious violence by giving the perpetrator the power to inflict greater victim injury. By contrast, no support is found for the argument that widespread legal gun ownership lowers violent crime by deterring prospective offenders.
You’ll notice that this paper was published 7 years after the NAS report. You should read reviews of the report when you have the chance. This one, among many, does not say "how right-to-carry laws decrease violent crime."
Nice try.