Aim off in addressing mass shootings
Uvalde. Buffalo. El Paso. Nashville. Louisville. Las Vegas. Riverside. These are just some of the myriad locations of mass shootings in recent years. Thankfully, no city in Imperial County is on the list. That doesn’t mean one won’t be and local officials understand this, which is why Imperial Valley College has conducted a mass shooting drill.
While not all sources agree, a mass shooting is generally described as an incident in which four or more are injured or killed by gunfire. Meanwhile, many urban and rural areas have high rates of gunshot deaths by suicide and smaller incidents. It means the violence is touching more and more lives.
A recent Kaiser Foundation survey found 21 percent of Americans said they had been personally threatened with a gun. That’s one in five. Nineteen percent said a family member had been killed by a gun, including death by suicide, and 17 percent said they had witnessed someone being shot.
These statistics bear out gun violence and along with it mass shootings could, at least anecdotally, be viewed as a deadly pandemic. However, action on what, if anything, can or should be done remains stuck in neutral with the now-pervasive finger pointing between liberals and conservatives the most common movement.
Let me preface my thoughts on this by stating I have never been a gun owner and outside of a few target practice sessions and one very unfruitful deer hunting excursion with friends who owned guns, I have never much been around them.
I see both sides as in the wrong and—excuse the pun—aiming at the wrong target. Liberals have grand ideas about how legislated gun control can solve the violence problem with no plan on how those efforts would be paid for, implemented and assessed for efficacy. There are millions of guns in the U.S. and no law is going to reduce that number much (outlawing a firearm likely would not mean confiscation of those already possessed).
Conservatives, meanwhile, seem to have no ideas at all beyond loosening gun laws in the absurd ill-conceived notion we’d all be safer if only we were all armed.
The fact is the U.S. doesn’t have a gun problem. It has a violence problem. Trying to take away guns is like treating just a cough when someone has pneumonia. Short-term relief is not going to cure a raging bacterial infection.
Furthermore, someone’s constitutional right to own a firearm should not be infringed just because someone else acts illegally or irresponsibly with one. We don’t regulate automobiles that way despite thousands of fatal car crashes every year. But, conversely, no one argues cars should be entirely unregulated. That would just be stupid.
In pondering what could work to reduce gun violence two matters should be paramount.
First, this is not a one-size-fits-all issue. When I was vacationing in Wyoming a few years ago I heard gunfire that sounded much like it was coming from a semi-automatic weapon. The shooters were engaging in legal recreation and no one should take that from them just because lethal gunfire is rampant on the streets of Chicago and other major cities.
However, put those semi-autos on urban streets or in the hands of a crazed individual targeting a crowded area and recreation is no longer part of the equation. The thorny issue is balancing these competing interests.
The second matter is there will be no quick fixes for this. Think smoking and seatbelts. After it was determined the first was bad and the second good, decades-long public-education efforts were launched to alter behavior related to both. Now, everyone uses seatbelts and far fewer smoke, leading to longer life expectancy and less horrific illness and injury.
The same types of programs should be used in relation to violence and firearms. The steps that will work include:
Recognize this is a problem requiring long-term education and have both political parties agree to form and fund a framework for such efforts.
Cease making political hay on the issue and commit to real bipartisan cooperation.
Acknowledge much of the problem relates to how we fail to properly address mental health and drug abuse by making them criminal justice matters rather health problems.
Seek some shorter-term “band-aids” such as regulating firearms like we do automobiles. Act responsibly, and you’re fine. Some of these measures might sunset once education and approach have an impact.
This nation can overcome its violence and mass shooting epidemic but it will take time, cooperation and commitment from us all.
Gary Redfern is a retired writer, editor and businessman. He resides in El Centro.