Viva Las Vegas Seems Wrong To Say

Viva Las Vegas

                So there is a literal ton of information on gun control v. gun rights. Both sides seem to have their own statistics and are steadfastly rooted in their convictions such that if either side were to try and force it’s will on the other side, half the nation would end up dead—and I don’t think it would just be the pro-gun rights crowd that did the killing, would it Nancy Sinatra?

                In the wake of the horrific shooting in Las Vegas on October 1, I peeled back the curtain to try and have a fair look at both sides of the issue. And that’s about all I did was peel back the curtain. I have been reading about gun control and gun rights all week and I am convinced you could do it full time for a year and not absorb all the material that’s out there.

                Full disclosure, I am a gun-rights guy. I do not belong to the NRA but I support them because they really aren’t an evil tool of the devil as some of the gun control enthusiasts would have you believe. I did not own a firearm until 2010 when Barack Obama’s policies and rhetoric regarding race, border security and crime scared me enough that I felt a need to arm myself to protect my family, but I have been a supporter of the Second Amendment for as long as I can remember knowing there was a Second Amendment.

                Prior to that I felt that having a gun in my home presented more risk than not having one. I no longer feel that way. Thanks Barry O.

                I’m also a big believer in common sense, which I find has people on both sides disagreeing with me.

                If you can wade past the extreme positions which are, “We should confiscate all guns in the United States from criminals (good luck) and people who’ve never broken a law in their life and put them in a big warehouse in New Mexico surrounded by mean Army guys,” to “I, by God, have a right to own an M252 mortar and keep it in my back yard because the Founding Fathers said I could,” both sides have some reasonable points to consider.

                Getting to a point of reason where people aren’t shouting at each other these days (shut up, Jimmy Kimmel) is way easier said than done, I’m afraid.

                Between 30,000 and 33,000 people were killed in 2016 from gunshot wounds. We don’t seem to be able to agree on the exact number. We do seem to agree that 65% of those deaths were suicides.

                I know gun control zealots would like you to believe that we could have prevented around 19,500 deaths by suicide if we just eliminated guns. I tend to side with the argument that if a person has made their mind up to kill themselves, the method is a secondary consideration.

                About 15% more of those deaths are inflicted by law enforcement in the act of stopping, preventing or pursuing crime and criminals. That gets into a whole other false narrative that has angry young millionaires kneeling in football stadiums all over the country right now and we’ll deal with that another day.

                About 900 deaths, or 3% or so, are the result of accidental shootings and to me those are the most tragic and the biggest reason you might want to make a personal choice not to have a gun in the house but not a big enough reason to deprive everyone else of the right to own a legal firearm.

                Of the 5100 deaths that were actually the result of person on person gun violence, a little more than 25% of them were from four cities—Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit and Washington, D.C.  1169 gun deaths were in California (Los Angeles was the big leader but the rest were well dispersed over the rest of the state) and one shooting death of the homicide variety took place in Alabama. Between California and Alabama who do you think has the stricter gun control laws?

                Some of you may have seen an opinion piece in the Washington Post last week by Leah Libresco, a statistician and former newswriter for a data journalism site. Leah and her staff actually did spend three months researching gun deaths in the United States certain that they would find crushing evidence in favor of gun control.

                They did not and they were honest enough to say so.

                I’ve seen numerous Facebook posts this week citing how successful Australia’s gun ban has been in preventing mass shootings. Libresco confirms that mass shootings in Australia are rare indeed, but before their campaign of gun buybacks and bans mass shooting were no more or less rare than they are today, proving…nothing.

                Libresco also cites British statistics where mass shootings were also rare before the big push to ban guns and concludes that any relationship between gun restrictions and gun related crimes and deaths is negligible in either direction.

                Also citing suicides as 2/3’s of gun deaths in the United States, Libresco also confirms that about 20% of other gun deaths are inflicted upon each other by young men ages 15-34, usually in gang and/or drug related activity. The only other statistically significant group she identified were about 1,700 women shot in domestic violence incidents.

                Her overall conclusion is that narrowly tailored interventions, aimed at the groups that constitute the biggest threats, are far and away more effective than sweeping gun control laws and even bans.

                Older men, she suggests, make up by far the largest single group of gun suicides and could benefit from better access to specific help and care for their situations. Hello, health care professionals looking to make a difference.

                Women in specific situations of repeated abuse (most domestic shootings rarely happen in the first reported incident) by easily identifiable partners need help. They need to be prioritized by police departments and restraining orders need to be enforced without the cops having to worry they’re going to be portrayed as bad guys for enforcing them. I don’t know what the magic number is but if it’s one or two calls to the police, that’s fine with me as the point at which the abuser’s guns need to be confiscated and he needs to go on a list prohibiting him from purchasing or being in possession of a firearm.

                Sadly, guns would still fall into the wrong hands and some abused women would still end up dead. But, in an effort to minimize the risk, taking away the gun rights of a fellow who may not be in the group who would shoot his wife or girlfriend but has a history of beating her doesn’t bother me at all whereas taking away the gun rights of every American who has done nothing wrong because one crazy citizen lost his stuff and murdered 58 people bothers me a lot.

                Libresco recommends that young male gang bangers at risk of violence be identified and that interventions take place before the shootings rather than after. Can you say, “Stop and frisk?”

                Racist? Oh really? Do you want to get serious about reducing gun-related deaths or do you just want to be able to say all conservative “guntoters” are bad people at your next wine and cheese gathering? Sorry Portland.

                I don’t know what to do to eradicate evil. Nobody does. And rending our garments and wailing into the night sky that banning all firearms would end violence is as silly a notion as it is dramatic. Doing nothing is probably not a good answer either.

                If we could have a sane, calm discussion between people whose ideologies could be set aside for a moment while we tried to figure out how to identify the next Stephen Paddock there are a bunch of smart people out there who don’t need to scream or exchange rhetoric to share an original idea. I know, we’re probably going to have to leave it in the hands of politicians anyway.

 In the meantime, get off your knees and let us reinstitute stop and frisk and make a real difference in gun violence at the risk of being politically incorrect.