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Today's Top News
Gun Crazy
We may not be sure that the bloodbath in Tucson had anything to do with politics, but we know it had everything to do with our nation's insane refusal to impose reasonable controls on guns.
Specifically, the rampage had everything to do with a 9mm semiautomatic Glock pistol - a sleek, efficient killing machine that our lax gun laws allowed an unstable young man to purchase, carry anywhere and ultimately use to shoot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head. The weapon also was used to shoot 19 bystanders, killing six of them, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl.
The accused gunman, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, appears to be deranged. But this fact does not automatically absolve the politicians, partisan activists and professional loudmouths who spew apocalyptic anti-government rhetoric full of violent imagery. Certainly only someone "unbalanced" would spray a crowd with deadly gunfire. Only someone on the fringe - of society, of sanity - might conceivably hear a slogan such as "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" and think it not a stirring political metaphor but a direct order.
Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, in whose jurisdiction the massacre took place, said that "the rhetoric about hatred, about mistrust of government, about paranoia of how government operates" has an "impact on people . . . who are unbalanced personalities to begin with."
But Loughner has so far declined to talk to authorities. At this point, it is impossible to know whether he was thinking about white-hot political discourse or listening to imaginary transmissions from outer space.
We do know, however, that Loughner reportedly had a history of drug use and bizarre behavior. Students and a teacher at a community college that Loughner briefly attended found him so erratic, confused, menacing and potentially violent that they persuaded college authorities to bar him from campus pending a psychiatric exam.
Yet on Nov. 30, he was able to walk into Sportsman's Warehouse in Tucson and purchase the weapon that authorities allege was used in Saturday's rampage. He apparently also bought extra magazines loaded with ammunition.
To buy the gun, Loughner was required to pass a federal background check - and he did, a store manager told reporters. It is against federal law to sell a gun to someone who is mentally ill, but there is no indication that Loughner was ever officially deemed to suffer from mental illness. Even if he had been, there is a good chance that his name would not have been properly entered in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, about 80 percent to 90 percent of disqualifying mental health records are not in the background-check database. Some states simply don't bother to submit the information; others do so haphazardly. Arizona is neither the best nor the worst on this score.
In other respects, however, Arizona is one of the most lenient states in the country when it comes to gun ownership. It is one of only three states - along with Alaska and Vermont - that allow individuals to carry concealed handguns without a permit. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano vetoed "concealed-carry" legislation when she was Arizona's governor. Her successor, Gov. Jan Brewer, signed the measure into law last year.
Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, said in a statement that "if Congress had not allowed the 'Assault Weapons Ban' to expire in 2004, the shooter [Loughner] would only have been able to get off 10 rounds without reloading. Instead, he was able to fire at least 20 rounds from his 30-round clip."
The specifics of state and federal gun laws matter greatly - lives are at stake - but we really need to look at the bigger picture. The Second Amendment is a fact of life. But even recent Supreme Court rulings have left the door open to effective gun control measures.
We must recognize the obvious distinction between rifles, shotguns and target pistols used for sport on the one hand, and semiautomatic handguns designed for killing people on the other. We must decide that allowing anyone to carry a concealed weapon, no questions asked, is just crazy. And for heaven's sake, we must demand that laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of lunatics be enforced.
Giffords is a supporter of responsible gun ownership. If we force our elected officials to act responsibly, the next senseless massacre just might be prevented.
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28 Comments so far
Show AllWhatever the law might be, guns are easily aquired in all states. There are plenty of laws against meth, marijuana, and heroin. All of these substance can be bought with relative ease anywhere USA. I think many people would be amazed at the number of men and women with loaded weapons in their pocket, purse, or automobile. Obama's victory in 08 sent thousands of bigots to the store for more guns and ammo.
Hopefully big pharma will keep us medicated.
Banning things seems to make people want them all the more.
What kind of background check would have revealed Jared Loughner's bad intentions?
I asked this elsewhere: it was reported yesterday that Loughner tried to buy ammunition at one Walmart but the sales associate turned him down because it was too weird, but then he went to another Walmart and was able to purchase what he wanted.
Are there guidelines for gunstore clerks? Is there a policy?
Is any of the stuff that has been reported about Loughner true?
Who can tell?
Half Truth. He went to purchase Ammo at the first Walmart but left before the sale was complete.
"Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, said in a statement that "if Congress had not allowed the 'Assault Weapons Ban' to expire in 2004, the shooter [Loughner] would only have been able to get off 10 rounds without reloading. Instead, he was able to fire at least 20 rounds from his 30-round clip."
Yes, because if he only had the capability to LEGALLY purchase a clip no bigger than 10 rounds, then that would physically stop him from procuring an ILLEGAL clip that has a bigger capacity. Or how about this one, he brings 2 HANDGUNS WITH HIM, thus still able to get off 20 rounds? If someone wants to go kill people, all of the laws in the world aren't going to physically stop them.
"We must recognize the obvious distinction between rifles, shotguns and target pistols used for sport on the one hand, and semiautomatic handguns designed for killing people on the other."
Yes, because in Eugene Robinson's eyes, there is no other legitimate reason to own a "semiautomatic" handgun than killing people. Gee Mr. Robinson, ever heard of self defense? How about target shooting? The vast majority of Americans that own "semiautomatic" handguns have never and will never commit a crime with them.
Oh and I love how we have the menacing "semiautomatic" term thrown in there. Yes this simply means you can shoot one round at a time.
This is the same type of column that gets written anytime someone uses a gun in an unlawful manner. Guns are too easy to get, we need more laws on the books to "prevent" tragedies from happening. It is a noble sentiment to want to prevent bad things from happening, however reality must intrude.
There are already many gun laws on the books and most of them aren't enforced. As I stated before, criminals do not obey laws. That's why they are called criminals. Laws are for the most part reactionary in that they deal with punishing an act that has already occurred as opposed to physically preventing it.
I consider myself a progressive on most issues, however I cannot and will not support intellectually bankrupt columns such as this that seek to demonize lawful gun ownership.
"Self defense and target shooting" Hand guns have no place in a civilized society. Laws won't prevent gun violence, though I would support a law that mandated a life sentence for any crime where a firearm is used. Having a loaded pistol by your bed or under your car seat, only illustrates the need to get rid of them altogether. If we are so afraid we need a firearm to protect us its time to take a hard look at our society. I suppose target practice is loads of fun, much like jet skis and ORVs.
Right. Any suggestion of banning guns, or any types of guns, is absurd. Sure. Why is it, then, that countries where guns have been banned outright, or where they are much harder to get legally, have such lower rates of gun deaths? Is it that they have fewer criminals per capita, or that their criminals aren't as enterprising as they are here? You're the one who needs to take a look at reality.
Perhaps if Arizona were compelled to adopt Washington, DC's gun laws, then maybe its crime rate would drop to Washington, DC's level.
OOPS...
All this talk about gun control. Gun crazy? How come we never talk about all the gun crazy, killing and murder of thousands of innocent people and children in Iraq and Afghanistan many no different than the 9 year old girl and the other people shot in Arizona? Gun crazy? Until the U.S. controls gun control abroad they will never ameliorate the violence at home. Obama, you can start by taking off that drone bomber jacket and having a moment of lachrymose, silence for all those innocent victims of America's extra, extraordinary evil foreign policies! Until that epiphany is nascent by the President and Congress nothing will change. Violence has been and is, endemic in America's foreign and domestic policies; for many years. And violence begets violence! Gun crazy? Our Government is the one that is gun crazy. The tragedy in Tuscon was horrible, but is very,very minute in comparison to what our Government has done and is doing around the world in our names.
I believe the US is the largest weapons exporter in the world. Yeah, you can't help but think of the millions of lives lost because of the US over the years:
Philippines
Guatemala
El Salvador
Chile
Vietnam
Nicaragua
East Timor
Iraq
Afghanistan
etc
Fact: all people who shoot other people are 'deranged' or 'crazy,' unless it's in self defense.
'Normal' people don't shoot each other. Period.
Fact: Americans kill 40,000 fellow Americans on our roads every year and no one bats an eye.
Forget gun control - what we need is way more f**king driver-control.
The problem's not guns. It's craziness with verbal and physical violence that's the problem.
"Because whether you want to or not, if we keep talking this language of thought or gun control, and don't go after the real culprits of this disaster, the ones who are using our best parts against us, then we are just playing into their hands. "
Good point. That's what I kind of had in mind too. Diffusing a bomb is not the same as dismantling altogether.
"I hate to do this to the organic crowd, but it is just an analogy, but the right/left debate allows a good metaphor here as well."
There's no offense to it. Two Americas took a stab at it. I like organic food too but I hear that not everything labeled "organic" is necessarily organic.
The analogy is a good one.
The organic movement does not lead to safer food or more sustainable farming. It has not and it can not.
The gun control movement does not lead to less violence. It has not and it can not.
It is not logical for people to say that one must either support those movements, or else one must therefore be in favor of violence or in favor of dangerous food.
Once again the left exploits a tragedy for political gain and citizen control,never mind the facts.
Your argument is built on the "golden mean fallacy." In other words, your argument is as reasonable as your gun control proposals. Meaningless and flawed.
Actually, taking to the streets and physically doing something is the ONLY way there will be real change in the system. Maybe no one here is old enough to remember the race riots during the Equal Rights Era? Or how our country came into being in the first place? Governments don't change by getting angry unless YOU do something physical about it and in numbers they cannot ignore or cover up.
Do you want your kids to end up living in the streets, begging or stealing to eat? How about their families living in shacks in back alleys or along polluted drainage ditches with no electric or even windows or doors? Or you or your parents trying to live on a continually shrinking Social Security payment where it is a choice of food or medicine?
The Wealthy elite don't care if we all die just so long as there are enough of us left to bleed to keep them in the lifestyle they believe they should have.
I currently live in a 3rd world country where all of the above symptoms exist, but guns are not owned by the populace. Billionaires here are constantly trying to wring more and more out of the masses at any cost. That is America's future if we don't grow a backbone and soon. Gun confiscation is not far off. Then YOU will be like the people here. Helpless...
I am going out on a limb here. Testing the waters. Indulge me. I loathe guns. Don't get me wrong. BUT I suspect that this shooting had nothing to do with guns, nor their availability. The gun was merely the symptom of a deeper malaise.
Wait - wait - I am not American, so don't come with your NRA allegations etc. I don't own a gun. I never would, despite living in South Africa - (a country where, I shit thee not, 95% of Common Dreams regulars would be the first to demand a gun license faced with Mordor on their doorsteps).
It seems to me there is a need to assign blame somewhere. So people are retreating behind the old, "Oh he was deranged - just look at those eyes," argument. It's as if, after years of exposure to psychotherapy, Murkans are happiest compartmentalising anyone they don't understand into safe little categories - "No, he was mentally unstable" - "he had a history of bizarre behaviour" - "he once did drugs" - as that removes their own complicity in the creation of a man who needed help and was failed BY SOCIETY. Failed by America - failed at every single turn by friends, family, everyone.
We all need to take a vested interest in nurturing the loners and the sad folk and those who are full of pain and anger. But instead we retreat behind concrete walls of fancy-sounding labels that really say very little other than, "Help!!! I don't understand why he pulled the trigger."
"Why did he do it Mummy?"
"Ah because he was bipolar and once smoked pot, honey."
"Coz guns are so widely available. He had a tool..."
And so on -
He pulled the trigger because we made him do it. It's so easy for so many people to shoulder the blame for everything from slavery to the environment in some neo-Protestant, white liberal guilt-tripping, self-flaggellatory orgasm (mea maxima culpa, and do it again, oh, please), so why can't they shoulder responsibility for being part of a society that creates monsters, then abandons them. And, just to add lemon to the wound, turns on the goggle-box to wallow in their complicity.
We are the deranged ones - but to point that out is to invite comparison to a man who shoots children. The monkeys have gone mad. It's very, very sad.
@ Highkarate
Thanks. On many different levels.
No, South Africa is not Mordor, of course not. It's humanity in action. Beauty and ugliness inextricably linked. Like everywhere. I was just poking fun at the many white folks who feel so threatened by black nationalism. And that's not to belittle their fears. Hatred goes both ways.
I fear you give me too much credit, as far as Buddhist practise goes. Someone very close to me is far down that path though, and I do listen carefully, perhaps only intellectually.
As regards tonglen - I believe that becomes a practice where one actually takes on board another person's "black smoke" or pain, and returns it to them cleansed. I think this may start as a simple visualisation, but can become real. I guess the trick is to know when another person needs to work through their pain and learn from it. So often modern society wants to remove the pain, without addressing why the pain is there or where it comes from, or why it keeps returning. So perhaps it is not always the "right" thing to do to remove a person's pain.
I suspect we have had this conversation many, many times before, and we shall keep having it until one of us starts living the truth of the words.
Until then, walk in peace.
MSNBC recounts the story of a "hero" in this massacre. He was carrying a concealed weapon and came out of the nearby Walgreen to see the ensuing struggle to disarm the gunman. He pointed his pistol at the man who had the gun, (because he had just disarmed Laugner). "No, no," someone in the crowd shouted, "that's not him. It's the guy on the ground. Get him." The man with the pistol put his gun away and proceed to help with the gang tackle of Laughner. Good thing he had the sense to listen. It's not too hard to imagine a scene with multiple pistols going off and even more mayhem and unnecessary death when we allow everyone to walk around with a weapon for self protection. The real pathology of the USA, (and it runs so deep that we can't seem to purge ourselves of it) is the belief that it's every man for himself and that our government can't provide us the protection needed for civil society. I think Hobbes called this. "the state of nature." Only in the violent and pathological USA would this state be considered preferable to a civil society governed by laws.
re: "that our government can't provide us the protection needed for civil society"
Don't you mean, "..won't provide.."
The government is dismantling civil society as fast as it can.
"...Only in the violent and pathological USA would this state be considered preferable to a civil society governed by laws..."
The USA may be "violent and pathological", but I think most people would prefer to be governed by a law abiding civil authority. Our masters see no need for such constraints upon the free exercise of their power.
I've never owned a gun in my life, and I don't plan to ever own one, but I don't disparage those who do. Hmmm...Does that make me "violent and pathological"?
What's that Second Amendment in there for?