It’s Time To Act

February 16, 2013
By Mickey Friedman

Rather than act, the Great Barrington Selectboard decided to discuss guns and gun violence. We Americans like to discuss/argue about everything.  But some arguments defy resolution. Like the argument about abortion and women’s rights. Or the argument about the right to bear arms versus the need to control gun violence.

We’ve had similar seemingly insolvable arguments in the past. The argument over slavery torn the nation apart. At a certain point you have to stop arguing and take action. Slavery was a crime against humanity. It always was and even today few Americans appreciate the enormity of the African holocaust.

It seems to me that the argument about guns is just another way we have to avoid confronting yet another crime against humanity. For there is no arguing that shooting someone to get one’s way is a crime. When reason fails, humans resort to violence. For all our iPods and iPads and our extraordinary ability to plop a rover on Mars, we seem unable to keep from killing each other. Year after year, death after death, war after war.

It’s time to acknowledge how frail and stupid we are. It’s time to take the necessary steps to save ourselves from our friends, sons, brothers, fathers, strangers who for whatever reason decide to wage their personal wars. Those who go to war against their wives or girlfriends or bosses or co-workers; those who are so pissed off they kill little children.

To those of you who love your guns, I say fine, keep your guns. I just want to limit your ability to buy and use military-style multiple rounds of ammunition.

How many innocent bystanders and how many innocent children have to die just because an angry man has the ability to fire and keep firing? Not one bullet but a hail of bullets.

Do I really have to point out that this is not a fair fight. With these semi-automatic and automatic weapons, there is no defense for the innocent. Time after time, people are saved only because the gun malfunctions. And we are told the thirty dead could easily have been fifty.

People can argue about declining gun violence in this year or that year or in this state or that state but there is one statistic that overwhelms all others. It reveals the profoundly sad reality of gun violence, the fact that we never stop waging wars big and small.

Here’s the reality of American gun violence: more Americans have died since 1960 as a result of gun violence – suicide, murders, accidental shootings – than all the Americans who died in all the wars we have fought since the founding of our nation.

Here are our wars and our casualties:

(There 362 other Americans who died in various small conflicts since 1980 in places like Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Somalia and Haiti.)

As for the deaths by gunfire, the figures come from several sources including the Center for Disease Control and the FBI.  You can read more about these statistics at Politfact: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jan/18/mark-shields/pbs-commentator-mark-shields-says-more-killed-guns/

 

 

Now remember we are talking about death here. If you include both those who were killed and those who were wounded, whether by their own hand or at the hands of another, these figures are much higher.

For example, in 2011 a total of 104,854 people were killed or wounded by gunfire.

Let me be clear. I believe in self-defense, in the right of individuals, in the right of nations to defend themselves. I’m glad we’re not a British colony. But I find the notion of a ragtag army of unorganized, semi-automatic gunowners defending all the rest of us from government tyranny to be a tad unrealistic. And a bit ironic considering the NRA has bought and paid for a significant number of Congresspeople.  In 2011-12, they contributed $1.3 million to candidates and spent $2.2 miilion lobbying Congress. They can pretend otherwise but the NRA has enormous power in the halls of government. They are part of the problem, not the solution. I’d put my money on a massive campaign of civil disobediance before I depend on the NRA to protect my freedom.

There are many, many of us who love to shoot, who love to hunt. Honest, decent people who are as horrified as can be at the senseless murder of children.  They cherish and never abuse the right to bear arms. But we are in the midst of an epidemic. It’s time to make difficult choices.

It’s time to act against gun violence.