The finding that the AR-15 rifle was being actively selected for premeditated indiscriminate mass killings in 2012 fundamentally changes the debate regarding Senator Feinstein’s Assault Weapons Ban.  Not only does this finding take this weapon and mass shootings beyond anecdotal observations, it has predictive value.  We now know with certainty that there will be another horrific premeditated and planned mass killing involving this weapon or another having similar rapid fire and high capacity capability.  And it will be difficult to defend against as we cannot predict the timing, the venue, or the selected targets.  It is clear that both the weaponry and background checks on all buyers should be addressed to reduce the opportunity for, and carnage of, future premeditated indiscriminate mass shootings.  This should become a fundamental part of the upcoming debate on the Senate floor.  Should meaningful gun control legislation fail in the Senate, for those senators who opposed there is little doubt that some would have swallowed a ‘poison pill’ regarding their political career.

In a previous article (ref), analysis of mass shooting events in the last half of 2012 concluded that the AR-15 rifle was being intentionally selected for premeditated indiscriminate mass shooting events.  Based on comments received about that work, this firearm was further examined in the context of all 15 mass shootings reported during 2012.  The outcome is described in the following section.

I wrote an Op-Ed piece describing how these findings fundamentally change the debate regarding Senator Feinstein’s Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) legislation.  It is clear that we need to address both weaponry and background checks if we are to take meaningful steps in reducing the opportunity for, and carnage of, other future tragedies such as Aurora, CO and Sandy Hook Elementary.  However, due to the time sensitive nature of the debate and vote in Washington, and the uncertainty of its publication, I have decided to post it here and distribute through social media that can be directed to both the news media outlets as well as politicians.  Should readers agree with the content presented here, they are encouraged to do the same; e.g., RT’ing the article to the Twitter address of the senators you choose.

Following the Op-Ed piece I present a section on tactics regarding its use in the rapidly approaching US Senate debate on gun control legislation (assuming such debate can get past the threat of a Republican filibuster).

In Defense of the Assault Weapons Ban (Unsubmitted Op-Ed)

An interesting statistic fell out of the current gun control debate.  The NRA stated that there were about 3 million AR-15 rifles in the hands of civilians in 2012; a number that was verified in a review article on that firearm.  Although three million might seem like a large number, it represents only about 1% of all firearms (hand guns, rifles and shotguns) available to American citizens and, more specifically, less than 3.0% of all rifles held by the public.  Yet this weapon was being reported with some level of frequency in mass shooting events last year.

Regarding history, the AR-15 was developed by the Fairchild ArmaLite Corporation in the 1950′s for military use.  The company sold the rights to Colt in 1959 that began marketing it to military forces.  Today’s AR-15 is the semi-automatic civilian version of the military’s M16 assault rifle and is a ‘family’ of rifles with multiple manufacturers producing various models.

Of the 15 total mass shootings reported in 2012, the assailant chose a rifle in five of those events.  Four of those five events were premeditated and planned by the shooter; this includes two of the worst mass shootings in our history (Aurora and Sandy Hook).  There was no connection between the shooters and their victims, and no reason was found for the selection of victims in the premeditated planned events other than indiscriminate mass killing.  All occurred in different states involving different shooters, different venues, different selected populations, and are thus considered to be independent events.

In all five cases where the shooter chose to use a rifle, a member of the AR-15 family was selected.  In fact it was the only rifle found at these events.  The odds of this firearm, that represents only 2.7% of all rifles available to American citizens, showing up at all five of these independent events simply by chance are infinitesimally small; several approaches consistently yield odds of less than one chance in a million.  The intentional selection of this firearm is further supported by the behavior of at least three of the shooters who either stole one, or purchased one, specifically for their event.

This fundamentally changes the debate about the Assault Weapons Ban in two ways.

First, it is not just that this weapon was being used in some events in 2012; it was being actively selected as a weapon of choice.  This selection is consistent with the weapon’s design and original intended use – rapidly and efficiently inflict mass casualties.  But rather than military combatants, civilians were the targets.

Secondly, as this weapon is being actively sought for such events, continuing to expand public availability of this firearm under current market conditions could only increase the opportunity for its use in future mass shootings (or by extension another weapon having rapid fire and high capacity capabilities).  As all of the premeditated planned events in 2012 involved different venues and different targets, a future assault would be difficult to defend against.  School security can be enhanced in an effort to protect children, but Anders Breivik, the perpetrator of the infamous Norway massacre, created a diversion to increase vulnerability of children at a camp.  It is not possible to anticipate all the possibilities a deranged mind may think of that could claim multiple other young lives.

Although arguments have been made that there are other more powerful weapons in the hands of American civilians, power would not seem to be the desired characteristic of a firearm for these events.  It would be the ability of the weapon to rapidly inflict mass casualties, and by design, history and appearance (and thus perception), the AR-15 would be a good fit.

We obviously can’t prevent all such incidents from occurring, but we can take steps to limit opportunity and reduce the carnage.  Logic dictates that, if there is an interest in preventing such horrific events as Sandy Hook and Aurora, both the weaponry and the ability to check the background of all buyers should be addressed.  And even this solution is not fully adequate as the estimated three million AR-15′s currently in civilian hands would be grandfathered under this legislation, and in at least two of the events last year (the holiday mall shooting in Happy Valley OR and Sandy Hook Elementary) the weapon was stolen.

Nothing has been proposed in the current legislation that our Supreme Court has deemed to be an infringement of Second Amendment rights, including prohibiting ‘dangerous and unusual weapons’.  And the legislation exampts over 2200 other makes and models of rifles and shotguns.  This should not be about politics or ideology.  It should be about public safety.  The Assault Weapons Ban belongs in the gun control bill.

Tactics

The above findings not only take the AR-15 and mass shootings beyond being just anecdotal observations, they have predictive value.  As the weapon is being actively sought in premeditated, planned events for the purpose of indiscriminate mass murder, we know with certainty that it will be used for such events in the future, consistent with the intent of its design and original use.

This matter needs to become part of the debate on the senate floor.  For those who would oppose both the AWB and the Universal Background Check (UBC), or support only a watered-down version of the UBC, or prevent any debate on the matter at all, they would be doing so knowing with certainty that another such horrific event will occur.  We would not know the timing, the venue or the selected population thus making it exceptionally difficult to defend against.

This would essentially place a ‘poison pill’ with those who would make such a decision (and it is difficult to understand how one could live with such a decision in good conscience).  When the next event occurs, and we can only hope that it does not involve the loss of multiple other youngsters, a senator’s record would become quite public.  Considering the public outrage about the shooting at Sandy Hook and the broad public support for current gun control legislation, serious questions would be raised as to why the senator chose not to address this matter when they had the chance knowing that another event would be forthcoming.  Considering the public’s emotional reaction to the recent shootings, there would be little tolerance about a discussion of Second Amendment rights, or fears that firearm transaction records could lead to national registry with government confiscation of guns, or that we need to possess assault weaponry to defend ourselves from our government.

There would be a political price to be paid.  For some that could mean losing their seat a primary challenge (Citizens United allows unlimited contributions in primaries) or for others in a general election where their record would undoubtedly come into play.

I, for one (and I know I speak for many), have watched in disbelief what is transpiring in the Senate following the mass killing of 20 youngsters and their teachers at Sandy Hook, with some senators not even wishing to address the matter all.  The stage needs to be set to play hardball should our elected officials fail to make meaningful steps to prevent  horrific events of the nature we witnessed last year as well as buck the broad opinion of the American public about the need for meaningful commonsense gun regulation.

But that can’t be done unless those fighting for the legislation on the floor set that stage for us.

A total of four independent, premeditated and indiscriminate mass shootings occurred in the latter half of 2012.  There was no connection between the shooters and the victims, and no reason was established in the selection of victims other than inflicting mass casualties.  An AR-15 rifle was the weapon used in all four of these events.  The odds of this particular weapon being selected for all four of these independent events simply by chance was estimated to be less than one in a million using two different approaches.  The intentional selection of this firearm is additionally supported by the behavior of all four shooters.  It is felt that this finding fundamentally changes the assault weapon debate.  It is not that this weapon was simply being used at these events, there is little if any doubt that it was being intentionally selected as a weapon of choice in those premeditated indiscriminate mass killings.  As this weapon is being actively sought for these events, leaving it unregulated and expanding public availability could only increase the opportunity for its use in future mass shootings of the nature we witnessed in 2012.

Although mass shootings are relatively low frequency events and claim far fewer lives than the broad body of shootings in this country, they garner much attention because of the horrific nature of the events.  According to one source, there have been 62 mass shootings in the US since 1982 that occurred in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii (ref).  Twenty-five (25) of these took place since 2006 and 7 of them occurred in 2012.  Of the 143 guns possessed by the assailants, more that three-quarters of them were obtained legally.  More than half of those shooters possessed  high-capacity magazines, assault weapons, or both (ref).

However, the debate about ‘assault weapons’ and ‘mass shootings’ often gets bogged down in semantics and definitions.  What exactly constitutes an ‘assault weapon’ and how does one define a mass shooting.  Lists of mass shootings vary in number due to different definitions and often include a mix of different types events involving different circumstances.  And although we see a certain type of weapon appearing at these events, is that occurring simply by chance?

The purpose of this article is to simplify the matter by selecting a specific type of mass shooting event.  The mass shooting events considered will be those that were premeditated, where there was no connection between the shooter and the selected targets, and where no reason was found for the shooting other than the indiscriminate killing of multiple individuals.  These are the events that garner much public and media attention because of the senselessness of the act.  The timeframe being examined is the last six months of 2012 as that time period contained a number of mass shootings including two of the worst in US history, the Aurora CO movie theatre shooting and the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, CT; both were major events in initiating the current gun control debate.  As will be detailed below, four such events, all considered to be independent of each other, were identified in that timeframe.  In all cases an AR-15 rifle was used by the shooter.  The odds of that firearm being selected in all four of these independent events simply by chance are considered.

AR-15 History and Distribution (ref) (ref)

History

The AR-15 was developed by the Fairchild ArmaLite corporation.  The name of the weapon is derived from ArmaLite Rifle of which there have been several rifles bearing that prefix, i.e., the AR-10, AR-5, AR-7 (semi-automatic survival rifle), and the AR-1.  The AR-15 was developed as a lighter, 5.56 mm version of the AR-10.  Amalyte sold its rights to the AR-10 and AR-15 to Colt in 1959.  The AR-15 was designed as an ‘assault rifle’ for the United States armed forces and Colt marketed the firearm to various military services around the world including the US Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marine Corps.  The select-fire version of the AR-15 entered the US military system as the M16 rifle, becoming the US military’s standard service rifle of the Vietnam War by 1969 of which several variants including the M16A1 and M16A2 followed.

Colt began selling the semi-automatic version of the M16 rifle as the Colt AR-15 for civilian use in 1963.  The semi-automatic AR-15′s sold to civilians are internally different from the full automatic M16 although nearly identical in external appearance.  A major internal feature is that the firing mechanisms are not interchangeable thus satisfying ATF requirements that civilian weapons may not be easily convertible to full-automatic.  Although the name AR-15 remains a Colt registered trademark, variants of the firearm are independently made, modified and sold under various names by multiple manufacturers, thus creating an AR-15 ‘family’.  AR-15 rifles are popular amongst civilian shooters and law enforcement forces around the world due to their accuracy and modularity.

AR-15 Rifle

M16 Rifle

Distribution

As of 2012 there were an estimated 2.5 – 3.7 million rifles from the AR-15 family in civilian use in the United States.  The NRA also claims that about 3 million AR-15′s are held by American citizens (ref).   A November 2012 Congressional Research Service report estimated that in 2009 there were approximately 310 million total firearms available to civilians in the United States: 114 million handguns, 110 million rifles, and 86 million shotguns (ref).   When placed into the context of all guns held by the American public, the 3 million AR-15′s constitute only about 1% of all firearms held by US citizens.

The Events (July – December 2012)

Four unrelated, premeditated, indiscriminate mass shooting events occurred in the last six months of 2012.  All these events occurred in different states, the assailants were not connected with one another nor their victims, all were premeditated, no apparent reason existed for the selection of the targets (except to inflict mass casualties), and none were considered to be “copy cat” events of each other – all involved different populations and are considered to be independent events.  The four events were the Aurora CO movie theatre shooting on 7/20/2012, the Happy Valley OR mall shooting (12/12/2012), the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, CT on 12/14/2012, and the ambush of first responders in Webster, NY on 12/24/2012.  In each of these events the shooter used an AR-15 rifle.  Several other events that occurred during that timeframe have been identified as mass shootings (ref), but have been excluded for reasons that follow.

Heavy consideration was given to including the Sikh Temple shooting in Oak Creek, WI on 8/5/2012, but under the definition of events being used here it differed from the above four as a reason existed for the selection of the victims.  The assailant (Page) was a white supremacist with ties to neo-Nazi groups (ref) who harbored ethnic/racial hatred thus establishing a motive in the selection of the victims.  Although what specifically triggered Page remains unknown, the Southern Poverty Law Center has referred to Page as being a frustrated neo-Nazi, and the chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education expressed his concerns of other white-supremacy and neo-Nazi groups harboring similar intentions.  This event was felt to be more of a hate crime than an indiscriminate mass murder event.

Regarding the four selected events above, no apparent reason was found for the selection of the targets: movie theatre goers (Aurora), holiday shoppers (Happy Valley), school children and their teachers (Newtown), and first responders that were intentionally drawn to a scene for the purpose of committing mass murder (Webster).   Although the Webster event also included attacking a specific population (first responders), there was no evidence of animus towards firefighters on the part of the shooter and a typewritten letter by the assailant (Spengler) reflected the intent to ambush the first responders but offered no motive for the shooting, stating that he had to get ready “..and do what I like doing best, killing people” (ref).

The other excluded events are more straight-forward.  The 8/13/2012 shooting in College Station, TX came from a home where gunfire from an AR-15 was directed at law enforcement officers attempting to serve an eviction notice.  The 9/27/2012 shooting in Minneapolis was employment-related and directed at members of the assailant’s company; he pulled the gun when his employment was terminated.  The 10/21/2012 shooting in Brookfield WI was directed at the assailant’s estranged wife who worked in the spa (she had issued a restraining order) and it is unclear if any of the other deaths/injuries that occurred in the spa were premeditated.  And the Frankstown Township PA shooting spree on 12/21/2012 involved the shooter killing a woman on the steps of a church, driving to a neighbor’s home where he killed the neighbor and after leaving the scene intentionally rammed his pick-up truck into the vehicle of that neighbor’s son-in-law where he then shot the relative establishing some level of connection between the shooter and 2 of his 3 victims.

Odds Considerations

It is recognized that this is a complex problem.  It is known that some individuals own multiple AR-15 rifles (one individual in a recent newscast claiming to own 17 of them) thus reducing the number of individual owners to some extent (would be fewer owners than the number of rifles).  Additionally the level of gun ownership varies from state to state and the distribution of AR-15′s in various states was not found. However, assuming that AR-15 rifles would not be overly concentrated in the four states where these events occurred (considered unlikely as there are only 3 million amongst 300 million total firearms nationwide),  a straight-forward statistic was felt to be the percentage of AR-15 rifles amongst all firearms held by the American public (that being about 1%, or 0.01).

Using that statistic, and assuming no bias in selection amongst handguns, rifles and shotguns (all can be used to kill people), the odds of an AR-15 rifle being selected simply by chance at any of these individual events would be about 1 in 100, or 0.01.  The odds that an AR-15 would be selected simply by chance at all 4 of these independent events would be 0.01 X 0.01 X 0.01 X 0.01 = 10(-8), or about one chance in a hundred million.

As a rifle was used in all four events, another way to approach this problem would be to consider the likelihood of a member of the AR rifle family being used at these events amongst all makes and models of rifles and shotguns.  These numbers can be derived from Senator Feinstein’s Assault Weapons Ban legislation (ref).  Combining the 2258 cited “legitimate hunting and sporting rifles and shotguns” (by specific make and model) with the 118 proposed banned rifles and shotguns yields 2376 total available rifles and shotguns by make and model.  The legislation identifies 57 members of the AR rifle family by make and model (all AR rifles are proposed to be banned).  The AR rifles therefore constitute about 2.4% of all rifles and shotguns.  Again, assuming no bias in selection, the odds of a member of the AR rifle family being selected simply by chance in any of the individual events amongst all available types of rifles and shotguns becomes about 2.4 in 100 (0.024).  The odds of a member of the AR rifle family being selected in all four independent events simply by chance is less than 1 in 3 million (Note: this consideration includes all AR Rifles and excludes handguns as a potential weapon).

These results would support a conclusion that, in the latter half of 2012, the AR-15 was being intentionally selected for use in the premeditated, indiscriminate mass murder events identified here.

Discussion

The purpose of this article was not to perform detailed statistical analyses of a broad array of events and weapons, but rather simplify the matter by selecting a specific type of event (as described above), examining the weapon used, and then using basic odds considerations in determining the likelihood of the weapon being selected simply by chance.  The odds that an AR-15 rifle would be selected simply by chance in all 4 of the identified events in the latter half of 2012 was found to be infinitesimally small under the assumptions and parameters used here.  And behavior of the shooters support an intentional selection.  The Aurora shooter purchased the firearm for the event; the Happy Valley shooter stole the weapon for the event; the Newtown shooter had access to multiple weapons but used the AR-15 as the primary (firing 151 of the total 152 bullets from that weapon – the last came from a handgun he used to kill himself); and the Webster shooter (who was prohibited from owning a firearm being a felon) obtained the weapon through a ‘straw purchase’.

If one wishes to strip away the definitions used here, the finding that an AR-15 (that constitutes but 1% of all firearms held by US civilians) was found in a majority of all of the ‘mass shooting’ events (5/9) considered here in the latter half of 2012 is striking.  But defining a specific type of event is felt to be important as an event could influence weapon selection.  The intent to kill one’s boss or spouse, as examples, would not require the use of a ‘military-style’ rifle like the AR-15.  However, the premeditated indiscriminate killing of multiple individuals would likely involve the selection of a weapon the shooter felt would best accomplish the task.  And the development/history/appearance (and thus perception) of the AR-15 separates it from most other handguns, rifles, and shotguns in that regard.

Although arguments have been made that there are other more powerful weapons available to US citizens than the AR-15, the power of a weapon would not seem to be the desired feature for the events considered here.  It would be the ability of the firearm to rapidly and accurately claim as many lives as possible.  Again, the history and appearance (and thus perception) of the AR-15 would make the weapon well-suited to the selection.

There is little doubt that the assailants in these events were disturbed and a proposed solution is to address mental illness rather than the weapon.  Lanza (the shooter in the Newtown incident) could be restricted under law from purchasing a firearm and placed into a database, but he took the weapons from his mother’s home after putting multiple bullets into her head (should the AWB legislation become law, it would leave 3 million of these weapons in civilian hands).  And the shooter in the Webster NY incident was already prohibited from purchasing a firearm (being a felon), but obtained the weapon through a straw purchase.  As long as the weapon remains available and is being actively sought for these types of events, it will find its way into the wrong hands.  And the NRA’s proposed tightening up the mental health system, or increasing federal and state resources in going after the less-than-law-abiding, is disingenuous as the organization supported legislation making it easier for the mentally-ill to regain their gun rights (ref) and Grover Norquist, whose stated purpose is to shrink government to the size he can drown in a bathtub, holds a board position (ref).

Although there has been much discussion of ‘assault weapons’ being used this past year in several mass shootings, it is felt that the considerations presented here fundamentally change the assault weapons debate.  It is not just that the AR-15 rifle was being used in these events, there is little if any doubt that it was being intentionally selected as a weapon of choice in premeditated indiscriminate mass murder events of the horrific nature we witnessed in the latter half of 2012.  Keeping this weapon unregulated and increasing public availability could only increase the opportunity for its use in future mass shootings of the nature we witnessed in 2012.

This places lawmakers who oppose the AWB into a troublesome position.  Are they willing to leave a weapon unregulated knowing that it is being intentionally selected for indiscriminate mass killings in the civilian population (what its look-alike version was designed to do in battle)?  Or if they remain opposed to a ban, would they also be opposed to limiting the magazine capacity of a weapon being sought for such horrific events?  (Maddow makes the point that Lanza had to reload the AR-15 only four times over a space of 5 minutes in Sandy Hook Elementary rather than 14 times had the magazines held only 10 bullets).  Or are they willing to keep their position that regulating this product is an infringement on the rights of, or an imposition to, ‘law abiding’ citizens.  It is important to note that Supreme Court justices in both the Heller and McDonald rulings made clear that the Second Amendment did not confer ‘a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose’ and that a wide range of gun control laws remain ‘presumptively lawful’ including prohibiting ‘dangerous and unusual weapons’.  A legal summary of both cases is provided here.

But for lawmakers to not address this matter at all, would speak to a dereliction of duty.

With 11 of the 18 Senate Judiciary Committee members benefitting from gun lobby financial contributions, the impartiality of both their opinion and eventual votes is drawn into question.  The Newtown incident has laid bare, as no other has in the past, the inherent conflict lawmakers face regarding their obligation to legislate in the public’s best interest versus special interest pressures that threaten their ability to retain office.  This current debate has morphed into something larger than regulating the gun market.  It provides clear evidence that our Congress needs to fundamentally change the way it operates.

National polling has shown favorability ratings of our Congress to be at an all time low; only 9% of voters holding a favorable opinion with 85% viewing it in a negative light.  How unpopular has that institution become?  Consider that a recently released poll has shown Congress to be less popular than cockroaches, traffic jams, head lice, colonoscopies, Genghis Khan, and other such pleasantries (ref).

To understand the root cause of this historically high level of public dissatisfaction with a Congress that is continually in gridlock on issue after issue, one need look no further than the current gun debate.  No previous event, in this author’s opinion, has laid so bare the inherent conflict between our lawmaker’s obligation to govern in the public’s best interest versus politically powerful special interests that help them retain their job, or threaten their removal from office.  This issue has morphed into something larger than regulating the gun market.  It signals the need for our Congress to fundamentally change the way it operates.

Why Is This One Different

Although there have been many conflicts between governing for public well-being versus special interests, the event that triggered the current gun debate, the Newtown massacre of 20 young children and six staffers in their school, separates itself from others in two fundamental ways.

The first is that there is no doubt what-so-ever about the product that effected the loss of life.  The early part of my career was spent in cancer research where we followed the wars with Big Tobacco.  When claims of cigarette-related health claims were made a counterargument would be whether one could actually prove that cigarettes were the cause of an individual’s cancer.  It took years of evidence building regarding the adverse health effects of smoking and second-hand smoke, while Big Tobacco continued its lobbying efforts in Washington, denying the evidence and engaging in tactics to attract the young including marketing schemes such as Joe Camel (ref), thus building a lifelong customer base of addicted individuals.  We know with certainty that a military-style weapon was the product associated with the deaths of those youngsters.

The second is that television brought the horror of 20 slain youngsters into the living rooms of America and thus moved the matter beyond impersonal death estimates or simple statistics.

In a previous article I detailed numerous policies that are continuing to be pursued despite the often substantial loss of life associated with those policies (ref).  As one example, deregulation/supply-side policy is still being touted on the Right despite the marked increase in poverty its spectacular failure caused, a failure that also resulted in increased estimates of poverty-related death.  But we rarely if ever saw the face of poverty on our TV sets and such afflicted individuals just quietly slipped away while lawmakers put financial industry contributions into their coffers.

For another, during the healthcare debate we as well did not see the estimated 45,000 Americans, including the 2200 military veterans, who were losing their lives each year due to lack of access to essential medical care.   Again, they just quietly slipped away.  Out of sight, out of mind with impersonal statistics not being the material of strong viewing ratings; this while lawmakers accepted record levels of contributions from the healthcare industries during the reform debate.

But the Newtown incident was a media grabber on a national level, one that caught public attention, stoking both fear and outrage.  We all witnessed the grief of the parents, a mourning community, the young faces of those slain, and funeral after funeral carrying the caskets of those many young victims.  Although many more youngsters are killed by gunfire in singular events around this country, those events are often covered by local media.  But those 20 lost young lives in Newtown did not quietly slip away – they were brought front and center into living rooms across the country over television; and they have remained front and center in our national conscience.

Yet our Congress continues to operate the very same way it has with any other policy matter.  The Newtown incident has laid bare, as no other policy matter has before, the inherent conflict our lawmakers face regarding their role in assuring public well-being (especially children) versus powerful special interest influences that carry them to office and help them retain their jobs.

Senate Judiciary Committee: Financial Conflicts of Interest

The Sunlight Foundation has reported that the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun rights organizations have played a role in the campaigns of a majority of Senate Judiciary Committee members who recently heard testimony regarding gun violence (ref).  Eleven of the 18 members have received financial support from the gun lobby.  All 8 of the Republicans on the committee have benefited from such financial support and all enjoy a NRA ‘A’ rating.  Three members, all Democrats, were subject to negative independent expenditures from the NRA. Gun control groups like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence have supported some committee members but at much lower levels with no independent expenditures against any of the lawmakers.

NRA donations and independent expenditures in support of Senate Judiciary Committee members (eight Republicans and one Democrat) have been summarized here.  Ranking member Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) will serve as a case in point.  He was reported to have received at least $17,850 in donations from the NRA PAC since 1998 and received $60,676 in assistance through NRA independent expenditures in his 2010 re-election.  Now consider his opposition to increasing background checks on gun buyers as such would constitute an infringement of Second Amendment rights (ref), parroting a firm position of the NRA.  A recently conducted CBS News/New York Times poll showed Senator Grassley to be out of step not only with the vast majority of American voters, but with an overwhelming majority of those in his own party as well.   Results showed 90% of Americans support such expanded checks for all gun buyers (only 7% opposed), including 89% of Republicans (Grassley’s party), 93% of Democrats and Independents, 93% of gun households, and 85% of those living in a household with a member of the NRA.

Senator Grassley also opposes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducting studies to measure the impact of firearms stating that gun violence is not a disease (ref), again parroting a position of the NRA.  That organization used its lobbying power to rapidly cut off federal funding for such studies through the CDC in the 1990′s when results showed the increased risks of guns in the home (ref).  With gun deaths costing the US billions of dollars each year (ref) with such costs being reflected in increased medical insurance premiums (ref), and with the disproportionate loss of life by gunfire in the US accounting for over 25% of the decreased life expectancy in America (ref), it is folly for the senator to take the position that gun violence does not constitute a public health issue.

Is it just coincidence that his receipt of significant financial contributions from the gun lobby is tied to his reiteration of NRA positions?  One thing is for certain.  His ability to cast an impartial vote or opinion is clearly under question.  In the world of product regulation where I made my living, there is sharp divide between how enforcement and lawmaking operate.  The enforcement end (our regulatory agencies) is completely hands-off regarding special interest contributions – we could not even offer to pick up a lunch (nor would we so offer).  Any outside member of a committee evaluating product safety was required to give disclosure of financial conflicts of interest, and if such existed they could participate in discussion but not in a vote.  I have told regulators that their’s is a job I would never take.  If something went wrong, they would make the trip to Hill to face the wrath of lawmakers who were in receipt of special interest contributions that helped take the teeth out of the enforcement end.  Consider the Teahrt Amendment’s effect on the ability of the ATF to do its job (rather than reference an article, see clip 2, “There Goes the Boom – ATF” for a Daily Show segment on the matter).

And when gerrymandering has resulted in only 35 swing Congressional districts (ref), and with the Citizens United Supreme Court decision opening primaries to substantial special interest contributions (party money stays out of the primaries), lawmakers who do not do the bidding of special interests can face well-funded opponents in primary elections who can remove them from office.  The pressures are considerable.

With lawmakers even debating the need to do something about the mass murder of 20 youngsters, an absurdity undoubtedly tied to political contributions and fears of primary challenges, there has never been such a matter that justifies changing campaign finance law and overturning the Citizens United decision.

Discussion

Each year in this country we lose 150 children under the age of 10 years to gunfire with many hundreds of others injured (ref), some suffering long-term disability and disfigurement.  In a matter of seconds, in that singular setting in Connecticut, we lost 15% of this nation’s annual total in that age range to a disturbed individual in possession of a weapon designed to inflict mass casualties.  That our Congress is even debating what, if anything, should be done is not only appalling but is contrary to its past behavior regarding child protection.

Consider that since 1974, the year CAPTA was enacted, our Congress has passed well over two dozen federal laws regarding the protection of children (ref).  Yet protecting children from gun violence becomes a matter of political debate.  And it does our international reputation little good that the United States is but one of only three countries (the others being Somalia and South Sudan) that have failed to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (ref), a human rights treaty that protects the rights of children, including protection from violence; a matter our current president has described as being ‘embarrassing’.

Nor have I found evidence in this current debate that any of our lawmakers are openly challenging their colleagues regarding special interest conflicts.  Are any of them willing to challenge what has become the accepted norm for doing business on the Hill?

The documentary ‘Independent Intervention’ makes the point that our mainstream media sanitized the real cost of the Iraq war.   If the American public actually saw the carnage inflicted on Iraqi women and children from Shock and Awe (which is what independent journalists provided) rather than the sanitized versions presented on our TV sets of distant bomb blasts, public pressure to end the conflict would have been much greater (especially since the evidence that took us into war never materialized).  And with the military embedding mainstream reporters, those reporters were shown essentially what the military allowed them to see and that was what was brought into our living rooms.

In Edward R. Murrow’s 1958 NTNDA (an excerpt of which will end this article), he made the point that television was evolving into a media to “delude, amuse and insulate us” from the realities of the world in which we live.  His words about historians looking back 50 to 100 years from now were prophetic.  Consider that the CBS news show 60 Minutes was the most popular TV show in America during the 1979/80, 1982/83, 1991/92, 1992/93, and 1993/94 seasons and holds the record for being a top 10 Nielson rated show for 23 consecutive seasons between 1977/78 through 1999/2000 (ref).  Now consider  the content of the top 10 shows for the 2011/12 season (ref):

1. NBC Monday Night Football
2. American Idol (had held number 1 for 8 years, a record)
3. NCIS
4. American Idol Results Show
5. Dancing with the Stars
6. NCIS: Los Angeles
7. Dancing with the Stars Results Show
8. The Big Bang Theory
9. The Voice
10. Two and a Half Men

The Newtown incident has laid bare, as none other before, the inherent conflict between special interest influences versus the charge that our lawmakers govern in the best interests of our citizenry.  However, there have been many less spectacular instances of policy that claim US lives while lawmakers benefitted from special interest contributions.   It’s just that our media has insulated us from that reality whereas the Newtown incident was brought into our living rooms.  And with a handful of corporations now controlling our media, and news not being a profit-making venture, far too much special interest-driven punditry is taken as news (ref).

The full text of Murrow’s 1958 NTNDA speech can be found here.  An excerpt follows.

“Our history will be what we make it. And if there are any historians about 50 or 100 years from now, and there should be preserved the kinescopes for one week of all three networks, they will there find recorded in black and white, or color, evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live. I invite your attention to the television schedules of all networks between the hours of 8 and 11 p.m., Eastern Time. Here you will find only fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger. There are, it is true, occasional informative programs presented in that intellectual ghetto on Sunday afternoons. But during the daily peak viewing periods, television in the main insulates us from the realities of the world in which we live. If this state of affairs continues, we may alter an advertising slogan to read: LOOK NOW, PAY LATER…

“We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent. We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses and recognize that television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture too late.”

Had a corporation in an industry federally regulated for safety been aware of a high level of product-related death and injury in children, obstructed attempts to look into the matter, obstructed dissemination of information about the matter, impeded the work of local, state and federal law enforcement, while continuing to increase public exposure to more powerful versions of the product that claimed multiple other young lives, those involved would have faced criminal prosecution.  Yet our own lawmakers are so engaged while keeping firearms unregulated for safety and pocketing backdoor money from the gun industry through the NRA.  The double standard is staggering.  The behavior is reprehensible if not scandalous.  Our free press should step forward, as only it can, to explore this issue.

Arthur R. (Art) Kamm, PhD

contact information

The following was e-mailed to US House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s office on the date of this posting.

January 13, 2013

Re:           Gun-Related Deaths in US Children: Government Complicity

Dear Representative Cantor:

I direct this correspondence to you due to your leadership position in the House, your record on ‘gun rights’ legislation that has earned you an A rating by the National Rifle Association (NRA), and because your party this past election cycle received 89% of the political contributions issued by the NRA – this nation’s leading ‘gun rights’ lobbying organization.  You are listed as the 4th leading recipient of such contributions in the House.

I write you not only as a concerned citizen and parent regarding the issue of gun violence in America, but as an individual whose career involved responsibility for assessing and reporting product safety in a federally regulated industry (pharmaceuticals).  I have held senior executive positions, consulted for corporations, and have been before government regulators on numerous occasions.   Unlike most (if not all) consumer products, guns remain unregulated for health and safety.  In the industry where I worked, federal law required us to not only assure the safety of our products, but that we take steps to reduce risk, finding an optimal balance between benefit and risk.

Gun violence in America is a significant public health concern.  Gun-related deaths have been reported to account for more than 25% of the decreased life expectancy in America versus other wealthy nations.  The product also carries the risk of serious injury that can result in life-long debilitation, both physically and psychologically.

A particularly disturbing issue is the grossly disproportionate level of gunfire deaths in US children versus other peer nations.  The horrific massacre of 20 young children at Sandy Hook Elementary represents less than 1% of gun-related deaths in our country’s youth each year.  The leading cause of death in African-American teens is gun-related, and those deaths contribute to a full year decrease in the life expectancy of black males in our country.  It has been reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the gun-related death rate in US children under the age of 15 years is nearly 12 times that of 25 other industrialized nations combined.  The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has stated that the morbidity and mortality associated with firearm injuries in US children is “a significant public health problem”, “epidemic”, and has called for serious study on the matter.  And, as has been reported in the academic literature, there is a correlation (that holds across both countries and states) regarding the level of gun ownership and gun violence – the more guns the greater the incidence of gun violence.   The US exhibits by far both the highest per capita gun ownership and population adjusted gun-related death rate of any other Western democracy.  A death rate in the US that is reflected in both the general population as well as children.  The data are clear that more guns have actually made us, and our children, less safe.

But what is exceptionally troubling, and what I have found to be poorly understood by the public, is just how long this issue with children has been known.  The CDC and AAP published their findings and opinion in the 1990’s.  Not only has Congress failed to intervene in the matter, lawmakers have actually worked to obstruct both the generation and availability of information while allowing expanded public exposure to increasingly more powerful versions of these products.  And while doing so, many members of Congress have been accepting political contributions from the NRA – contributions that are derived, in part, from the very industry that financially benefits from such a legislative agenda.

Particularly disturbing in light of the Newtown incident was the AAP forewarning in a 1997 publication: “The recent occurrence of several highly publicized shootings in suburban or middle size town schools deserves continued serious study and prompt local and national responses.”  And yet our lawmakers, under the influence of the NRA, have all but choked off money for such research, first with the CDC and more recently with the National Institutes of Health.

Speaking frankly, in the industry where I worked, if a corporation was aware that it had a product that was associated with a disproportionately high loss of life in children, and the corporation worked to obstruct generation and dissemination of such information while expanding public exposure to even more powerful versions of the product that claimed multiple other young lives, executives of that corporation would have faced criminal prosecution under federal law.  It is difficult to argue that our lawmakers have not been complicit in contributing to this high loss of life in American children as well as increasing the risk of events like Newtown, Tucson, and Aurora, all of which claimed the lives of youngsters.  And that lawmakers are using an element of our Bill of Rights to justify product-related deaths in children is, frankly, offensive.  To the contrary, our Congress has a long storied history over the past century of enacting numerous laws to ensure the protection of children.

There will be forthcoming recommendations from Vice President Biden’s working group intended to reduce the level of gun violence in our country.  Yet I read that certain measures, such as banning types of weaponry that have been used in mass shootings involving children, will meet political resistance by legislators.  I would hope that your party will embrace the need for tighter gun regulation regarding our children’s health and safety, perhaps even making additional recommendations.  But in doing so, remember the data are clear that more guns have made us, and our children, less safe.

That our lawmakers, through both their actions and inactions, have knowingly permitted such a disparate loss of life in US children to persist, while accepting contributions derived from the industry that financially benefits from such behavior, represents the worst of special-interest driven politics.  It was never intended that the Second Amendment be used to justify such a disparate loss of young life in this country.

Should you or your colleagues wish, I can provide sources for the information contained in this correspondence.

Examination of raw data as well as multiple academic studies support the link between widespread gun ownership and increased gun violence across both countries and states.  The US exhibits by far the largest per capita gun ownership and gun-related death rate of any other industrialized Western democracy.  With US citizens already in possession of nearly 300 million firearms, the current debate should include the broad-based interpretation of the Second Amendment, promulgated by the gun lobby, regarding our country’s current size, urbanization, and technological advancements in weaponry.

The very first stopping point in the assessment of product safety is a summary of deaths.  It is considered a hard endpoint, readily measurable, and is the penultimate negative outcome associated with product use.   My career was spent in generating and evaluating data regarding the benefit/risk of products in a regulated healthcare industry; progressed into senior executive positions, consulted for multiple corporations in the area, was paid well for the work, and have been before government regulators on multiple occasions regarding issues of product safety and analyses of what is known as benefit/risk assessment, i.e., do the benefits of a product outweigh the risks and what do we need to do to minimize risk.  It is from the perspective of gunfire death and injury being a public health issue that I engage on the topic of gun regulation.  These products carry a death rate associated with ownership and hospitalize people due to injury, some experiencing life-long debilitation, physical and/or psychological.  So despite claims by the NRA to the contrary, gun ownership, even legal gun ownership, has been shown to impact public health.

Regarding guns, the data are overwhelming that the US experiences a grossly disproportionate loss of life to gunfire than other wealthy industrialized countries.  This holds true whether we look at the general population or the subset of children.  Yet guns are virtually the only consumer product not regulated for health and safety.  And frankly, had I taken a team before government regulators and stated that the solution we proposed to the gunfire death and injury issue in this country is not to impose regulation, but rather increase public exposure to the product (as is the direction of the NRA), we would have been laughed out of the room.  Actually, the response would have been one of indignation to such a suggestion.

In large part the gun debate in America revolves around the issue of protecting/defending oneself.  But there is much loss of life reported in America that is outside of that intended purpose.  In the trade, that falls under what is known as product abuse potential.  These deaths include non-self defense killings and suicides.  Additionally, a high rate of accidental deaths have also been reported for the product, including in children.  Whereas it is easy to measure the deaths from product abuse and accidental events, it is difficult to measure the intended benefit of the product – protection.  Even if such benefit exists, it would have to be enough to offset the considerable number of unintended deaths.   And assuming such a level of benefit exists, there is a high price being paid in our country, a price that is not incurred in other wealthy industrialized countries.

What has reignited the gun debate in this country are the deaths and injuries associated with several mass shootings this past year, especially one where 20 youngsters aged 5-6 lost their life while attending their school.  But the safety issue with guns goes beyond just mass shootings.  Such incidents are but a small contributor to the overall loss of life to gunfire in this country – deaths from mass shootings are but a subset.  So the point becomes how do we reduce deaths from gun violence overall.  Unless we address the larger issue we will likely keep the door open for additional mass shootings.

The one piece of information that stands out, whether we look at the raw data or the academic literature, is that there is a link between the level of gun ownership and gun violence across both countries and states.  More guns have not made us safer.  This will be reviewed below.  And where this is important is that if we are considering legislation intended to reduce the number of deaths and injuries from gunfire in this country, such decisions should be data driven, not speculative, and hopefully more than just a bandaid.  Will placing a ban on assault weapons, high capacity ammunition clips, and requiring mandatory background checks be effective in markedly reduce gun violence in America?  Wayne LaPierre (NRA CEO) claims that measures like a weapons ban has not worked before.  But the direction he would have us go, increasing firearm exposure, is in exactly the opposite direction of what the data say.  In effect, he may be talking his way right out of his claimed inalienable right to keep and bear arms to defend oneself; or least he should be.

Raw Data

The data displayed below comes from time periods in the 1990s to more recent years.  Despite not finding an integrated summary for any one specific year, the data regarding level of gun ownership and firearm death rates across countries are compelling.

Number of Guns per Capita by Country

A chart displaying the number of guns per capita (number of privately owned small firearms divided by the number of residents per country) is provided here and graphically depicted below.  As some individuals may possess multiple weapons and others possess none, the numbers do not represent the percentage of people who own guns in these countries.  The margins of error in this reporting are said to be considerable.  But the US being ranked for having the highest number of guns per capita is said to be unambiguous.  The US possesses 88.8 guns per 100 residents.  For purposes of later discussion, countries that imposed tight restrictions on gun ownership exhibit, not unexpectedly, much lower gun per capita figures than that of the US: Japan (0.6/100, US  rate being 148 times larger); England/Wales (6.2/100, US rate being 14 times greater), and Australia (15/100, US rate being 6 times greater) – see chart in above link for complete display of countries.

Firearm-Related Death Rate by Country

A historical list of countries by firearm-related death-rate per 100,000 population in one year is provided here.  The US rate of firearm deaths (10.2/100,000) is ten times that of Australia (1.05/100,000), 40 times that of the United Kingdom (0.25/100,000), and 145 times that of Japan. Although this source did not graphically depict these data, a graph of such data follows.

This disproportionate loss of life to gunfire in the US general population holds true for children as well.  The following depicts gunfire deaths (homicides, suicides, accidental) in US children less than 15 years of age from 26 industrialized countries.

Granted that correlation does not necessarily imply causation.  So we move to academic studies on the matter.

Academic Studies

Credit to Ezra Klein’s work on mass shootings for directing me to the information provided from the Harvard Injury Control Center (Harvard School of Public Health).  Summaries of various studies have been excerpted and provided below.

Relationship Between Homicide and Gun Availability

1. Where there are more guns there is more homicide (literature review).

Our review of the academic literature found that a broad array of evidence indicates that gun availability is a risk factor for homicide, both in the United States and across high-income countries.  Case-control studies, ecological time-series and cross-sectional studies indicate that in homes, cities, states and regions in the US, where there are more guns, both men and women are at higher risk for homicide, particularly firearm homicide.

Hepburn, Lisa; Hemenway, David. Firearm availability and homicide: A review of the literature.Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40.

2. Across high-income nations, more guns = more homicide.

We analyzed the relationship between homicide and gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s.  We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there are more homicides. These results often hold even when the United States is excluded.

Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew. Firearm availability and homicide rates across 26 high income countries. Journal of Trauma. 2000; 49:985-88.

3. Across states, more guns = more homicide

Using a validated proxy for firearm ownership, we analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and homicide across 50 states over a ten year period (1988-1997).

After controlling for poverty and urbanization, for every age group, people in states with many guns have elevated rates of homicide, particularly firearm homicide.

Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. Household firearm ownership levels and homicide rates across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997. American Journal of Public Health. 2002: 92:1988-1993.

4. Across states, more guns = more homicide (2)

Using survey data on rates of household gun ownership, we examined the association between gun availability and homicide across states, 2001-2003. We found that states with higher levels of household gun ownership had higher rates of firearm homicide and overall homicide.  This relationship held for both genders and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and resource deprivation (e.g., poverty). There was no association between gun prevalence and non-firearm homicide.

Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David. State-level homicide victimization rates in the U.S. in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001-2003. Social Science and Medicine. 2007; 64:656-64.

1. Across states, more guns = more violent deaths to children

We analyzed the relationship between firearm availability and unintentional gun death, homicide and suicide for 5-14 year olds across the 50 states over a ten year period. Children in states with many guns have elevated rates of unintentional gun deaths, suicide and homicide.  The state rates of non-firearm suicide and non-firearm homicide among children are not related to firearm availability.

Miller, Matthew; Azrael, Deb; Hemenway, David. Firearm availability and unintentional firearm deaths, suicide, and homicide among 5-14 Year Olds. Journal of Trauma. 2002; 52:267-75.
2. Child firearm suicide appears more impulsive than suicide by other means (Arizona).

We analyzed data from the Arizona Childhood Fatality Review Team comparing youth gun suicide with suicide by other means. Children who use a firearm to commit suicide have fewer identifiable risk factors for suicide, such as expressing suicidal thoughts.  Gun suicides appear more impulsive and spontaneous than suicide by other means.

Azrael, Deborah; Hemenway, David; Miller, Matthew; Barber, Catherine; Schackner, Robert. Youth suicide: Insights from 5 years of Arizona child review team data. Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior. 2004; 34:36-43.

3. Guns are rarely used in infant homicides  

This article uses data from various locations to describe the circumstances of infant homicides. Guns are almost never used to kill infants.  The perpetrator is virtually always caught, and often is the one calling the police.

Fujiwara, Takeo; Barber, Catherine; Schaechter, Judy; Hemenway, David. Characteristics of infant homicides in the U.S.: findings from a multi-site reporting system. Pediatrics. 2009; 124:e210-17.

4. Parents incorrectly believe their children have not handled the family gun

At family practice clinics in rural Alabama, over 400 parents were separated from their children, and both were asked questions about guns in the home.  We found that over 1/3 of parents who reported that their son had not handled a household gun were contradicted by the child.

Baxley, Frances; Miller, Matthew. Parental misperceptions about their children and firearms. Annals of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. 2006; 160:542-47.

(Note: The NRA backed legislation that would make it illegal for a physician to question a patient about guns in the home under threat of actually losing the license to practice.  Such law went into effect in Florida but was overturned by a federal court as being a violation of First Amendment rights).

5. Unsupervised firearm handling by adolescents often involves shooting the gun

We analyzed data from a telephone survey of over 5,800 California adolescents conducted in 2000-01. We found that one-third of adolescents reported handling a firearm, 5% without adult supervision or knowledge.  Smoking, drinking and parents not knowing the child’s whereabouts in the afternoon were associated with unsupervised gun handling.  These events usually occur away from home, with friends.  Half involve shooting the gun.

Miller, Matthew; Hemenway, David. Unsupervised firearm handling by California adolescents. Injury Prevention. 2004; 10:163-68.

Additional Studies

The Violence Policy Center has provided a compilation of studies linking gun possession and greater availability of guns to increased homicide.  (Note: The first study below by Kellerman is the one cited that caused the gun lobby to move on having lawmakers cut off federal funding for firearms research).

1.  Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home, Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH; Frederick P. Rivara, MD, MPH; et al, The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 329, No. 15, October 7, 1993, pp. 1084-1091.

Using data from three U.S. counties, this study examines risk factors that can lead to homicide in the home. These include firearms availability, illicit-drug use, alcohol consumption, and domestic violence.

Key Fact:  The presence of a gun in the home makes it nearly three times more likely that someone will be murdered by a family member or intimate partner.

2.  Handgun Regulations, Crime, Assaults, and Homicide: A Tale of Two Cities, John Henry Sloan, MD, MPH; Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH; et al, The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 319, No. 19, November 10, 1988, pp. 1256-1262.

This classic study compares the rate of homicides, assaults, and other crimes in Seattle and Vancouver from 1980 through 1986 to determine the effect of handgun regulations on the crime rate. Although similar to Seattle, Washington, in many ways, Vancouver, British Columbia, has a more restrictive approach to handgun possession. This study found that restrictions on handgun access reduce the rate of homicide.

Key Facts:

Although the assault rate was only slightly higher in Seattle than Vancouver, the rate of assault involving firearms was seven times higher in Seattle.

The risk of death from homicide was found to be significantly higher in Seattle than in Vancouver. This excess risk was explained by a nearly five-fold higher risk of being murdered with a handgun in Seattle as compared with Vancouver.

Rates of homicide involving means other than guns were not substantially different in the two cities.

3.  Trends in Rates of Homicides in the United States, 1985-1994, MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report), Vol. 45, No. 22, June 7, 1996, pp. 460-464.

Covering a 10-year period (1985 to 1994), this study shows that the increase in homicide from 1985 to 1991 was driven by a jump in firearm homicides among young people aged 15 years to 24 years old. From 1992 to 1994 homicides among persons aged 15 years to 24 years old increased and then stabilized, but remained at record-high levels.

Key Facts:

During the years 1985 to 1994, the percentage of firearm-related homicides among all homicides in the total population increased from 60% to 72%.

In the same period, firearms homicides increased from 67% to 87% among persons aged 15 years to 24 years old.
These increases illustrate that changes in overall homicide rates primarily reflect changes in firearm-related homicides.

Discussion

It is not unusual to find articles speaking against the efficacy of tightening gun ownership in other countries.  One such article appeared recently in the Wall Street Journal questioning steps taken by both Great Britain and Australia that markedly tightened gun ownership.  In that article terms like an increase in ‘gun crime’, or an example of another mass murder, or police now having to carry firearms in Great Britain for the first time because of armed gangs, are all given as examples of gun regulation not having the desired effect.  But it is death that is the very first stopping point in the assessment of safety.  If one compares levels of gun ownership across the US, Great Britain, and Australia (the ones discussed in that article) to the reported overall death rate in those countries, it becomes difficult to make the argument that tighter restrictions on gun ownership has not had an impact on substantially lowering gunfire-related deaths.  As reviewed above, this observation is supported by multiple academic studies on the matter.

Additionally the argument is made that gun deaths in the US are decreasing.  That claim reminds me of Jon Stewart’s statement to Bill O’Reilly that being the sanest individual at Fox News was like being the thinnest kid at fat camp.  Yes, gunfire homicides have fallen in the US over the past decade from over 10,000 to a little over 9000.  But compare that to the 39 gunfire homicides being reported by Great Britain.

And there are the often cited examples of Switzerland and Israel as being examples of gun toting utopias.  But that is largely myth.  Switzerland has been moving away from having widespread guns and the laws are determined canton by canton (a canton being like a province).  Everyone serves in the military in Switzerland and the cantons used to allow guns to be kept in the home – they are now moving to keep them stored in depots.  In Israel it used to be that the military allowed soldiers to take their guns home with them – now they are required to leave them on base.  This has resulted in a 60% decrease in suicides on weekends among IDS soldiers.

And the gun lobby cries that if we are to ban certain weapons, why not ban automobiles that claim so many lives, including children.  I have extensively considered that argument in other articles (ref) (ref).  Automobile and gun-related fatalities are now roughly equivalent in the US, with at least 10 states now reporting a higher number of gunfire-related deaths than auto fatalities.  When one considers the disparity of ownership and usage between the two products, guns are actually considerably more unsafe than cars these days.  The reason that auto fatalities have so notably decreased?  Regulatory intervention and technological improvements – initiatives that have been resisted with guns.

If we are to address the issue of gun violence in this country, we need to understand the underlying precipitating factors.  And one is clearly the link between level of gun ownership and gun-related violence.  The US has, by far, the largest number of guns per capita and the highest death rate of other industrialized nations.

But the issue this author continually comes back to is what is happening, on a comparative basis, to children in this country.  That should be a defining issue in this matter.  Children are a protected class and numerous laws exist to their benefit.  And the disproportionate loss of life in US children to gunfire has been known for quite some time.  Rather than working to curb the effects of gun violence on children, our lawmakers (some, not all) have actually worked to obstruct the generation and availability of information on the matter while expanding public exposure.  In doing so, there is little doubt that they have been derelict in their responsibilities as lawmakers regarding the well being of our children.

I am on the side of gun control, not because of ideology, but rather what the data say.  I place a higher value on the life of our children, friends, family, etc., than ideologically-driven widespread gun ownership.  No doubt advocacy groups will take what they can at this point after years of effort on their part and lack of action by lawmakers.  But with upwards of 300 million firearms being held by citizens of this country, will the type of controls being considered by VP Biden’s team (universal background checks, national databases on gun ownership, stiffer penalties for carrying guns near school) bring to parity gun-related fatalities in this country to that in peer nations, including the loss of our children?  The data would argue ‘no’.

Part of the debate that the horrific mass shootings last year have reignited, should be consideration of the broad interpretation of the Second Amendment, promulgated by the NRA and the gun lobby, regarding our country’s current size, urbanization, and advancements we have seen to weaponry.  To not make that part of the debate is playing ostrich to the much broader issue of gun violence in our country.

An Unspeakable Pain

I was supposed to be in the delivery room for the birth of my first.  But it was the urgent voice of a nurse that changed all of that.  I was left standing alone in the hospital hallway watching as the gurney was rapidly transported out of sight.  After wearing a path into the waiting room floor for what seemed an eternity, a voice finally called my name.  The staffer told me it was a boy…and that he was breathing.

What happened next was something for which I was completely unprepared.  The moment I first laid eyes on him, a young struggling life in the stark and sterile environment of that ICU, the bonding was immediate.  The speed at which it struck overthrew me.  It was complex, both humbling and daunting – a mix of purpose, protection, love and responsibility that forever changed my life.  In that flash of an instant we became parent and child.  It was the beginning of a lifelong journey for us; a bonding that would be repeated with another who would follow in later years.

Like other parents, I would have the occasional, and thankfully rare, nightmare where I would lose one of them to some awful event; awakening to reassure myself that it was only a dream.  However, for the parents of Newtown, CT, and far too many others around this country, their’s is a nightmare from which they can not awaken.  They have experienced the visceral tearing of parent from child by an instrument designed to end life.  It is a loss, a void, that perhaps only another parent could begin to comprehend.  And what we hear is that the massive proliferation and possession of such instruments in our society, some designed to take numerous lives in short order, is an inalienable right that trumps the pain and loss that these parents have been made to endure.  It is with that perversion, and lack of intervention, we watch our children senselessly lose their lives to gunfire in numbers far greater than that in other industrialized nations.

Disingenuous Lawmakers

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), NRA-A rated and whose voting record has been described as being ‘notoriously pro-gun’, stepped forward following Newtown to question the need for citizens to be in possession of semi-automatic assault-style weaponry.  However, his statement regarding the Newtown massacre, that “We’ve never seen this happen”, is mind numbing.

Are our lawmakers really claiming amnesia to such horrific events as the Cleveland School massacre (Stockton, CA 1989) where Patrick Purdy, a misanthrope who was in possession of a military assault rifle, fired off 106 rounds in 3 minutes killing 5 children (aged 6 to 9 years) and wounding 29 other young students and one teacher before taking his own life?  An act that contributed to both the California and Federal assault weapons ban?  The federal ban being allowed to expire in 2004?

And have they forgotten the globally reported Dunblane school massacre, 1996, where a mentally disturbed individual, in legal possession of 4 firearms, fired 109 rounds into a Primary One class of 5 and 6 year olds, killing 15 children and their teacher who lost her life trying to protect those children?  An event hauntingly similar to what occurred in Newtown?  An event that contributed to the ban of handguns in Great Britain?  Or that somehow we would be immune to such a horrific event here?

And are they unaware that since 1982 there have been at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms in 30 different states; or that 15 of the last 25 worst mass shootings over the past 50 years occurred in the US, the next in line being Finland with two; or of the 11 deadliest shootings in the US, five have happened from 2007 onward?

And are they claiming ignorance about the long known fact that the gunfire death rate in US children dwarfs that of other industrialized nations?  And that mass shootings, as horrific as they are, are but a small contributor to the overall problem?

Mass Shootings Involving Children: The Tip of an Iceberg

In the 1990′s the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published that 86% of gunfire deaths in children from 26 industrialized countries occurred in the U.S.  The overall death rate in U.S. children under the age of 15 years was nearly 12 times greater than that for the other 25 countries combined.  U.S. children were 16 times more likely to be murdered by gunfire, 11 times more likely to take their lives by gunfire, and 9 times more likely to lose their life in accidental shootings than those in the other 25 combined countries.

The response of the gun lobby to such research?  The NRA was successful in getting lawmakers to cut federal funding for firearms research, first with the CDC in the 1990′s and more recently with the National Institutes of Health.  Following these legislative achievements the NRA published the following: “These junk science studies and others like them are designed to provide ammunition for the gun control lobby by advancing the false notion that legal gun ownership is a danger to the public health instead of an inalienable right”.  This while the Committee on Injury and Poison Prevention of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) had described the morbidity and mortality associated with firearm injuries in U.S. children as being “a significant public health problem” and “epidemic”.   In that same 1997 report the AAP forewarned that “The recent occurrence of several highly publicized shootings in suburban or middle size town schools deserves continued serious study and prompt local and national responses.”

By turning a blind eye, legislating to obstruct availability and generation of information while continuing to expand public exposure to firearms, the risk that events like Newtown, Aurora, and Tucson (all taking the lives of youngsters) was increased; they were permitted to happen.  Our lawmakers, in kowtowing to the gun lobby, can not and should not be allowed to duck responsibility.  They need to make it right.

Defining the Right Endpoint

Newtown has reignited the gun control debate.  But, will proposed legislation be intended to simply reduce the frequency of mass shootings and/or or the level of carnage in such events?  Or should the endpoint be to bring the loss of life in US children by gunfire to parity with other industrialized nations.  These are different endpoints. Consideration of some of the controls being discussed in the media follow.

Banning Assault Weapons and High Capacity Ammunition Clips

There has been a massive proliferation of such weaponry since the last assault weapons ban, the NRA stating that “There are more than 3 million [AR-15s - the weapon used in Newtown and Aurora] in the hands of law-abiding American citizens”.  As long as individuals are permitted to keep these weapons that they have already purchased, the risk of another Newtown still exists.  Adam Lanza, the disturbed shooter in the Newtown incident, did not purchase the weapons he used.  He took them from his mother’s home after putting multiple bullets into her head.

Expanding Background Checks

These checks help prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands, including felons and the mentally-ill.  However, many things that lawmakers have allowed to occur will need to be undone.  Decades of lobbying by the NRA has loosened laws, allowing felons to regain gun rights often with little or no review.  And following the Virginia Tech massacre, the NRA was successful in extracting a concession from lawmakers – the inclusion of a mechanism for restoring firearms rights to those who lost them for mental health reasons.  And can Mr. LaPierre (NRA CEO) be taken seriously in blaming a deficient mental illness database and guns falling into the hands of felons for incidents like Newtown when the NRA has successfully opposed closing the “gun show loophole” that by-passes background checks and where up to 40% of US gun sales occur?

And gun theft is not uncommon.   As recently published in the Raleigh N&O (NC), the ATF reports 25,000 guns were stolen nationally in 2010 with only 23 percent of those being recovered during a typical year.  Law enforcement officials from several NC counties reported an increase in stolen guns in 2012, one stating “If more people are owning more guns, it’s not unreasonable to think more will be stolen during property crimes.”  Another noting “There’s a market for stolen weapons.  That’s because felons can’t go in and legally buy a gun, so they have to buy it off the street…”.

Regarding mass shootings in the U.S., in most cases over the past three decades the killers had obtained their weapons legally.

Enhanced background checks will provide some level of benefit but will be an incomplete solution.

Other Familiar Scapegoats

Whether one looks at different countries or different states, the Harvard Injury Control Research Center has concluded that more guns tend to mean more homicide (ibid and ref).  And higher populations, more stress, more immigrants, and more mental illness were not found to be correlated with more deaths from gun violence; states with tighter gun control laws appear to have fewer gun-related deaths (ibid and ref).

Also, the higher gun ownership, the higher the loss of young life from accidental gunfire .  Pre-schoolers aged 0-4 years were found to be 17 times more likely to lose their lives from a gun accident, and school aged kids aged 5-14 were over 13 times more at risk to die from accidental firearm death, in the 4 states having the highest gun ownership versus the 4 with the lowest gun ownership.

In light of the above, one can consider the frequent scapegoat, media.  Great Britain, as but one example, is no stranger to graphic media including movies, comics and video games.  That culture published the graphic ten-issue comic book series V for Vendetta and has brought to the screen the James Bond series and the Guy Ritchie crime films Revolver, Snatch, and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, staring popular British actor David Statham.  Statham has additionally starred in multiple US action films, also viewed in Great Britain, including The Transporter series, Death Race, Crank, The Bank Job, War, and The Expendables 1 and 2.  And yes, video games are played in Great Britain, with age rating restrictions; only two titles have ever been banned and both decisions were later overturned.  Gunfire murders in Great Britain, 2008, totaled 39 (equivalent to 195 in the US); in 2009 the US reported 9,146.  Great Britain reduced public exposure to guns by enacting legislation that banned handguns following several mass shootings, including the Dunblane School massacre.  Other examples, such as Japan and Australia, correlate tight restrictions on gun ownership to low gunfire murder rates.

Police in Schools

Consider that some committing mass murders with guns today arm themselves with high powered weaponry and that some wear protective gear.  So should not a police officer patrol the hallways carrying an assault rifle and wearing full protective gear?  There is no guarantee that the officer would be successful in stopping a shooter, or multiple shooters as was the case at Columbine, before lives were already taken, including perhaps the officer.  And would not this solution beg for an exchange of fire from high powered weaponry in schools that harbor our children?  That such has even been suggested is an admission as to how unsafe our children have become to the increasing availability of guns in our society.

The Right Endpoint

It was never the intent of the Second Amendment to justify the epidemic loss of young lives we experience in this country.  The morally correct endpoint of legislation should be to bring gunfire injury and death in US children to parity with other industrialized countries.  That’s where the dialog needs to be.

A Cold and Broken Hallelujah

In reflecting on the several mass shootings in 2012 that claimed the lives of far too many youngsters, the words of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ haunted me this holiday season.  The work is compellingly emotional and the lyrics can be taken on many levels.  I provide Jeff Buckley’s rendition for those who may be unfamiliar with the work.

Our children are a ‘Hallelujah’ in our lives.    We nurture their development and share in the joy of their existence through that special bond between parent and child.   But when a child is senselessly torn from us because we have tolerated our lawmakers placing a higher value on ideology, special interests and keeping their office than that young life itself:

“It’s not a cry you can hear at night/It’s not somebody who has seen the light/It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah”

The extremist position the NRA leadership takes in opposing virtually all gun control regulation, along with its associated anti-diversity rhetoric, has placed it at odds with the majority of gun owners, including its own membership, as well as an increasingly diverse America.  It is only a matter of time before politicians will find it necessary to distance themselves from the organization to keep or achieve political office.  A multi-pronged political approach now exists that can compel lawmakers into taking action to curb gun violence in America.

The NRA holds a powerful lobbying presence on Capital Hill and has enjoyed success with its legislative agenda to expand public exposure to weaponry despite large numbers of citizens, including children and adolescents, losing their lives in numerous mass shootings, often involving high-powered weaponry (a timeline of mass shootings since Columbine is provided here).  However, the organization finds itself increasingly at odds with gun owners (both NRA and non-NRA members), as well as the general public in key swing states, who disagree with the organization’s hardline anti-gun control approach.

As a result, candidates for political office who support the NRA’s market expansion ‘guns anywhere/anytime’ policies have become increasingly ultraconservative, extremist, and thus carry with them a host of associated social beliefs and behaviors that a growing diversity in America finds offensive – anti-diversity beliefs that are echoed by the NRA’s very leadership.  Although such candidates have had success during special interest-driven and highly partisan low-turnout primaries, they can (and have) failed in general elections where a more moderate, diverse and broad swath of America shows up at the polls.

Politicians who continue to do the NRA’s bidding will increasingly find themselves susceptible to political attack not only from the burgeoning public demand for sensible gun control legislation, but from the associated ultraconservative social positions that many of these candidates and the NRA publicly voice – extremist positions that contributed to the defeat of several NRA ‘A’ rated candidates this past election.

The NRA’s extremist views on gun control and social issues will become increasingly toxic to politicians, both new and incumbent, who will eventually find it necessary to distance themselves from the organization if they wish to survive politically in a changing America.

The NRA has become its own worst enemy.  The implosion of its agenda is but a matter of time.  And, with some political will, that can be expedited.

To contend that there is not a gun violence problem in America is absurd

A week ago Bob Costas stepped forward to say that we need to have a dialog on the “gun culture” in this country following a firearm murder/suicide involving an NFL player.  No sooner did he issue his comments during the half-time broadcast of a National Football League game than he came under attack from prominent conservative figures and faced a ‘shout down’ by right wing media including Fox News and the Drudge Report.  Jon Stewart had a field day taking on the conservative media critics in a Daily Show segment entitled “Any Given Gun Day”.  But Mr. Costas may get his wish, not from his reasoned plea, but rather from the horrific killing of 20 young children by a gunman at an elementary school in Connecticut that has reignited the gun control debate.

That we have a gun violence problem in America is not a matter of debate.  It is a matter of fact.  To say otherwise is an absurdity and an offense to common sense.  The gun violence issue in America is supported by a wealth of statistics, some of which follow.

Out of 75 listed countries, the United States ranks 12th regarding firearm-related death rate, being exceeded only by El Salvador, Jamaica, Honduras, Guatemala, Swaziland, Colombia, Brazil, Panama, Mexico, Philippines, and South Africa.  In 2000 the US recorded close to 11,000 firearm homicides while the European Union, having a population about 25% greater than the US at the time, recorded fewer than 1300 firearm homicides.  And the imbalance continues into more recent times.  In 2009, for example, the US reported 9,146 firearm-related murders whereas Great Britain (GB) reported only 39 (equivalent to 195 US gunfire murders).  In that same article, the US reported a total of 15,241 murders (2009) as opposed to only 648 in GB (equivalent to 3,240 in the US) thus shattering the myth that if access to guns is more restricted that people would simply find other ways to kill one another.  Claims regarding a substitution effect for guns in murder (i.e., people in other countries find other ways to kill one another) has not been supported by multiple international comparisons as cited by Jean Lemaire, professor of Actuarial Science, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (reference section 4.3).  Guns make it a far easier matter to take another’s life.

Greater availability of guns has been associated with a higher level of death in children by accidental shooting:  ”When researchers studied the 30,000 accidental gun deaths of Americans of all ages that occurred between 1979-1997, they found that preschoolers aged 0-4 were 17 times more likely to die from a gun accident in the 4 states with the most guns versus the 4 states with the least guns. Likewise, school kids aged 5-14 were over 13 times more at risk of accidental firearm death in the states with high gun ownership rates. The findings indicate that gun availability is associated with accidental death by shooting”.  Also, it has been known since the 1990′s that US children under the age of 15 are at many times the risk of dying from gunfire (homicides, suicides, accidental shootings) than those in 25 other industrialized countries. The American Academy of Pediatrics has identified firearm-related injury as one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in minors and has described such as being ‘epidemic’.

Gunfire deaths are now roughly equivalent to automobile fatalities in the US (actually exceeding auto fatalities in at least 10 states) despite many more households owning cars than guns.  Despite the demand from the gun lobby regarding the right of ‘law abiding citizens’ to carry concealed guns to defend themselves, CCW permit holders alone account for the loss of more innocent US civilian lives in non-self defense shootings each year than the total gunfire homicides being reported in some other industrialized nations – and those findings, being derived largely from news media reports, are held to be a considerable underestimate as the gun lobby is becoming increasingly effective in obstructing access to permit holder identification.  This finding raises the question as to what loss of innocent civilian life at the hands of CCW permit holders are our lawmakers asking that we tolerate so that these permit holders can defend themselves?  And, it has been estimated that gunfire-related deaths in the US decreases male life expectancy more than the total of all prostate and colon cancer deaths with the aggregate estimated cost as high as $100 billion annually.  This disproportionate loss of life by gunfire in the US accounts for more than 25% of our decreased life expectancy relative to other wealthy nations (see section 4.1).

There is no debate that America suffers a gun violence problem.  The time for dialog on the matter is overdue.  This is not about banning guns.  It is a matter of how we reduce the disproportionate loss of life to gunfire that America experiences.  As a civilized society we are obligated to take steps to prevent, best we can, individuals (who are heavily armed, often with high powered weaponry) from walking into movie theaters, places of worship, malls during holiday shopping season, schools, and political events, who randomly open fire inflicting mass casualties on an innocent and unsuspecting citizenry.  It is immoral that our government has, time and again, failed to take steps to protect the US public from such incidents, an inaction that is nothing short of a dereliction of duty.  As the Brady Campaign slogan says, we are better than this.

Increasingly Out Of Touch

Recent findings from a survey conducted by GOP pollster Frank Luntz shows a divide between gun owners and the NRA regarding the need for gun control.  Gun owners, both NRA members and non-NRA members, showed overwhelming support for gun control measures that keep guns out of the hands of criminals, requiring background checks for all gun buyers, barring terror suspects from firearm ownership, and reporting lost and stolen guns.  All these measures are opposed by the NRA’s Washington office.

Additionally, a separate poll showed strong support amongst voters in three key swing states (Virginia, North Carolina, and Colorado) for enhanced gun control measures; 64%, 74% and 71% of voters in Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia, respectively, said that gun control should at least be a “somewhat important” priority for Obama.  And in all three states, significant majorities called for requiring background checks for all gun buyers (88%), and preventing convicted offenders or domestic abusers from carrying concealed guns across state lines (55%).

Associated Extremist Positions

In examining the overwhelming support from both gun owners and the voting public for stronger gun control measures, it is fair to describe the NRA leadership’s position in opposing virtually all gun control legislation as being extremist.  Ideological behaviors and beliefs are generally not confined to a singular issue, but are often bundled with other related behaviors.  Such point was made by Garen Wintenmute, MD, who published an analysis of a large survey sample (15,000 respondents across eight states) that linked gun ownership and carrying a gun to heavy alcohol use.  In that analysis it was shown that gun owners who carry a concealed weapon or have confronted another person with a gun were twice as likely to drink heavily than individuals who do not own guns.  And gun owners who also drove or rode in motor vehicles with loaded guns were more than four times as likely to drink and drive as were people who did not own guns.  Commenting on the findings, Dr. Wintemute stated: “It’s not surprising that risky behaviors go together.  This is of particular concern given that alcohol intoxication also impairs a gun user’s accuracy as well as his judgment on whether to shoot”.

The same principle holds regarding the gun control issue.  In taking a stance contrary to a large majority of gun owners and the general public on gun control measures, it is not surprising that this position is associated with other extremist views.  This point is made clear by the numerous instances of NRA leadership issuing overtly racist, sexist, and LGBT-bashing statements over a period of many years as has been extensively documented by the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence’s “Meet the NRA” website.  The NRA’s ties to extremism, racism and sexism has also been documented by the Violence Policy Center in an article entitled “NRA Family Values”.

It was not the gun control issue that brought down several NRA ‘A’ rated candidates at the polls, but rather these associated extremist views that proved offensive to an increasingly diverse America.  It was Women’s Rights that brought down Todd Akin (NRA ‘A’ rated) who held the belief that if a woman was pregnant that it could not have been the result of a legitimate rape).  The same was true for Richard Mourdock, NRA ‘A’ rated, who unseated Dick Lugar in a primary (Lugar would have easily won re-election as a Republican), but who lost the general election as he contended that a rape pregnancy was “something God intended to happen”.  And Paul Ryan, also sporting a NRA ‘A’ rating, but whose economic policy and social views proved toxic to both his candidacy and party during the general election.  Consider Ryan had his name as a co-sponsor, along with Todd Akin, on a Personhood at Conception bill; such legislation was voted down even in conservative Mississippi.  And despite his statement during the vice presidential debate that he could not separate his faith (Roman Catholicism) from his public life, the Catholic Bishops decried Ryan’s budget that cut safety nets to the poor while supporting tax cuts to the wealthiest – hardly consistent with Christ’s teachings.

And there is a darker side to this matter regarding a political party whose leadership in Florida admitted that voter ID laws were actually voter suppression tactics designed to keep “underclass minorities”  (who would support president Obama) from the polls.  Consider that gun violence in America is not only the leading cause of death amongst black teens, but that the racial disparity in gunfire homicides is so great that it shortens the average life expectancy of a black male nearly one full year, while the average white male loses only 5 months (reference section 3).  And NRA Board member Jeff Cooper speaks of his ‘disdain’ of ‘hyphenated Americans’?  It’s time to pull the curtain back.

Discussion

Compassionate pleas to curb the loss of life by gunfire in this country have, time and again, been insufficient in getting lawmakers (largely Republican who receive the overwhelming majority of NRA funding) to support reasonable gun control legislation.  But the word compassion is not in the vocabulary and is thus ineffective.  In a previous article “The Common Denominator of Right Wing Policy: Lost Lives”  I noted that numerous conservative policies continue to be pursued despite the well-documented and often substantial loss of life associated with them.  Such include refusing to reform our gun markets while at the same time expanding public exposure to weaponry despite over 30,000 citizens losing their lives to gunfire every year; opposing healthcare reform despite 45,000 Americans (and 2200 military veterans) losing their lives each year due to lack of access to essential care; continuing support of failed economic policy despite the marked rise in poverty it caused in recent times resulting in perhaps as many as 350,000 additional lost American lives each year (poverty does carry a death rate); discriminatory treatment of the LGBT community even though the extremist language and actions contribute to that class being by far the most susceptible to violent crime in our country; and, one yet to ripen, denial of man’s contribution to climate change that will have massive consequences to human life on a global level – this while representative Paul Broun (R-GA), who holds a position on the US House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, contends that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are “all lies straight from the pit of Hell” and that the Earth is 9000 years old.

What moves politicians to take action is when their job is threatened.  The time is right to go on the political offensive regarding gun control.  Despite gun owners and the public calling for stronger gun control measures, elected Republican officials have remained near united in opposing the wishes of their constituencies.  This is not dissimilar to what we are witnessing in the ‘fiscal cliff’ debate; the majority of Republican voters oppose keeping the Bush-era tax cuts in place for the wealthiest, yet 100% of their elected representatives in the Senate have opposed that tax increase (and there is doubt why their favorable/unfavorable rating has fallen to 30%/45% - minus 15 points?).  This topic was more extensively considered in a previous article: “Our Unrepresentative Representation”.

To effect legislative change it is necessary to reframe the debate into one where opposing sensible gun control measures becomes onerous to elected officials or those seeking office.  And it can work.  In a test case, with the legal support of the Brady Center,  I was successful in reframing a gun debate in NC where a ‘concealed guns in restaurants/bars’ bill was moved  out of being a gun rights issue into a business liability and business owner rights matter thus eroding support in the business community (of which I have been a member).  The work additionally helped support an oppose vote from the NC Bar Association.  There were already enough compassionate pleas being made by advocacy groups to a legislature that would not listen.  Rather, reframing the debate made the legislation onerous to both the business community as well as to lawmakers.  Legal research showed the legislation to be in conflict with both state and federal law regarding business owner/employer obligations thus placing them at risk of liability.  Interestingly, the research also concluded that the law was written in such a way that it constituted a violation of the owner’s First Amendment right not to speak.  The bill never made it to the Senate floor despite passing the House with a veto proof vote.

In reframing the gun control debate, a call for stronger gun control is not about an attack on gun rights - it never has been.  It has been about the overwhelming statistics showing a disproportionate loss of innocent US citizen life to gunfire; it is about protecting our children who lose their lives to gunfire at a far greater rate than children in other industrialized countries; it is about allowing our military veterans who suffer from combat-induced stress disorders and brain injury the opportunity to heal; it is about not poisoning our environment with thousands of tons of lead from gunfire each year that very painfully kill millions of animals that ingest the lead; it is about keeping guns out of the hands of those having a history of violent crime or mental illness that have shown time and again the ability to inflict massive casualties on our citizenry.  The NRA has not only opposed all these issues, but has successfully lobbied to make it easier for convicted felons and the mentally ill to get their ‘gun rights’ reinstated in court.  It is not about Second Amendment rights with that crowd.  In reality it is nothing less than a manipulation of our constitution, to the financial benefit of the gun industry, at the expense of US lives.

A multi-pronged political strategy now exists that can make politicians pay the price for failing to comply with the wishes of both gun owners and the voting public in general.  In some cases it will be possible to attack an ‘anti-gun control’ voting record head-on depending on the current climate and make-up of the district.  In other cases candidates and incumbents can be taken to task on the associated extremist social views some have publicly embraced – behaviors that proved lethal to several at the polls this past election.  And it is hard to imagine that some politicians, who accept NRA funding, would want to be publicly tied to the anti-diversity rhetoric that has been issued by that organization.  It will only take political will to make this happen.

The NRA is in a tenuous position.  Its implosion is only a matter of time and some politicians will, by necessity, begin to distance themselves from the organization to keep their office.  It was shown in the past election that no amount of NRA funding could save the likes of Akin, Mourdock, Ryan and others.  And if our  elected officials still refuse to take reasonable steps to protect the public from gun violence (especially after this horrific loss of young life in Connecticut), we do have a path (with effective campaign tactics and groundwork) to hand some of them a pink slip at the polls and replace them with those that will.

The GOP’s decision to reinstate tax cut policy in 2001 exposed their hand.  It was not about deficit reduction, growing the economy, or job creation.  It was about ideology and, no doubt, special interests.  It was a backdoor approach where government revenue was cut in an attempt to curtail spending on popular programs they otherwise could not take head-on.  This while obstructing the work of Congress, spinning a web of deceit about the benefits of their policy, and weakening our country’s financial standing.  It’s time to play hardball during ‘fiscal cliff’ negotiations and force them to be specific about what spending cuts they are talking about to offset the tax benefits they wish to preserve for the wealthiest.  They wouldn’t have the nerve. 

The year was 2001.  It was then that the GOP laid bare its intent regarding its tax cut and economic policies.  For the Republican party, it was not about critically evaluating outcomes associated with 12 years of supply-side policy between 1981-1992 to those from 8 years of progressive tax/economic policy between 1993 – 2000.  It was not about choosing which policy proved better at reducing debt, producing surpluses, and stimulating economic growth and job creation.   Rather, the choice they made was about ideology and, no doubt, special interests – and at the expense of weakening our country’s financial standing and security simply to get their way.  That choice in 2001 exposes the sham, the deceit, and the con game that the Republican party has perpetrated on this country, including its own constituency.

The GOP’s underlying intent was simply to unravel social programs they never believed in.  It was done through a backdoor approach – a tactic that has come to be called “Starve the Beast”.  Reagan alluded to the tactic in the 1980 presidential debates when he said, “Jon Anderson tells us that first we’ve got to reduce spending before we can reduce taxes.  Well, if you’ve got a kid that’s extravagant , you can lecture him all you want to about his extravagance.  Or you can cut his allowance and achieve the same end much quicker”.  Simply put, cut revenue to the government, and drive up debt, to the point where it can no longer support spending on popular social programs that the Republicans otherwise would not dare take head-on.   Reagan (under whom supply-side/trickle down policy started) was no fan of Medicare.   And such sentiments are alive and well today as demonstrated by Romney’s remarks about 47% of Americans being “dependent on government, who believe they are victims” and conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly who said that a new “voting public who want stuff” was the cause of Romney’s imminent failure and signified an end to a “traditional America”.

The choice to reinstate supply-side/trickle down in 2001 flew in the face of overwhelming data that showed the policy consistently produced unsustainable deficits – deficits that outran the growth of our economy.  And known falsehoods, then and now, continued to be propagated, e.g.,the tax cuts would pay for themselves, tax cuts for the wealthiest ,our ‘job creators’, would stimulate employment. This while  Senate Republican leadership was intentionally burying a non-partisan report earlier this year that “found no correlation between top tax rates and economic growth, a central tenet of conservative economic theory” (ref).  Instead of rebutting the report, they simply took it down prompting Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) statement that “This has hues of a banana republic”.  And Lindsey Graham (R-SC) continues to argue that “raising tax rates will hurt job creation”.

And now, during negotiations on the ‘fiscal cliff’, Republican leadership still refuses to give specifics about the spending cuts they have demanded.  They witnessed the American public’s rejection of Representative Paul Ryan’s plan to ‘voucherize’ Medicare and privatize Social Security this past election.  Consider that 70% of self-identified Tea Partiers oppose Medicare cuts and by an almost 2-1 margin oppose Social Security cuts - yet they still call for ‘smaller government’?  This crowd has been shown to be driven by social conservatism and religion, not economic issues.  And those that they have elected to office have become an impediment to legislative progress during the ‘Fiscal Cliff’ negotiations thus giving Speaker Boehner a very small window in which to strike a deal.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Mr. Romney was criticized for a lack of specificity.  And consistent with those campaign tactics, the Republican Party is looking to President Obama to do their dirty work for them during the fiscal cliff negotiations; attempting to have the president define the cuts that would weaken popular programs while they duck the inevitable negative public reaction.  It is simply cowardice and deceit that has resulted in a weakening of this country’s financial standing, all in the name of ideology and special interests.  But the president is not taking the bait, refusing to negotiate against himself this time around.

What the Data Showed

To be clear, let’s review the facts that were available in 2001 when the decision was made by the Republican Party to again invoke supply-side policy.  Our country’s position in 2000 was reviewed in a previous article .

• Between the years 1993-2000, our government had cut 20% (377,000 jobs) from the federal civilian workforce, making it smallest such workforce in 40 years.
• Federal spending, as a percent of the economy, was reduced from 22% of GDP in 1992 to 18% of GDP in 2001, its lowest level since 1966.
• Between 1998 and 2000 our country paid down $363 billion in debt and was on track to reduce the debt by $600 billion over four years, the largest four year debt pay-down in American history.
• Our country was in position to pay off all of its public debt within a decade and the national debt clock was turned off.
• In 2000 our government recorded a surplus without borrowing from Social Security or Medicare and by 2001 was on track for nine consecutive years of fiscal improvement, the longest such period in American history.
• Federal income tax for the middle class, as a percent of income, was at its lowest level in 30 years.
• Our unemployment rate had been reduced from 7.5% in 1992 to 4.2% in 1999, the lowest unemployment rate since 1969.
• Our economy had created more than 20 million new jobs

The point of the above referenced article was that this was a Tea Party dream-list of accomplishments, just what they claimed to want.  Yet it would have been this very crowd that voted away such accomplishments in 2000 to reinstate the same tax-cut policy that resulted in a quadrupling of our national debt and weaker economic growth and job creation between 1981-1992.

The backbone of these accomplishments was a piece of deficit reduction legislation called the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (OBRA93) that passed both houses of Congress without a single Republican vote.  And it was the cry on the right about Clinton raising taxes that, in part, contributed to the Democrats losing control of both houses in the 1994 mid-terms.

Contrast the above outcomes with what was available regarding supply-side performance between the years 1981-1992.

• Reagan pushed the largest the tax cut in US history ($749 billion over five years) while proposing $1.7 trillion in military spending in the next 6 years, while promising to balance the budget by 1984 (ref) - a promise that was never realized and even became fodder for political cartoons. Instead of achieving a balanced budget, the national deficits ballooned forcing Reagan to raise taxes 11 times (ref).  (Note: Reagan’s budget chief, David Stockman, admitted in a 2010 article: “This debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts”).
• Supply-side tax cuts were supposed to pay for themselves by stimulating the economy.  Yet, even during the Reagan recovery our debt continued to rise at a rate that outgrew the pace of our economy and were thus unsustainable.  The debt curves between the two periods speak for themselves.

• Supply-side tax cut policy was supposed to be good for our ‘job creators’.  Yet, job creation was strongest during the 1990′s when small business boomed and when a 10% surtax (3.6% total) was applied to income above $250,000 for couples (ref).  In fact, Carter’s term resulted in greater job creation than Reagan’s first term and GHW Bush’s term.  (Note, job creation numbers for the GW Bush years are included to demonstrate the reproducibility of the effect).

•  Although supply-side tax cut policy was supposed to grow our economy, GDP (the standard measure of our economy) was stronger during the Clinton years than the Reagan years and far greater than that during the GHW Bush years (ref).

A Time to Play Hardball

In 2001, GW Bush once again put into place the Reagan approach of lowering tax rates while increasing military spending – a formula that rapidly turned record surpluses into record deficits.  Those two elements accounted for 85% of the then record deficits by the year 2005.

And it was that very same formula that was once again put forth by Mr. Romney who campaigned on a 20% across the board tax cut and an increase in military spending.  This while his running mate advocated for ‘voucherizing’ Medicare and privatizing Social Security.  In reality, the approach was doubling-down on ‘the beast’, not just attempting to starve it, but strangle it.

It’s time for some honesty here.  The Republican’s continuing cry for supply-side/trickle down policy is not about correcting deficits or stimulating job growth.  It is about forcing ideology through fiscal warfare directed largely against the middle class and the poor.  Logic dictates that an economy based on 70% personal consumption can not be driven by 1-2% of our population (the major beneficiaries of Republican tax cut policy).   And the economic data during supply-side periods supports the point.  A little redistribution from the top to those who will spend that money into our economy here at home (as was done during the 1990′s), is actually smart capitalism.  We all did well by it.  Such policy is nothing less than an investment that those of us who have done well should be willing make to keep the drivers of our economy healthy – those being our consumers, our broad middle middle class, and the less fortunate amongst us who deserve a chance to develop their potential and strengthen our workforce capabilities.  And that was an investment this author supported having lived at poverty levels when I started my family and within the 1% during the Clinton years.

So it’s time to play hardball when dealing with a party that actually advocated for defaulting on our debt (contributing to our country’s first credit downgrade) and threatening to cut safety nets to the victims of the recent recession if the wealthiest did not keep their tax cuts.  And the Senate has become virtually constipated as Harry Reid has faced 382 filibusters during his 6 years as Senate Majority Leader, that being 381 more than what LBJ faced.  Deceit and obstructionism must not be allowed to carry the day.  Compassion has not been part of their vocabulary.  And the Republicans have gotten dangerously close to meeting their decades long objective of dismantling social programs.

During the ‘fiscal cliff’ negotiations, the Republicans are pushing the president to put forth a plan defining spending cuts.  Yet it is the Republican party that is demanding austerity.  Let’s see what they are talking about.  Let’s have them define precisely what they intend to cut to offset the tax benefits they wish to preserve for the wealthiest.

They don’t have the nerve.

Although individual groups representing blacks, Hispanics, and women have called for stricter gun control measures in the past, none of them have carried enough clout at the polls to effect legislative change.  But what we just witnessed in this past general election is a game changer.

[Updated: November 20, 2012. The NRA section below has been updated to include information from the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence 'Meet the NRA' website].

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There are some solutions that could help curb the staggering loss of American life to gunfire.  Guns falling into the hands of those convicted of violent crime as well as the mentally-ill has clearly been a problem.  Such individuals can, at least in part, be identified through background checks.  Closing the ‘gun show loophole’ (that by-passes background checks) should reduce the number of guns falling into the wrong hands.  Not a perfect solution as a currently ‘law-abiding citizen’ may not stay that way.   And millions of mentally ill individuals are missing from the background check system; and who’s to say that an emotionally-stable individual will remain that way when dealing with life’s pressures.   But, none-the-less, still a workable solution that should produce some level of measurable benefit.

However, there is an issue for which there really has been no solution.  Those holding hateful ideological beliefs can legally arm themselves, as long as they don’t have an existing record that would prohibit them from doing so – and some of them have demonstrated the capacity to kill innocent people simply because of their race, ethnicity, religious belief, sexual preference and even gender (domestic violence).  ’Stand your Ground’ or ‘Shoot First’ laws, where only the shooter is left standing, makes a plea of self-defense by an extremist essentially a license to kill.

Behavioral Conditioning

Our behavior and habits are shaped by conditioning we receive during our lives.  We respond, often without even thinking, by the way we have been conditioned.  As an adjunct professor and Course Director for Leadership Development, I taught that personal and executive development is an introspective process.  It was Viktor Frankl, an Austrian born psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, who made the point that between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space we have the freedom to choose our response.  This was central to Steven Covey’s “7 Habits of Highly Successful People” where he advocated for making conscious choices to break old habits from prior conditioning and form better and more productive ones.  I also used that principle in work I have done with foster children in showing them that they could make a conscious decision to break the cycle of abuse to which some of them had been exposed.

Regrettably, some individuals have been conditioned to hate and fear.  A point that Morris Dees makes in his book “A Lawyer’s Journey: The Morris Dees Story” is that there is no gene that makes one a racist – people are taught (conditioned) to hate.  And it is the mixing of guns with individuals who have been so conditioned where stimulus can lead to the devastating response of taking an innocent life simply because of what that person is.

This issue is ‘Gun Right’s’ fatal flaw.  It constitutes a threat to our country’s remarkable diversity through those who harbor hateful beliefs.  I submit that there has been no real solution to this issue as we do not deny access to guns based on ideology.  No solution, that is, until what we just witnessed in this past general election.

An Explosion of Anti-Government and Hate Groups

What is written here should not be construed as a statement that all individuals who harbor anti-government or hateful beliefs are prone to violent behavior.  But it is clear that there are, and will continue to be, those who have taken the step to terminate many innocent lives motivated by those beliefs.

Intelligence gathering by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has shown an explosive growth of the radical right in recent years.   This growth has been fueled by recent economic pressures, a proliferation of conspiracy theories such as government concentration camps and Sharia Law, the changing racial/ethnic demography of America, and our first African-American president who many on the far right view as an enemy to their country.

Over 1000 hate groups have been counted by SPLC, up from 602 in 2000, the rise being attributed to the successful exploitation of non-white immigration, president Obama’s election, and the economic recession.  Indeed, it was when the Great Depression hit Germany in the 1930′s that voice was given to far right extremism (fascism): marked by an ultranationalism (a reclaiming of the country that had been lost); defining those who fit and did not fit; portraying those who did not fit as the cause of problems, referring to them as vermin, cancers (or today, moochers and takers who want stuff?); and, ultimately “eliminationism” (a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile and ejection, or extermination) – reviewed here.

Included in the list compiled by SPLC are anti-gay groups, anti-muslim groups, black separatist groups (that are but a sliver of the larger white ‘sovereign citizen’ ideology that had its roots in white supremacy and who believe they have no obligation to government), Christian Identity Groups, Ku Klux Klan Groups, Nativist Extremist Groups (that harass and confront individuals they suspect are undocumented immigrants), Neo-Confederate Groups, Racist Skinhead Groups, and White Nationalist Groups.  A graph of the growth of such organizations since 2000 is displayed below.  A link to an interactive map of the United States where such groups can be identified on a state by state basis can be found here.

But the truly stunning growth came from anti-government “Patriot”/militia movement that views the government as their primary enemy.  These groups formed in the mid-1990′s based on the perception of violent government repression of dissident groups at Ruby Ridge, ID in 1992 and near Waco, TX in 1993.   The Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 is attributable to this movement which peaked a year after the incident and then rapidly declined.  But the movement was once again energized in 2008 with the economic recession and the appearance of Barack Obama as a presidential candidate.  The numbers of these groups rose from 149 in 2008 to 1,274 last year.  Of these, 334 were militias.  A state by state listing of these groups is provided here.  A graph produced by SPLC showing the meteoric growth of such groups is displayed below.

The loss of life from gunfire by those holding extremist views has been reviewed by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence in a report entitled Guns and Hate: A Lethal Combination.  The document makes clear that it is not intended to provide a comprehensive accounting of all hate-related crimes and shootings, but provides a review of prominent events between July 1999 and June 2009.  Excerpting from the Executive Summary:

A protest at the University of Mississippi against the re-election of president Obama escalated into a crowd of about 400 people with shouted racial slurs.  An analysis of tweets containing racial slurs following Obama’s re-election was published in The Atlantic – although coming from many states, the highest incidence occurred in Alabama followed by Mississippi.  And no president has had his birth right as an American citizen questioned as has Barack Obama through the ‘Birther Movement’ (code for ‘he’s not one of us’).

This regrettable aspect of America is gamed and stoked for political advantage by the National Rifle Association (NRA) and conservative media.

NRA

The NRA “goes to great lengths (and spends a huge sum of money) to defend the right to bear arms.  It is opposed to virtually every form of gun control, including restrictions on owning assault weapons, background checks for gun owners, and registration of firearms” (ref).  This election cycle the organization spent over $1 million in political contributions, about $1.5 million in lobbying, and near $18 million in outside contributions.  And Republicans were the beneficiary of 90% of the political contributions.  But in accepting these contributions, these politicians are giving sway to the extremist positions and conspiracy theories propagated by the NRA that target American diversity.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence has published a review of the NRA and extremists under part three of this report.  The NRA “has employed inflammatory and anti-government rhetoric that bears a chilly similarity to some of the language of the hate groups followed by spree killer Benjamin Smith, the Holocaust Museum shooter and other dangerous extremists”. The ‘over the top’ rhetoric of this organization caused president GHW Bush to give up his NRA membership.  The NRA “has viewed the Second Amendment as providing citizens, in the Constitution, with the means to maintain an insurrection against the government”.  This issue has also been considered by Josh Horwitz (Executive Director, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and Casey Anderson in Guns, Democracy, and the Insurrection Idea.  In that work it is argued that more guns do not equate to more freedom and that the insurrectionist idea constitutes a true threat to freedom in the United States.

NRA ties to extremism, racism, sexism and the gun industry has been reviewed by the Violence Policy Center (ref).  Additionally the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has created a Meet the NRA website that details numerous statements made by that organization’s leadership on the issues of race, women’s rights, and LGBT rights.  Some selected statements are excerpted below, and readers can view the full array of comments through the provided links.

NRA Leaders on Race:

In Vol. 12, No. 3 of Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries published in March 2004, Cooper wrote, “We note that there are those who object to our referring to Japanese as Nips. However, the Nips have no reticence about referring to me as a gaijin. I do not know why we have all suddenly become almost hysterically touchy.” Turning to the topic of “hyphenated Americans” (an early 20th century slur for Americans of foreign birth or origin), he added, “We were pleased to be singled out by some members of the New York City Council as one of the sort of evil person who sits on the board of directors of the National Rifle Association. I did not know any of those other people were listening, but I certainly enjoy following the lead of Theodore Roosevelt in disdaining hyphenated Americans, and thus preferring assimilation to diversity. I do wish these people would stand up and fight, as I relish this sort of thing, but I cannot swing at a target if I cannot see it.”

NRA Leaders on Women’s Rights

In an August 28, 2012 interview with The Hill, Blackwell made references to controversial remarks made by U.S. Representative Todd Akin (R-MO). On August 19, 2012, Akin commented on the issue of pregnancy induced by rape, stating, “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.” Later, Akin publicly stated that Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan had personally asked him to end his candidacyfor the U.S. Senate. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus also announced that even if Akin, who was trailing Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill in two recent polls, managed to pull even with her, “We’re not going to send him a penny.” Commenting on this imbroglio, Blackwell stated, “I think it was a mistake not to get the leaders in Missouri lined up before [GOP national leadership] went up and looked overly heavy-handed in the way they were pushing [Akin] … I’ve encouraged people at the Senatorial Committee to wait about five days and do a poll and see if things have stabilized. If things have, they might want to readjust. Senatorial committees can do anything. It is not as if some of the damage they’ve done can be papered over but they can reverse themselves on it.”

[Author’s note: In October of this year, well after Akin’s ‘legitimate rape’ comment, the NRA endorsed Akin as a US Senate candidate.

NRA Leaders on LGBT Rights

In an August 2007 letter to a constituent who asked about the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy concerning homosexuality, Craig wrote, “It is unacceptable to risk the lives of American soldiers and sailors merely to accommodate the sexual lifestyles of certain individuals.”

Conservative Media

And conservative media has been playing the ‘race card’ for conservative political gain.  Consider Glenn Beck, on Fox News before a national TV audience, stating that Obama has a “deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture” and openly called Obama a “racist”.  Or Bill O’Reilly on Fox News stating on election night that “The white establishment is now the minority” and with this country’s changing demographics that “It’s not a traditional America anymore”.  Or O’Reilly again in 2007 on the issue of immigration: “They want to break down the white, Christian power structure, which you’re a part (Senator John McCain), and so am I, and they want to bring in millions of foreign nationals to basically break down the structure that we have”.  Or Rush Limbaugh playing on his radio show a song entitled “Barack the Magic Negro” during Obama’s candidacy for his first term; Obama was given Secret Service protection, in part, for threats on white supremacist websites.  And Limbaugh is no stranger to race baiting.  Media Matters compiled a list of what they considered to be Limbaugh’s 20 worst racial attacks on minorities in general and Obama specifically, including referring to Obama, who has a black father and white mother, as a Halfrican American.

This type of language reinforces bigotry and hatred that results in violence against minority groups.  And the mixing of hatred and extremism with guns has taken, and will continue to take, innocent lives.  The link between hate language and violence against Hispanics (and other groups such as LGBT’s) is one that the National Hispanic Media Coalition has explored.

Discussion

Politicians have been able to accept NRA contributions with impunity and oppose sensible gun control because there have been no political consequences.  And others fear political retribution from the NRA if they do not do the organization’s biding.  Although groups representing women, Hispanics, and African Americans have called for tighter gun regulation in the past, none of them individually have carried enough clout at the polls.  However, what we just witnessed in this recent general election is a game changer.

Although president Obama captured only 39% of the white vote (the lowest margin since Mondale in 1984), he won the election by winning 80% of the non-white electorate capturing 93%, 71%, and 73% of the African American, Hispanic, and Asian vote, respectively (ref).  But Obama’s campaign was more than just harnessing the power of demographic change.  It targeted key constituencies (under Operation Vote) that made up his coalition including African Americans, Hispanics, young voters and women (particularly those with college degrees).

This coalition struck down those holding extremist positions.  Women railed against “legitimate rape”, rape pregnancies being “a gift from God”, mandatory vaginal ultrasound prior to abortion, and  a young highly educated woman being called a “slut” and “prostitute” by Limbaugh for her congressional testimony regarding contraception.  Hispanics saw onerous immigration laws, profiling, and conservative opposition to the DREAM Act.  African Americans saw voter suppression tactics and gerrymandering that weakened their voice.  Although statistics were not found for LGBT’s, support from that group would likely be meager for a party whose national platform included bringing back DADT and banning same-sex marriage.  And this coalition was immune to excessive campaign spending; large sums of outside money spent in opposing Obama and supporting conservative senate candidates produced exceptionally meager return on the investment.

This same coalition could reshape the political landscape regarding gun control as they represent the groups who suffer most from gun violence.  And NRA campaign spending had little sway with this coalition as the millions the organization spent produced an exceptionally meager 0.81% return on investment .  Brady Campaign’s president, Dan Gross, noted that the NRA spent 88% of its federal independent expenditures in 7 races and their candidates lost in the presidential race and 6 key Senate races.

Polling has shown that Hispanics and blacks, the people most impacted by gun violence, want stricter gun laws.  Likely driven by increasing gun violence in Latin America, 86% of Latinos support mandating a background check on all gun sales.   And in addition to the violent acts blacks have suffered at the hands of extremists such as white supremacists, gun homicide has been cited as the leading cause of death among black teens.  And the youth vote, including young educated women, would be a powerful part of the coalition.  Data from the General Social Survey, summarized by the Violence Policy Center, shows that the decline in household gun ownership in America since the 1970′s is attributable, in part, to a lack of interest in guns by youth and the increase in single-parent homes headed by women – and gun violence statistics for women, as summarized by the Brady Campaign, are appalling.  Further, data analyzed by SPLC has shown that homosexuals are far more likely than any other minority in the United States to be victimized by violent hate crimes, and this group continues to be demonized through extremist hate language “often amplified by certain politicians”.

The coalition exists.  No doubt there are districts where this coalition would likely not be effective.  But, also little doubt that there are many where it would.  What will be critical is that the leader who drove this coalition in the general election, president Obama, step up and make gun control an issue in the 2014 mid-term elections.  And considering what this coalition pulled off in the general election, this issue should only help his party.  He has already stated his interest in seeing an assault weapons ban reintroduced.  But a reshaping of the political landscape and psyche by this coalition could produce a number of important legislative advances, such as closing the gun show loophole.

The time to begin organizing is now.  It will not be possible to prevent all gun violence in this country.  But with diligent groundwork, as was done in the general election, we can take the step to make our country safer and render those harboring hateful ideologies less dangerous.