Guns and statistics make for a sordid combination

In response to the Newtown, Connecticut massacre, Abram Brown of Forbes Magazine wrote “We Americans have a tradition of picking up after tragedies and moving on.  It makes us stronger.  My emotions are still raw and I am not taking sides in the debate on gun control.  Knowing that people wiser than I are addressing this matter to prevent such massacres in the future, in the American tradition I have to pick up the pieces and move on with my job  to help my subscribers make money.”

Perhaps a bit of the coward’s take on the matter, but I wonder if Brown may also be referring to his subscribers who are in the gun sales business. One of the unfortunate consequences of incidents like Newtown is that some people—quite often those who already have a well-stocked arsenal—feel it is necessary to increase their stockpile. We’ve been in this cycle before—another massacre, another brief hand-wringing about gun regulation, sales of guns increase, and another massacre. It never ends. Ammo.net gushes that Barack Obama has been the “best salesman” for guns this country has ever seen. Not because he is a fanatical liberal who wants to take away your guns, but because to white racist fanatics, he is their worst nightmare come true—a black man who is presently the most powerful person in the world (or at least in this country), and if he so chooses, he can wreak righteous vengeance by taking away your lethal toys of control, and leave you helpless before the hordes he supposedly leads.

Anyways, according to ATF statistics, handgun sales doubled in 2011 from 2007, to over 2.4 million a year—no doubt due to the “Obama Factor.” Rifles and shotguns also increased significantly, but more dramatic was the increase in the “miscellaneous” category—from 55,000 in 2007, to 182,000 in 2011. The weapons that fall into this category tend to be something along the lines of the AR-15, GP WASR, Bushmaster, Smith & Wesson Nato, Ruger Tommy Gun, MAC-10, Land Warfare M16A1, AK-47 and a grenade launcher or two. The Guns America website even boasts it has fully-loaded light anti-tank launchers for sale. Gun sales are on pace this year to reach $4 billion; as Forbes says, it is all about making money: Guns are just business, just like automobiles. People get killed in car accidents, people get killed by gun “accidents.” It’s just the price you pay for doing “business.” 

In total it is estimated that there are 310 million firearms in private hands in the United States. According to a United Nations study, no country comes within shouting distance of this country’s rate of gun ownership. The study also found that 62 percent of all gun owners in this country have more than one weapon, 74 percent have a rifle or shotgun and 68 percent have a handgun. A shocking 17 percent own a semi-automatic weapon—the kind usually used in mass killings—and 8 percent have the “other”—denoting even deadlier varieties of weapons.  Why do people own firearms? 67 percent claim to own a weapon for self-defense, 66 percent for target shooting, and “just” 58 percent for hunting. 

About 300,000 deaths in the U.S. can be attributed to firearms since 2000. Does that sound like a lot? There are other countries with a higher death rate by guns than the U.S.’ rate of 10.2 per 100,000; Mexico, for example, has a rate of 11.1 per 100,000—although I’m certain it would surprise some people to learn that this country isn’t exactly “safer” than Mexico, despite media histrionics. Out of western European countries, Switzerland and France have the highest rates—3.5 and 3.0 per 100,000—while countries that have strict gun laws, like the United Kingdom (where the police rarely carry guns) and Spain, have firearm death rates of .25 and .63 per 100,000. In the UK, that comes out to about 160 deaths a year out of a population of 63 million. Multiply that by five to reach the number of the U.S. population, and that comes to approximately 800 deaths. That compares to over 30,000 firearm deaths in this country in the past year. Something is very wrong with this country; while firearms deaths are a frequent occurrence in urban blighted areas of the country, it would appear that the most horrific application of guns generally occurs in hands of a paler variety, from “good” neighborhoods.

The cost of firearm violence goes beyond lives. According to the Violence Policy Center, $6 million a day is spent treating gun-related injuries. And then there is the many millions of dollars in wrongful death lawsuits filed against various law enforcement agencies; even if plaintiffs rarely win, the huge cost to the public for defending trigger-happy police officers and sheriff’s deputies is one of those “hidden” costs of government.

It should be pointed out again that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly say that that individuals have the right to bear arms or what kind, in fact it is quite muddled in what it says. Small firearms were exceedingly rare in the days of the Founding Fathers, and muskets in the hands of civilians really were intended for use in hunting for sustenance.  A more proper interpretation of the amendment is that “the people” have the right to “bear arms” in a “well-regulated” militia. What is being referred to as “arms” here is almost certainly those that are used for defense against a foreign enemy. There are, of course, certain groups in this country—such as “survivalists,” white supremacist “militias,” or just your average “us” against “them” fanatic—who could conceivably be viewed as the “enemy” with ideas foreign to the American Ideal, but making such distinctions diverts one’s attention away from the overall picture.

There will be those who will insist that we need to be armed to the hilt to "defend" ourselves; the reality is that most often the "enemy" tends to be someone you regarded as a "friend" until the moment the trigger was pulled.