Guns

If you think it's wonderful that kids keep getting massacred in schools, raise your hand.

Didn't raise it, did you? That means we've just agreed there's a problem. 

We haven't agreed on what to do.

It's not purely a gun problem. Some mix of pain, insecurity, lovelessness, hopelessness, anger, feeling left out, and too much TV (or video games) leaves a dangerous minority of our young people itching to shoot up a school and be famous for a day. (Other than Charles Alan Whitman, who shot up a college decades ago, I can't remember the name of a single idiot who's done that.)

But it ain't purely a people problem, either. The ready availability of guns helps make shootings, accidental or otherwise, the third leading cause of death among children. Ready availability of modern weapons of war contributes to school shootings. The NRA (like purveyors of stuff that pollutes our environment, induces cancer, or causes obesity or drug-dependency) muscles up with money and misinformation to avoid meaningful regulation or responsibility. 

Some say it's a mental illness problem – or that it's because we took prayer out of the schools, or don't spank kids any more. Increasing mental health and kids' values would help. But assume putting religion in schools would work. (whose religion? all of them? and which hasn't involved violence?) If it somehow discouraged young folks from massacring fellow students, you'd affect the problem in ten or fifteen years, when 19 year-olds would have experienced religion in schools since kindergarten. What do we do in the meantime?

Watching the anger at Monday's City Council meeting, I wished again that more people who know a lot about guns would help craft steps that could decrease deaths without unduly burdening responsible citizens. Although gun enthusiasts were angry, they seemed less angry and threatening than a similar group two years ago. When Mayor Miyagashima noticed that, and started asking if they thought background checks were a good step, instead of laughing or shouting they quietly said, “Yes. Sure.” I sensed that though they're still loyal to the NRA line, the continued bloodiness of schools is softening more folks' resistance to attempting a few sensible steps.

The NRA has its fans worked up that they'll lose their guns. Ain't gonna happen. Even if, politically, you could ban guns, it wouldn't work. It's too late. And the Second Amendment ain't going anywhere. In fact, the NRA's course – absolute opposition to anything that might decrease the bleeding but impair profits – is the only way imaginable that we'd eliminate the Second Amendment. A vast majority want gun-control. Only more and more shootings, with more and more NRA indifference and bluster, could conceivably make that vast majority so sick of guns it might try to amend the Constitution. 

It's a complex problem. Slogans and simple fixes won't work. Both sides say we should do what some other countries do; but we've a unique mix of ethnic diversity, open spaces and huge cities, and gun-related traditions. And constitutions protecting gun ownership.

The City Council is right to express concern. Those who brought guns to the council meeting shot themselves in the foot: they merely reminded others how easily a demented fool with a gun could kill scores of people. If I were a counselor, intimidation tactics would encourage me to vote against the would-be intimidators.

How about both sides bending a little to seek reasonable steps?

                                          -30-

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 23March 2018, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, as well as on the newspaper's website and on KRWG's website.  During the week, a spoken version will air on KRWG (probably Wednesday morning and evening and again on Saturday) and KTAL, 101.5 FM, on Thursday.]

[By the way, we're going to have a two-hour radio discussion of these issues on KTAL 101.5 FM (which you can also stream at www.lccommunityradio.org) on Wednesday, 11 April, 8-10 a.m. on "Speak Up, Las Cruces!" with a real mix of viewpoints, including several gun owners of various political persuasions -- e.g. Lucas Herndon, a gun enthusiast whose politics are generally Progressive, Harvey Daiho Hilbert, a gun enthusiast who's also a Buddhist roshi, and Bev Courtney (a gun instructor and Tea Party stalwart) and William Webb (also very conservative), plus (briefly) Bill McCamley, Greg Smith, and others.  Haven't figured out just who'll speak when or how it will all work, but we'll have a mix of strong opinions, so it should be interesting.  I hope and believe these are people who won't just toss slogans back and forth at each other like snowballs.]

[I should probably mention that on KTAL, 101.5 FM, the Sunday Show -- this morning at 9 -- will replay our interview with Frank Zamora, former Baptist minister and current professor of philosophy and religion, and that from 8-10 a.m.this Wednesday morning "Speak Up, Las Cruces!", on 101.5 FM,  will feature:

8-9 Algernon D'Amassa, journalist, actor, theatre director, Buddhist teacher, and friend, with a break at 8:30 to talk about Dona Ana County with its PIO, Jess Williams.

9-10:

first 40-45 minutes: Brandon Gass, whose six-minute film will play at the famous Cannes Film Festival this year, along with his leading lady, and then for the last 15-20 minutes, Kevin Bixby concerning the lawsuit against the Border Wall, possible further protests at that site, and other environmental matters.]

You can also stream KTAL, Las Cruces's Community Radio Station, at www.lccommunityradio.org

 

Las Cruces Community Radio

Las Cruces Community Radio's station KTAL-LP

LCCOMMUNITYRADIO.ORG

Guns and Dialogue

Tuesday's raucous city council meeting highlighted two problems: we need to decrease gun-deaths in the U.S. and that it's hard to have an honest dialogue.

Both sides seem dug in. One woman said that the opposition was “demonizing us gun owners,” and other speakers promptly demonized the “liberals and progressives who want to take our guns away.” Most on both sides seemed sincere. Not many recognized the sincerity of opposing speakers.

Compared to other prominent nations, the U.S. has way more guns and way more gun deaths. The gun-death epidemic ain't cool. But reasonable people can differ on how big a causal factor large numbers of guns are, what corrective actions might decrease the deaths, and how those actions do or do not square with the Second Amendment.

Both sides offered slogans; but there was no chance to go further, to ask probing questions, to allow each side to speak more deeply and meaningfully. Perhaps people of good will might even learn something. 

None of us knows it all. I sure don't. I'm ill-equipped to spot flaws in the various proposals. 

I'd love to see a local task force of people who also don't know everything, but at least know different somethings. If we can take reasonable steps that would decrease gun-deaths, we should. Those need to be both practical/sensible and legal/constitutional. Taking away everyone's guns is not the goal. Aside from whether it would be right or Constitutional, it ain't gonna happen. Prohibition of alcohol and the war on drugs haven't worked. 

It's time to unite the deep concern people have on this issue with the knowledge serious gun owners have.

The city passed a resolution, not an ordinance, urging the State to act to close a loophole in laws requiring background checks, which most of us accept the need for. It has no legal force. If the State acts, the action will not solve the problem. It may help a little.

Tuesday, I was particularly annoyed at the NRA. Sincere and angry people, who fear everyone else wants to take away their guns, delivered and appeared to believe NRA lines that simply aren't true.

One repeated, “Switzerland requires every man to own a gun.” Ain't true. (On my blog, I'll provide links to sources.) Most Swiss men do serve in the army; and the army issues guns, which may be kept at home. In earlier times, fearing a sudden invasion by a larger neighbor, the Swiss required soldiers to be ready to fight their way from home to wherever. But today Switzerland requires gun permits and forbids privately-owned automatic weapons. The “requires everybody” story is false. So is the assumption that what works for a unified little nation such as Switzerland would necessarily work here. Yet there likely are lessons we could learn from the Swiss. 

One local Tea Party leader called consideration of the resolution an illegal ploy to “take away our sacred right” to trade, buy, and sell weapons.

There is no “sacred” right. Jesus never promised unrestricted use of weapons, and never made them “sacred.” There is a constitutional right, the precise nature of which – as with all legal matters – judges and scholars interpret in varied ways.

There's a constitutional right to travel state-to-state, although I damned near have to strip to exercise it. Even freedom of speech gets regulated around the edges. And freedom to pursue happiness doesn't permit you to do drugs that make you happy, or steal your neighbor's TV.

We share this wonderful corner of the Earth, so let's keep talking to each other – and listening.

                                                               -30- 

[The above column appeared this morning in the Las Cruces Sun-News this morning, Sunday, 9 July, and will presently appear on the newspaper's website (under Opinion: Real Dialogue Needed) and KRWG-TV's website (under News --> Local Viewpoints).]

[A lot happened after I wrote this!  The week included two very publicized shooting of black men by police and the assassination of five Dallas police officers by a black man angry about those shootings. Obviously these were all tragedies.  There is no justification at all of the Dallas murders; the police shootings strongly appear unjustified, pending further investigation.  The obvious fear is that both police and young black men will fear and distrust each other even more deeply -- with some good reasons and some bad on both sides -- and act unwisely.   The obvious need is for enhanced communication and understanding.  Police need even more training, and better understanding of young black men and black ways; and communities need to recognize that police have a tough and dangerous job requiring split-second decisions without full information.  How do we make that happen?]

[One thing left unclear after the City Council meeting was this: Greg Smith and Ceil Levatino sought to delay the vote so that there could be fuller community discussion, and Mayor Miyagashima and the other councilors also seemed to favor further discussion.  My perhaps mistaken impression was that although they had voted on the resolution, they'd also called for further discussion at a work session.  Although Greg Smith's reference to a possible "consensus" is so optimistic as to be nonsensical, I think we all believe that progress locally can only come from further and more meaningful dialogue.  Even if no further "rules" result, which is most likely, the meeting described in the column proves how much gun owners and gun control advocates, generally, need to understand each other better.  That doesn't have to be through a city work session, and there are likely better venues (perhaps including a Great Conversation); but it needs to happen.]

[The column mentions the gun industry's misleading attempt to justify lax gun control by arguing that Switzerland "requires all men to own guns" and has a very low homicide rate.  This site asks whether the gun industry's comments about Switzerland are fact or myth, noting that in fact Swiss gun regulations are pretty strict.  This is Wikipedia's article on the Swiss and guns , which is fairly detailed.   There's also this Time Magazine piece on the Swiss gun culture.  The fact that the gun industry misstates the facts about Switzerland doesn't mean that we might not learn from the Swiss example.  Unfortunately, it wouldn't be easy to transport Swiss rules and norms from a small, homogenous, European nation with a culture of "community before individual" to a sprawling, heterogenous nation that emphasizes Individualism above all. 

Another misleading use of Switzerland that we see after nearly every shooting tragedy is the  comparison of Switzerland and Honduras which notes that each has about 8.2 million people, but the Swiss, with more guns, have fewer gun deaths -- ignoring that one is a wealthy European country surrounded by peaceful neighbors while the other is on a drug-running route.  The comparison claims the Swiss require gun ownership while the Hondurans ban guns, yet Honduras has the world's highest homicide rate and Switzerland the lowest.]