Old Sayings
There’s an old saying, “It’s as American as apple pie”. That’s usually a good thing: fireworks on the Fourth of July, family around the table for Thanksgiving dinner, flags at veteran’s graves on Memorial Day. We Americans are proud of who we are, and the traditions we’ve created. We believe in our nation, our “exceptionalism”, and the goodness of Americans despite the current political divisions.
But there’s definitely one thing that’s as “American as apple pie” that we should be ashamed of. That’s mass shootings, now just ten days after the shootings in Buffalo. Twenty-one victims, nineteen of them children, killed in Uvalde, Texas. It’s as American as apple pie.
Thoughts and Prayers
The police were there as the shootings were occurring, just like they were in Buffalo and so many other mass shootings in the United States. But the damage was already done, the children dead, the shooter “in charge”. This is not a “police response” issue. They can’t get there fast enough. In Buffalo it was near a minute, sixty seconds. But ten were still dead. At Uvalde, the school resource officer was there, with his fellow officers right behind. The “good guys with the guns” just aren’t fast enough.
The word is already going forth from politicians: sending thoughts and prayers, heartfelt sorrow. And many are saying, “it’s not the time to discuss change”. To quote the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas kids from Parkland, I call “BS”. Politicians are elected to solve problems, and make our world safer. For God’s sake, is there anything more basic than protecting our lives from absolute random violence, and even more protecting our children.
Awash in Guns
But we haven’t. Schools have tried since Columbine back in 1999, and even before. But there is no protection, no fortification, no counseling, that can keep mass shooters away from our school, our church, our grocery store. This is not a world problem. When you hear folks talking about “helping the mentally ill”, that too is a “BS” answer. Every nation has mentally ill people, but not every nation, in fact, not any modern nation has the level of mass shootings as the United States. Not even close. This is not a mental problem, this is a gun problem.
We are a nation awash in weapons. There are 120.5 guns for every 100 Americans. There are so many guns, that “legal sales” regulations would only begin to resolve the problem. The “black market” for guns is so big, it drives criminal activity. If you have a pistol, I’ll get an automatic pistol. If you have an automatic pistol, I’ll find a semi-automatic rifle. You wear Kevlar, I’ll find “cop-killer” bullets.
Solutions
Other nations have faced this crisis and solved it. In 1996, a shooter killed sixteen children in Scotland. The United Kingdom changed their laws, restricted weapons. When six died in a mass shooting in 2021, it was the first in a decade.
In 1996 Australia had a mass shooting in Tasmania, killing thirty-five people with a semi-automatic rifle. They banned automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and they instituted tough background checks. Since then there have been sixteen mass shootings in Australia. In the United States, there have been thousands. For a world comparison of school shootings – check this inter-active map. The United States is, by several orders of magnitude, the worst.
Our Choice
Some Americans have made a choice. They look at the 2nd Amendment, and determine that it is the right of every American, no matter their mental state or intent, to own a high capacity weapon. They have written off all possibility of controlling the weapons, claiming that “people kill people, not guns”. But, if you look at the rest of the world, that simple “spin phrase” is not valid. People kill people, but America have provided them with the most advanced tools to use in the process. So Americans are choosing to live in a country where nineteen young lives can be snuffed out in an instant.
Supreme Court Justice Jackson once wrote, “…the Constitution is not a suicide pact”. He recognized that an absolutist view of any part of the Constitution (in that case, the First Amendment) was never the intent of the Founding Fathers. But it seems we are determined to commit suicide: with guns.
Twenty-seven school shootings this year (NPR). Two hundred mass shootings (four or more shot or killed, excluding the shooter) already this year.
It’s as American as apple pie.
