GUN FETISH RESULTS IN GUN VIOLENCE

A wise man once said that no one ever committed mass murder with a knife. Okay, maybe it wasn’t a “wise man.” In fact might have been me. In any event, the latest gun massacre that occurred in Parkland, Florida, where 17 high school students were slaughtered by a deranged 19 year-old using firearms proves this point. Welcome to the new norm, where mass murder is committed on a periodic basis in the United States. The only remaining question is where and when the next one will occur. Prior to the Florida shooting, here in Las Vegas we had a real doozy back last October. Another mentally unbalanced crackpot, this one was age 64 , using a semi-automatic rifle, shot into a crowd attending an outdoor music festival, killing 58 people while wounding more than 500. Prior to that, there was the shooting at the Pulse night club in Orlando that left 49 dead. And let us not forget the individual that went on a shooting spree in a school in Connecticut that killed 26 students and staff just before Christmas of that year. The list goes on, but the one common denominator in all these mass slaughters was that guns had to be used to achieve the murderer’s vile intentions.

Despite all these slaughters, any mention of increased gun control in the U.S. sends about half the country into a frenzy of fear-induced paranoia. With the National Rifle Association leading the way, gun owners loudly proclaim that any mention of increased gun-control means that the “big, bad government” is coming in to seize everyone’s firearms; after which unarmed people will surely be rounded up and marched off to concentration camps. It’s called a gun fetish and no amount of reasoning or sanity can prevail against this mindset. Fetishes are almost impossible to rid oneself of, since they act as an irrational hammerlock on one’s brain that precludes clear thinking. Add to this the fact that the NRA, supported by million of members, dispenses tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to favored members of Congress, while threatening to campaign against those members that may be inclined to support some form of gun control, and you have the perfect storm of non-action in reducing the availability of firearms across the U.S.

Don’t think there’s a gun fetish in the U.S? Then consider the following. The U.S. with a population of about 325 million people, or about 5% of all humans currently alive on Planet Earth; nevertheless possesses an estimated 48% of the civilian guns currently in existence. That’s right- of the estimated 650 million guns currently owned by civilians world-wide, about 310 million reside in the U.S. In comparison, the country with the second largest civilian gun ownership is India where 46 million firearms are dispersed among a populace of well over a billion people. Yet even the most feeble effort to enact  some form of legislative restrictions on the acquisition or ownership is met with the fiercest of opposition from gun owners. Compare that to the events that transpired in one of our Pacific allies, namely Australia. Some years ago, also traumatized by a mass killing using firearms, the Australian government asked its citizens to turn their guns into the government which would then reimburse them for each confiscated firearm. Today Australia is almost civilian gun free, and amazingly, seems to have thrived quite well. At least they haven’t had to suffer through any further gun-related massacres.

Of course, our illustrious president couldn’t resist weighing in on the recent school shooting in Florida. Commenting on the police failure to confront the murderer until after the massacre was over, Trump said that if he was in the vicinity, he would have gone into the school and charged the shooter even if he was “unarmed.” Right. Trump who managed to dodge the draft in his younger days and thus avoid serving in the military, would have gone into the school unarmed, and confronted the shooter barehanded. Overweight and out-of-shape as he is at age 71. The disturbing thing about that kind of comment is not that he made it so boldly. After all it was a typical Trumpism. The most disturbing thing is how many Trumpinistas will actually believe he’s telling the truth. Sadly, probably most of his base will probably take him at his word.

Speaking of the Trump follies, the latest one is his intention to slap hefty tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. Tariffs is just a polite word for taxes. In this case, it will be U.S. consumers that will pay these increased taxes when buying imported cars or any other product using these metals. Most of our steel imports come from Canada, our neighbor, friend, and supposedly our most trusted ally. Until now, that is, when Trump decided what great fun it would be to piss them off. Increased tariffs on imports also invite retaliation from other countries that buy our exports. In the end, tariffs economically batter all nations involved. Increased tariffs, also known as protectionism, is given by historians as the leading cause of creating the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Back to gun control, my own view is that no one needs guns except for the military, the police, and those civilians employed in security operations. Hunters need guns, why? To kill innocent and defenseless animals generally minding their own business or foraging for food? But good luck separating gun owners from their weapons in the U.S. It will probably take another few hundred years of human evolution for that scenario to play out. Despite the fact that the Aussies were able to achieve that distinction within this lifetime.