America's most serious moral failing is its reluctance to deal with the
most corrupting influence in society - guns and glorification of violence. In
the eyes of the rest of the civilized world, our cultural instinct toward
solving problems through bravado and
America has had its quality of life greatly diminished by a relatively small, violent and criminal subculture and its defacto allies, gun lobbies like the NRA and soft-on-guns politicians pandering to Rambo gun crazies. This small minority has taken away our basic freedom to feel safe in our own country. It should be obvious that these folks are killing us, literally and morally.
But mainstream citizens are also guilty - of complacency. We wring our hands helplessly about our gun problem and declare passively that there's nothing we can do because of the 2nd amendment. We then enact bandaid registration laws hoping that maybe this will help. But we are just kidding ourselves. Guns must be eliminated from our society as they have been in almost every other civilized nation.
Americans must stand up and admit that the 2nd amendment is a foolish and terribly destructive anachronism that should have been repealed long ago. Even without repeal, we can and should start to disarm this nation by banning guns, state by state until America is safe again from our catastrophic deadly love affair with guns. We should impose stiff penalties for possession of firearms and destroy most of the more than 250 million firearms in the USA today.
| * Japan | VERY STRICT | 125 million | 93 | 34 .03 |
| Great Britain | STRICT | 57 million | 277 | 72 .13 |
| * Germany | FAIRLY STRICT | 82 million | 1,197 | 168 .21 |
| Australia | MODERATE | 17 million | 536 | 96 .56 |
| Canada | FAIRLY WEAK | 29 million | 1,189 | 176 .60 |
| * U.S.A. | VERY WEAK | 264 million | 35,957 | 15,835 6.02 |
It doesn't take a mathematical genius to see that this chart makes one thing
painfully and consistently obvious: homicides and gun deaths are severely reduced
as gun laws are strengthened and obtaining guns is made difficult.
Australia has experienced this recently. The number of firearms assaults in
Australia has been cut in half in only two years since enactment of the
Australian Firearms Act of 1996. There were 13.7 firearms assaults per 100,000 people in
1996 compared to 6.7 in 1998.
From a recent U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study:
"The United States, one of the richest nations on earth, suffers from gun
violence that rivals the very worst in poorer nations." The epidemic transcends
economics: Americans murder each other with guns at a rate 19 times higher than
any of the 25 richest nations. "What's striking to people in other
countries is what a tolerance there is in the U.S. for these scores of gun
deaths," says Rebecca Peters, an Australian expert on gun violence.
From a recent ABCNEWS.com special report:
"Canada, New Zealand and Australia are very similar to us," says David
Hemenway, professor of health policy at Harvard University. "They are also
violent--they just don't act out their violence by grabbing guns and shooting
each other."
In the land of Crocodile Dundee [Australia], one cannot buy a gun for self-defense.
But in the United States, roughly half the 65 million handguns in private hands
are owned by Americans who want to protect themselves from other pistol-packing
Americans.
People often blame America's aversion to gun control on its Wild West heritage.
But a recent tragedy prompted Australia--another frontier nation every inch as
macho as America--to put the safety of its citizens before the right to
bear certain arms.
The Port Arthur Massacre galvanized Australian support for gun control, and
within 12 days, federal, state and territorial governments agreed to
ban all semiautomatic and pump-action rifles and shotguns. Handguns have
been tightly regulated in Australia since the 1920s.
America has 14 times as many people as Australia, and suffers 64 times as many
gun murders, accidents and suicides. In terms of gun murders alone, America's
toll is 211 times higher. But Australians decided they'd had enough
after Port Arthur.
Australia now enforces uniform guns laws across the country.... "In order to
have a gun, you need to PROVE a genuine reason--you can't just have one
because you feel like it (self-defense is NOT a valid reason)," said Peters.
Before the [Australian] law was passed, politicians endured death threats, and
Prime Minister John Howard was forced to wear a bullet-proof vest during a
public appearance in support of the law. Howard's rallying cry to build
support for the law was: "I don't want Australia to go down the American
path."
America, like some other former British colonies, enjoys a colorful frontier
past full of gun-toting individualists. But when confronted with the
extraordinary rates of U.S. gun violence, it seems America's frontier past is
still very much a part of its present.
And we Americans wonder why other countries think those 'yanks' are a bit strange? Here
are some items from a 1997 United Nations
study of 49 industrialized countries:
only 2 countries had no firearms licensing system: the USA and Czech Republic 35% of U.S. households had firearms, 3 times the survey average 78% of countries had regulations for storage of firearms: the USA does not the USA has the highest firearms suicide rate, 7 times greater than average American children are 12 times more likely to die from firearms than any other country
"A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." -- from the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The Supreme Court unanimously decided in the 1939 case, U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174, that possession of a firearm is NOT protected by the Second Amendment unless it has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia. The Supreme Court has stated that today's militia is the National Guard.
The American Civil Liberties Union states in a position paper:
The National ACLU is neutral on the issue of gun control. We believe that the Constitution contains no barriers to reasonable regulations of gun ownership. If we can license and register cars, we can license and register guns.Most opponents of gun control concede that the Second Amendment certainly does NOT guarantee an individual's right to own bazookas, missiles or nuclear warheads. Yet these, like rifles, pistols and even submachine guns, are arms.
The question therefore is not whether to restrict arms ownership, but how much to restrict it. If that is a question left open by the Constitution, then it is a question for Congress to decide.
Unless the Constitution protects the individual's right to own all kinds of arms, there is no principled way to oppose reasonable restrictions on handguns, Uzis or semi-automatic rifles.
[The Supreme Court] routinely denies [hearings] to almost all Second Amendment cases. In 1983, for example, it let stand a 7th Circuit [Court] decision upholding an ordinance in Morton Grove, Illinois, which banned handguns within its borders. The case ... is considered by many to be the most important modern gun control case.
| Microwave ovens | 60 million | 69% of U.S. homicides use guns |
| VCRs | 85 million | 60% of U.S. suicides use guns |
| PCs | 100 million | 92% of firearms suicide attempts are fatal |
| Automobiles | 150 million | 42% of U.S. murders take place during arguments (FBI statistics 1996) |
| Telephones | 180 million | 14% of U.S. murders take place during robberies (FBI 1996) |
| Guns | 250 million | 6% of U.S. murders are drug crime/gang related (FBI 1995) |
| 14% of crimes (robbery, arson, burglary) involve guns (FBI 1996) | ||
| Your Pocketbook --- The Direct Economic Costs of Guns to U.S. Taxpayers | ||
| U.S. Taxpayers pay 85% of medical costs for firearms-related injuries (100,000+ incidents per year) | ||
| A study found that TOTAL LIFETIME COST of these injuries would be $112 BILLION for the year 1992 alone | ||
| It costs $32,000 on average per hospital admission for acute medical care of firearms-related injuries | ||
| Guns and Safety --- Examine the Deadly Reality not the NRA's Propaganda | ||
| Guns kept at home are 43 times more likely to kill a friend or family member than to kill in self-defense | ||
| Guns at home are 22 times more likely to involve unintentional shooting/homicide/suicide than self-defense | ||
| Most handgun homicides are relational: family arguments, arguments among friends, traffic accidents (FBI) | ||
| The presence of a gun in the home triples the risk of homicide in the home | ||
| The presence of a gun in the home increases the risk of successful suicide by 5 times | ||
| By the year 2003, gun deaths will exceed automobile deaths in the United States | ||
| American children are 12 times more likely to die from firearms than in any of 49 industrialized countries | ||
It is my belief that we waste our time looking to Congress for answers. The money game is too much an entrenched fact of life there. I believe we should look to our most significant successes, to the example of Morton Grove, Illinois which completely banned handguns inside its boundaries. We need to build on this success by expanding its scope one level--by banning handguns and any other non-hunting firearm from an entire state.
The logical choice for concentrated action is my own beautiful home state of Hawaii. The primary reason is that if such a ban was implemented, Hawaii would have a much easier time stemming the flow of banned weapons from the outside because it has no borders with any other state. The other reason is that Hawaii is basically a one-party Democratic state making it a little bit easier to eventually shame our state politicians into doing what is right. Hawaii citizens do have the right of binding ballot initiative even though the legislature at times tries to thwart the will of the people through various means.
There are some problems. The one-party Democratic state label is a little bit misleading. Most Democratic politicians in Hawaii are not very liberal in their orientation or visionary in outlook. The unfortunate Good-Ole-Boys system is alive and well in Hawaii. If it was not for Hawaii's isolation, I would be much more likely to select a state like Rhode Island as the best prospect. Rhode Island is small and retiring Senator John Chafee (GOP) is well known to be sympathetic to gun control. Another possible prospect because of its political traditions is Massachusetts.
The other major problem is that even though Hawaii's gun deaths are high by international standards, it has not experienced the level of pain of gun tyranny that occurs in many American states. So, our citizen may have less motivation to change the system, broken as it may be. On the other hand, because we have a relatively small population of roughly one million, it should be easier to concentrate resources.
What can you do? You should assess your skills, resources and commitment levels to find how best to do your part. I make this a call to action to get others interested in concentrating on making Hawaii "America's first gun-free state." If successful, Massachusetts would be the next logical target because of its progressive political traditions. Also high on any list are states with no separate State Constitutional provisions protecting gun ownership: Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey and New York.
In my opinion, our biggest challenge is education - letting everyone know
that living in fear of potential gun violence is not a normal state of
being in a civilized country. We have to be awakened from our placid
acceptance of the American gun culture. We must end our denial of the
serious impact guns have on all aspects of our society. We have to believe
we are just as capable of living safely in a country free from violence as
most modern industrialized nations.
We have the intelligence to do better.
Rev. Robert Whitman Carroll
Association of Aaltuit Life
| ABCNEWS.com "The Land of Guns and Death" | |
| American Civil Liberties Union Statement on Gun Control | |
| Canadian Firearms Centre (Government) NRA's Greatest Hoaxes Perpetrated on the American Public | |
| Canadian Firearms Centre (Government) "Firearm Crimes, Canada vs. U.S." | |
|
CeaseFire, Inc. some advisory panel members listed below: Senator Bill | |
| Communitarian Network "The Case for Domestic Disarmament" - 15 pages | |
| Coalition for Gun Control (Australia) Gun Control: A Public Health Issue | |
|
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence a few members listed below: American Jewish Congress, American Psychiatric Association, American Public Health Association, Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, Communitarian Network, Join Together, National Urban League, Presbytarian Church USA, Unitarian Universalist Association, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church Board, United States Conference of Mayors, United States Student Association, YMCA of USA | |
| Gunfree.org Facts Index | |
|
Handgun Control, Inc.
a few members of the National Committee Steve Allen, Lauren Bacall, Lloyd Bridges, Judy Collins, Hal Holbrook, Jack Lemmon, Paul Newman, Harry Nillson, Gregory Peck, Neil Simon, Rod Steiger, Andy Williams American Jewish Congress, Baptist Peace Fellowship, B'nai B'rith Women, Communitarian Network, National Urban League, Presbytarian Church USA, Unitarian Universalist Association, United Church of Christ, United Federation of Teachers, United Methodist Church, U.S. Conference of Mayors, U.S. Student Assocatiation, YMCA of the USA | |
| Hawaii Guns Laws - 1997 National Rifle Association (NRA) website | |
| Intent and Extent Gun Control Thoughts from an Australian Living in the USA | |
| Join Together sponsored by the Boston University School of Public Health | |
| Mother Jones Magazine "Why Can't We Regulate Guns?" by Josh Sugarmann | |
| National Rifle Association NRA List of National and State Anti-Gun Organizations | |
| Pacific Center for Violence Prevention Firearms Table of Contents | |
| Texans Against Gun Violence lots of useful information | |