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| Successful deer hunt |
A friend recently posted a notice that 36 million deer
hunters were out in the woods and there wasn’t one mass killing. To my friend, that proved it’s human intent
that matters, not the weapon.
That’s, of course, as I told her via Facebook, nonsense.
Not one of those hunters was carrying an AK-47 or
similar assault weapon. Why? Because if they shot a deer with rounds from
one of those guns, the animal would be shredded beyond recognition.
Moreover, a person may be just as intent to kill and
have a knife instead of an Uzi. Guess
which weapon will cause more damage?
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| Successful people hunt in Dayton |
No one with a knife killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio
this year and wounded 27 more or killed 22 people in Waco, Texas and wounded 24
more. The list could go one. After all, there have been more than 380 mass
killings in the U.S. just in 2019.
From 2009 to 2018, this country has averaged 19 mass
shootings a year. That has led to the
deaths of 1,121 Americans, including 309 children and 19 law enforcement
officers.
No other country has come remotely close to those
numbers. That’s because most other countries don’t allow citizens to own
weapons willy-nilly.
In countries like Switzerland and Finland, where gun ownership ranks among the
highest in the world, gun owners are required to pass mental and criminal records
checks among other requirements. Guess
what? Far fewer gun deaths and virtually
no mass shootings.
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| Hemenway |
It’s no hard
to figure out why. Harvard professor Dr.
David Hemenway wrote, "We analyzed the relationship between homicide and
gun availability using data from 26 developed countries from the early 1990s.
We found that across developed countries, where guns are more available, there
are more homicides."
Doh.
Gun homicide
rates in this country were “25.3 times higher and gun suicides were 8 times
higher in 2010 than in other populous, high-income countries,” according to a
2016 study. Overall, 82 percent of all people worldwide killed by firearms were
Americans.
Our response
to the carnage? Congress passed a law
preventing research into gun violence while common sense gun controls have
never even got through either house since the Brady Bill in the 1994. And that law, requiring background checks and
a cooling off period, has been circumvented by excluding gun shows. My nephew owned a gun shop. He knew very well the impact of unregulated
gun sales.
In Australia,
in contrast, conservative Prime Minister John Howard and legislators appalled by a 1996
mass shooting in Tasmania that left 35 people dead placed
strict requirements on gun ownership. In
the next decade, homicides caused by guns dropped 59 percent. There have been no more mass shootings Down
Under.
Opponents to gun control cite the Second Amendment,
which clearly states that the need for a militia requires the right to own
guns. Any of those deer hunters in a
militia?
Besides, we have journeyed more than 200 years since
that Amendment was added to the Constitution.
Weapons have improved. Then,
after every shot, a shooter had to reload.
The idea of an assault rifle didn’t exist.
Nor are restrictions on gun ownership illegal. In McDonald v. Chicago (2010), the Supreme
Court ruled that anyone can own a gun, but municipalities have every right to
restrict purchases. That’s been the norm
for more than a century. After all, in
the old West, every town that incorporated invariably passed a law banning
forearms in the city limits. Those people
lived with gun violence every day. They
knew.
My favorite howler is the claim that citizens need
assault rifles to defend themselves against their government. They also say that the Nazi Party disarmed
everyone after taking control in 1933.
Both are false.
In the first place, gun owners are supposedly patriotic. Apparently that means waiting to be ambushed
by a government armed with nuclear weapons and every high-powered weapon known
to man. Good luck with even an assault rifle. In Germany, Nazis removed guns from people
they didn’t like. Everyone else was left
alone. Democracies don’t act that way.
Democracies are also guided by the people, who, in
poll after poll, overwhelmingly favor gun controls in an effort to end the mass
murders in our schools, malls and offices.
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| Assault rifle |
We can start by banning assault rifles, just as they
were from 1994 to 2004. The law had
little effect because ownership was grandfathered in; and rifles were rigged to
handle larger magazines. Only a law that
removes these weapons from private hands would accomplish the task. There is no known use for an assault rifle
except to kill people.
With proper restraints in place, you can hunt all the
deer you want after clearing background checks and other limitations. Maybe then, you’ll stop hunting people.
Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly
writes about religion and religious history with an occasional foray into
American culture. He holds an ABD in
American Studies from Case Western Reserve University. He also speaks at various religious
organizations throughout Florida. You
can reach him at wplazarus@aol.com. He is the author of the recently published novel
The
Great Seer Nostradamus Tells All as well as a variety of nonfiction
books, including The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information;
Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative
Religion. His books are available on Amazon.com,
Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.
He can also be followed on Twitter.
