Ya’ Know, I thought I wouldn't write anything on the Colorado Massacre. There have already been many excellent posts and they say what I feel far better than I could. But listening to CNN – I am one of the few left that still does – I was struck by the “advice” their expert psychologist is giving out. I supposed that it is a real world view of our situation as opposed to the idealized one that I would advocate, but never the less, it still seems strangely counter intuitive. Follow me down the rabbit hole if you would…
Today CNN has been asking the guest psychologist about the effects recent events in Colorado may have on America’s children. The point was made that we as adults, are curious and that we have the news feed on 24/7 watching for information etc. However, our kids are also getting this deluge of information and it is making them feel unsure, scared, unsafe, etc. The advice we receive as CNN watchers is exactly the opposite of the advice we typically give one another. They recommend turning the TV off, teaching kids that this is an isolated incident in a far away place. Explain that they are perfectly safe in their communities and that such isolated events are extremely rare. In other words, don't look at the nastiness, say it cant happen to me, convince yourself that this is only other peoples problem, and it will all go away… Your kids are safe if they don't know. You are a good parent if you deny.
I do understand and appreciate the point being made. Mental health for children does require some respite from the continuous din of the rightwing media. If kids become afraid of their own shadows, then where would we be? But here is the problem… this is NOT an isolated incident and they are NOT safe. And, sticking your head in the sand will not change this.
There are very few really accurate comparative studies on violent crime in the U.S. relative to the rest of the world. What we can say, despite what the enormous wealth of “information” on the web would have us believe, is that the rate of crime in all categories is around the same in the U.S. as in other parts of the “low crime” world: Germany France, England, Canada, etc. Oh sure there are a few ticks up or down as you go through the list, but due to the way in which things are reported, and the classification of crime generally, we are within a rounding error anyways. The second thing we can say is that our rate of death or injury due to violent acts, specifically those involving firearms, is much higher than comparative countries. You can argue this point within a few percentage points, but generally no matter how you count it, there appears to be a statistically significant difference between us and the rest of the world on this point.
Since a defining characteristic in the difference between our societies is the U.S.’s ease of access to firearms of all kinds, it is tempting to ascribe a causal effect to guns and the risk of violent injury. But we can only really say two things: that such access to firearms does NOT make a society safer and that the result of violent crime is made more devastating by the existence of firearms within our communities. As an example: we have all heard the argument by now, put forth by a rather uninformed GOP lawmaker, that if only someone in that Colorado theater had a sidearm with them, the result would have been much different. Indeed it would, but experience and crime statistics tells us that the result would have been far more catastrophic. Shooting at the assailant in a dark and crowded movie theater could have killed him and saved some lives. But that would depend on the training of the “hero” shooter, his/her aim (not hitting the attacker in the body armor), and the chance that there would be only one such “hero.” If more than one attendee had a firearm, the chances are that they would shoot at each other because how would they know otherwise not to? Moreover, collateral damage is a tremendous risk in such circumstances. Lets say that 20% (the U.S. population reports gun ownership at about this number) remembered to bring their guns. Then how do we know who to aim at? Who is involved in this mass murder and who is involved in trying to stop it? Historically, there is a reason many ol’ west saloons required one to check their firearms at the door. Furthermore, with this many gun toten’ folk at the movie that night would we expect for this assailant to not attempt the murder, or to prepare even better for it? Well crazy is crazy so my bet is on the later. So I would argue that the “safer” society argued by the NRA is only safer from the point of view that one be willing to engage in the occasional wild west shoot out. Naturally, if I am actually IN the OK coral, then I would rather have a gun than not. But, from what we do know of the wild west, the “everyone has a gun” policy yielded a greater number of violent and gun related deaths per capita (wiki has a number of excellent references on this point).
Another possibility is regulation. I know… I know… the constitution guarantees the right to arm ourselves. Afterall, if I ever wanted to overthrow a corrupt government – with all of its F18’s, stealth bombers, M1A1 Abrams tanks, and military tactics, how would I do this without my semiautomatic at my side? If only those kids on the Kent State hillside had a few AR 15s, well you get my point. But lets say for a moment that the framers of our constitution knew less about the future than we do. Lets say for instance, that they have not so accurately predicted the ability of one person to lay waste to an entire area using automatic assault rifles. And lets pretend that we, as a species, are composed of fundamentally trainable primates, and that the intervening years has taught us that free and unfettered access to assault weapons isn’t a good thing. Pretending all of this we might imagine that some reasonable restrictions on access were put in place to prevent such a localized accumulation of firepower. Not too different from the restrictions we place on other mortal threats to our well being. We restrict access to cars for instance, and certainly some explosives. Not just anyone can gain access to an aircraft, and competency must be shown to even prepare some kinds of sushi. Throughout our society we are perfectly capable of understanding a public good, and instituting some sort of checks and regulations on access to those things that can harm large numbers of us. The gun lobby would have us believe that this is the case with firearms as well, but this is simply NOT true. The restrictions that many believe are in place, are NOT. It is far easier to own a collection of terrifying weapons in the U.S. than it is to engage in many of the things I have listed above.
Now I for one, want a full out ban on all firearms in our society, but I am willing to “live” with a compromise of having restrictions that protect us generally. And this seems like a rather generous compromise. Afterall, no one is saying that firearms cant be owned in this scenario. But I would like to make it reasonably hard to do so – say as hard as getting a drivers license. Oddly enough, after a situation such as Colorado, many Americans (a large majority in fact) agree with me according to a recent pew study. But in that same study it was found that most of these Americans think we already have such a set of restrictions as I noted above.
So this brings me back to my point. If you are concerned that the effect of this incident is to frighten your kids, and make them scared to go out at night, then by all means teach them. But don't teach them what CNN is suggesting. Instead teach them that this is a choice of our lawmakers. This is NOT an isolated incident and that the damage inflicted CAN happen to them. Maybe when they grow up, they will have the backbone that we didn't have, and maybe they will have the foresight to do something about it.