We're having a debate with pro-gun owners at the The American Gun Victims Wall. We started it because the Slate variation doesn't include injuries, just deaths. We figure that the injured are victims too. We also asked people of all perspectives to come and just LOOK at the stories we aggregate from all over the country for the KINDS of death and injury, and their causes.
The results are not what the NRA wants you to hear. Arguments, substances, and mental illness generate the vast number of handgun deaths and injuries. So, in the course of our postings, we get a few "challengers." Joe asked us to have a debate. To tell him why "guns are bad." Here is the reply, as it might be useful to others trying to have a reasonable discussion:
Good Joe. Let's start by acting like adults and not turning the whole mess into this black and white clown show that has been the way this debate has run. The "guns are bad" thing is too simplistic.
Guns aren't "bad" They are highly lethal killing machines. That is their intended primary purpose throughout history. Target practice, skeet, etc are after-thoughts.[1]
So here's the thing: You're putting this extremely effective killing machine into the hands of people. Very human, sometimes very flawed, weak people. By and large, the majority of gun buyers are very fearful people. People afraid of crime, the government, something. Hunting rifles aside, the hundreds of millions of handguns out there aren't killing deer. Handguns are bought to empower.
Assault weapons are largely the province of concentrated collectors who are either just big fans of the power of the weaponry or who stock arsenals to protect themselves from some future armageddon or the government going all Red Dawn on them.
About 93% of the time, nothing comes of this. People own these killing machines and keep them safely, use them safely, and, debate about the "well regulated militia" clause of the 2nd Amendment aside, the high courts of this land define a constitutional right to bear arms for all.
The problem arises from the 3-7% of people who misuse them.
There are folks who leave loaded guns lying around and kids find them and kill themselves. At least 5-8 of those a month are still 5 to 8 too many. Most states don't have good weapons storage laws. There should be some standard set, at least for homes with children or people who are mentally ill or mentally challenged, to store weapons safely. In one home where a child died they kept the kiddie rifle in an umbrella basket by the front door.
There are the substance users. Lots of deaths happen every day from people using some drug or alcohol, legal or illegal, and either taking their own lives, taking the lives of their family, or neighbors, or the public at large. Only 17 states have laws that make it a DUI-like crime to have a gun out of a safe or lock-up while under the influence. Only four states have laws preventing guns stored in cars, bags, etc. within range of a bar, yet there are at least a dozen bar shootings monthly that end in death and/or injury.
There are those who suffer from various mental defects. People with everything from untreated depression to rage issues to the guy at Sandy Hook missing some serious screws. We need to address what to do about these people reasonably. Suicide is the largest class of gun death in this country annually (FBI statistics). Not all, but a whole lot of them are the cap to a long road where family and the police want to interdict but cannot. Judges should be allowed to either suspend ownership, or locate it to use on firing ranges until the person with the problem can get themselves right. There should be no person on a restraining order who can keep their weapons, but most states still allow it, and it is a huge source of not only family death, but danger for police officers.
Last is the most tough: Arguments. Plenty of them. Over a car accident. A love triangle gone wrong. The border of a home. Over defending invisible boundaries of neighborhood turf. Feelings of disrespect. Over how the toast was made (true story). People armed feel empowered to use a weapon to prove a point. These are the second largest class of shootings after suicides, and include a lot of the "gang related" shootings as well.
We don't see this is being much different than a car, save with a car we've decided that we need licensure and we set much higher standards for average citizens using them safely. Without impacting the rights of the vast majority of law abiding gun owners, we need to address the exceptions to the rule. We have been unable to do so largely because the NRA lobbies heavily against any and all legislation that impacts gun sales.
They do so, in part, because they know that the use of handguns sells other guns. A man gets gunned down in a neighborhood in New Orleans, and others in the neighborhood start feeling scared and unsafe, so they go out and arm themselves.
Also, if we're going to have this debate, we should talk about the people who use guns to defend themselves. They do, indeed exist. Based upon what we see, and assuming that both suicides and gun "saves" don't make the papers as often, we'd still be willing to spot gun owners another 2 to 3% more than the 3% or so that we see come up in the news of gun "saves." You have to take away a couple because there are a number of times when guns are turned on the people doing the saving, or some third person is killed when the weapon discharged goes through a wall or ceiling and drops a neighbor or member of the household.
So there you go. That's the grey area. You are a responsible gun owner. What do we do with these very real problems to keep your guns, but lower the death toll that is one of the highest in the world?
Let's see how Joe, and the other Joes roll, if they can maintain reason, and not drop into the usual NRA-conditioned hysterics.