Like most Americans, I was appalled by the massacre of school children in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. I have since watched the debate on gun violence with great interest. Frankly, before this atrocity, gun control wasn’t at the top of my agenda—I am more interested in the fact that we seem to be drifting towards another war in the Middle East—this time with Iran. Still, those of us who want peace in the world must address violence wherever it happens—even if it happens here at home.
The following essay was inspired by a recent debate over gun violence in the wake of the Connecticut shootings. It was sponsored in our community by Moveon.org. Pro-gun folks outnumbered “Moveon” members by a fairly wide margin. Nonetheless we were able to have a fairly amicable conversation—however, to say it was “amicable” is not to say that their arguments actually made sense. I wrote this essay at home later as I reviewed some of the things that had been made…
After the invention of cars around the turn of the century, the number of deaths from car accidents in the US kept increasing. It reached about 51,000 per year in 1980. That is about the number of US troops killed in the entire Vietnam war. It is roughly the equivalent of 24 separate 9/11 attacks PER YEAR. One of the major factors in road fatalities was drunk driving. Slowly, debate began about what we, as a society, could do to reduce this appalling death toll. In 1988, a drunk driver traveling in the wrong direction on an interstate highway in Kentucky collided head-on with a school bus. This spectacular tragedy resulted in the death of 27 people, mostly children. In the aftermath of the disaster, several family members of victims became active leaders of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Debate intensified.
Since its peak in the 80s, car fatalities have dropped to about 30,000 a year. That is in spite of huge population growth and similar increases in car ownership and traffic. It’s still not a very good number, but it’s a huge improvement over what might have been.
In the wake of the recent appalling examples of school shootings, I’m wondering whether we can do something similar about the problem of gun violence. There is a lot of resistance. It is quite interesting to put some current arguments about guns into the context of the older drunk driving debate, and indeed to the regulation of cars and driving in general. Hence, this little example of how some arguments now used by guns rights advocates would sound if they had been directed towards stopping efforts to reduce traffic fatalities. (I have culled the following arguments fairly directly from a conversation in our community recently sponsored by moveon.org—but largely attended by gun fans… Of course I am mildly exaggerating in some cases—but not really very much. I was especially impressed by the kind of logic (or lack thereof) expressed in these kind of statements.
“…No one can stop all accidents, so why even try? Cars don’t kill people, people kill people. No, wait…alcohol doesn’t kill people, people kill people…or, maybe, people kill themselves with alcohol…and other people too…no wait. Not every drunk driver has an accident. Prohibition was overturned, so I have a constitutional right to drink. Driving is a right everyone has, we shouldn’t put it at risk by requiring people to get licenses. I’m just afraid the government is trying to take away my car…or my liquor…I forget which. I’m just angry that people are even talking about cars and alcohol in connection with drunk driving deaths…we should be talking about education instead…or maybe abortion. People on motorcycles and pedestrians get killed too, and they’re not always drunk…some people are killed by falling off of tall buildings…There’s so much misinformation about this issue: I heard that some of those people weren’t really dead…the government and liberals are trying to trick us into not killing ourselves so we can keep paying taxes. My car is my only protection against tyranny—when the government takes over this country I’m gonna have a few quick drinks and make my getaway. The only solution to drunk drivers is more drunk drivers—that way they’ll all run each other off the roads. The real problem is the roads, it’s all those darned curves. No it’s not! Curves don’t kill people it’s the EDGES of the road that cause the problem. Drunk drivers aren’t the problem, bad drivers are the problem…I actually drive better when I’ve had a few drinks, so why should I suffer because others don’t…the problem is that TV and movies are filled with images of people drinking…and driving…our liberal society glorifies transportation—we shouldn’t even have a department of transportation. The solution is more prayer in cars, that would make people safer. Driving off the road doesn’t kill people—stuff they hit is the problem—we just need to move more stuff out of their way. It’s just a slippery slope, first they require drivers licenses, then they’ll register cars, and then, when they know where they can find us and our cars, they’ll take our cars and sell them and put us all in death camp. What we need is a policeman at every parking space, every morning, to test people for alcohol before they start driving. We should train every driver to arrest every other driver that they think is drunk. The problem is the cars themselves; sometimes mechanical problems cause accidents. Before you know it, the government will require everyone to have insurance…life would be unbearable under that kind of tyranny. What we need is a national database of drunk drivers, but we mustn’t let the Feds abuse that kind of information by actually using it. We shouldn’t even talk about drinking, because that is a personal choice, but we should have more cars because the fewer people there are in each car, the less serious each accident will be. There are enough laws already, we just need to enforce the ones we already have—just as long as they don’t unfairly target drunk drivers! This will destroy our economy—bars and restaurants will cease to exist! The economic cost is too high, speed limits are too low; if everyone drove faster we’d all get home sooner. In 1910 Germany started requiring car licenses and 24 years later they ended up with Adolph Hitler. The problem is feminism, some research shows that women can’t drive. Drinking and driving is part of my identity and my self-expression in this way is part of my first amendment rights. Many people drink and drive and never have a fatal accident…People who take drugs have accidents too. I think the president made up this whole problem just to get votes. Only crazy people choose to have accidents. Everyone dies anyway. If we could just teach people not to be stupid, then everyone would act smarter…”
Enough already. I have exaggerated a little, but not much. This is the same type and quality of argument I have repeatedly heard in the gun debate recently.
In the end we retained both cars and alcohol. We still have bars and restaurants. Highway fatalities were greatly reduced by the involvement of concerned citizens that led to government action. Together, these forces helped change the personal choices made by individuals. Today the decision to drive while drunk is no longer cool, or a joking matter, or something that people take lightly as they once did. Instead, it is viewed as irresponsible if not reprehensible. Considerable legal penalties help reinforce this view.
The eventual solutions to the problem of traffic fatalities were a combination of things: new laws AND stricter enforcement of existing laws. More and better driver education, a better understanding of alcohol and its abuse, raising of drinking ages to an (almost) federal standard of 21 and reductions in speed limits, improved technology applied to car safety, improved training of police, better roads, and stricter penalties from insurance companies all played a part. There was no “magic bullet,” “single factor” solution, yet most of the excuses for denying the problem and for not doing anything were shown to be groundless nonsense.
An effective reduction in gun violence will certainly require the same kind of combined approach.
But let’s be realistic. Drunk driving and gun violence are not the same thing. Drunk driving is a combination of two factors (alcohol and vehicles) that often leads to a lethal result. On the other hand, while it seems clear that the availability of guns is a huge factor in our rate of gun violence, we’re not really certain what all the other factors are. Whatever they are, they’re clearly not as easy to identify or test for as a simple chemical like alcohol is. One problem in determining the various factors involved in gun violence is that the NRA has helped spearhead a largely successful drive to prohibit federal funds from being used to do better research into this issue. What a pathetic endeavor.
I should also note that guns also differ from cars in this important way: in strictly technical terms a very good driver will never kill anyone. With guns, on the other hand, a very good shooter can kill hundreds of children and still remain…well…a very good shooter—if the word “good” can ever accurately be used in this kind of context. I truly doubt it can.
A final note. In her recent, highly publicized confrontation with “Tea Party” Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California rightly chastised him when he tediously explained the 2nd amendment to her and asked her whether she would also approve exceptions to the 1st and 4th amendments. She might have made her case a little more strongly if she had simply pointed out that numerous exceptions to both amendments have already been made. In the case of the 1st amendment there are laws against sedition, hate speech, pornography and the publication of government secrets (remember Julian Assange and Wikileaks?). In many issues of this sort, it is actually conservatives who have been in the forefront of efforts to modify the interpretation of the constitution. In the case of the 4th amendment as well, there are numerous exceptions to the rule of unreasonable search and seizure—think about TSA searches at airports, etc, etc. So Senator Cruz’s seeming assertion that the 2nd amendment is simply immune to any fine tuning at all just shows a total ignorance of how our system works. And by the way, though I by no means agree with some of the exceptions to the 1st and 4th amendments, I do feel that the same kind of interpretive fine tuning is well deserved in the case of the 2nd amendment. After all, the 1st and 4th amendments were both interpreted on the same basis—our ability to maintain public safety. If Mr. Cruz is willing to endorse unregulated distribution of hate speech, pornography, sedition and government secrets, and also to allow unregulated access to air transport and other acts meant to impede our ability to interdict drugs etc. etc., maybe he should just say so.
On that note, I will rest my case. I hope sanity will prevail and that a number of reasonable measures will be taken to address the epidemic of gun violence in this country—as indeed was the case with our highway fatality issue in the 1980’s.