“Firearms And The Romance Of Heroism”: How The NRA’s Proposal To Put Guns In Schools Became Credible
This week, the National Rifle Association is starting up its propaganda machine to argue in favor of using federal money to put armed guards in schools. They’re calling it the “National School Shield Program” – nomenclature that invites us to imagine guns as defensive barriers, only pointing outward against threats. But guns can point in any direction. What’s more, they can fire in any direction. That’s what makes them guns and not, you know, shields.
In the immediate aftermath of the NRA‘s disastrously received post-Sandy Hook press conference, the “National School Shield Program” was easy to mock (I did!). But as the weeks have worn away at support for gun control, the gambit appears increasingly, depressingly savvy. Public sentiment whipsawed between unimaginable grief and inchoate rage, and the NRA provided a concrete proposal whose very outlandishness contained a glimmer of hope: no one has ever before seriously proposed weaponizing public schools. It could work! At least it hasn’t failed!
While guns themselves took on some of the toxicity of the incident, the NRA’s idea neatly capitalized on the understandable human fantasy that accompanies any senseless death – “If only I could have done something” – as a way of re-imbuing firearms with the romance of heroism. When we hear, “The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” the focus is on bad guy versus good guy, not “how did that bad guy get a gun?” What’s more, that reduces the problem of gun violence into “bad guys” and “good guys”, when the reality looks more like “good guys who believe they’re bad”: most gun deaths – about three out of five – are suicides.
In the context of school-age children, the math is not quite so bleak, even if the idea that they could be so hopelessness is all the more grim: for children and teens, 66% of gun deaths are homicides, 29% suicides. There is a simple reason for this reversal of proportions: adults have greater access to guns.
The National Rifle Association’s program to put guns in schools will change that.
For me, that is the end of the argument. Reams of documentation point to the correlation between access to firearms and the deaths of young people – most likely due to suicide. One study of state-level data, controlling for mental illness, substance abuse, income, family structure, urbanization and employment found that in the 15 states with the highest levels of gun ownership, the risk of suicide was double that of the six states with the lowest levels (though the total populations were about the same). Among those young people who have committed suicide with a firearm, another survey found that 82% used a gun that was legally obtained by a relative or someone else they knew.
Increasing the number of legally-obtained guns will increase the number of deaths. It’s almost a mathematical certainty, and these cold statistics point up the (literally) fatal error that’s made its way into the debate over gun violence: that these deaths are somehow the product of faulty laws, that if we could just figure out the right mechanism for enforcement, the right filter for ownership, the right place to set up our perimeter, then gun deaths would decrease … to some level that’s tolerable, I guess.
But when all is said and done, it’s not the laws that are the problem, it is the guns. They are lethal machines, made to be lethal. I like shooting guns, myself. At targets, sure. But you know what makes shooting guns fun? The idea that they’re lethal.
As I’ve written before, the tragic foolhardiness of putting such objects in the vicinity of children might be clearer to people if we substituted “Ebola virus” or “thermonuclear device” for “gun”. Both those things are safe enough, in the right hands and following the right protocols, but there’s a reason we don’t let teachers keep biological weapons in their desks: what if something went wrong? What if they fell into the wrong hands?
The NRA posits a universe in which both the bad guys and the good guys are, in their own way, perfect: the bad guys will be expert gun-handlers for whom reloading cartridges is so easy that no lives would be saved by decreasing the capacity of their magazines. And they would meticulously avoid schools foolish enough to be “gun-free”. The good guys, on the other hand, never miss, always store their guns safely and, of course, are unassailably good and non-homocidal and non-suicidal: no intentions ever change; no circumstances lure them into depression or rage.
Those of us who argue against the NRA’s policies also have to argue against the NRA’s universe; it’s the latter that’s more difficult. The popular appeal of the “School Shield” program hinges on believing in heroics; good public policy depends on preventing the need for them.
By: Ana Marie Cox, The Guardian, April 2, 2013
“We Are Failing”: Father, Forgive Us, For We Know Not What We Do
Jonylah Watkins died on a Tuesday.
She was with her father, who was sitting in a minivan in Chicago on the night of March 11 when someone opened fire. Doctors worked 17 hours trying to repair what a bullet had done to her body, but to no avail. She died the next morning. Her funeral was about two weeks ago. She was six months old.
Antonio Santiago was seven months older when his mother put him in a stroller and took him for a walk in their Brunswick, GA, neighborhood. Sherry West says they were accosted by two teenagers demanding money. She told them she didn’t have any. West says they shot Antonio in the face and killed him. This happened two days after Jonylah’s funeral.
An Associated Press reporter was on hand a day later as the boy’s father tried to comfort his child’s mother. “He’s all right,” Luis Santiago told her, smiling for her benefit. “He’s potty training upstairs in heaven.”
Which is, of course, the very foundation of faith, the belief that even tragedy will work ultimately for the good, that in the end, the bitterest tears transmute to the greatest joy. That is, in essence, what is commemorated this Easter week. It marks the morning when, we Christians believe, a carpenter turned itinerant rabbi overcame death itself, rolled a stone aside and walked out of his own tomb.
In the King James Bible, in the book of Matthew, the rabbi — Jesus — is quoted as saying, “Suffer little children and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
When I was a kid, that always confused me. I wondered why children were commanded to suffer. But, as later translations confirm, the word was used in its old English sense, meaning: to permit or allow. Let the children come to me, He is saying, for they are the essence of grace. Love the children.
Two thousand years later, a singer named Marvin Gaye turned that command into a stark plea: Save the children.
As a nation, as a people, we have failed at both.
Nearly 100,000 people will be shot this year according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Seventeen thousand will be younger than 19. So almost 5,000 kids have been shot since the Newtown massacre in December, the one that was supposed make us finally get serious about gun violence.
That toll speaks unflattering volumes about our seriousness. As does a Politico report that support is softening for laws that would expand background checks and impose other common-sense restrictions on gun ownership. A Florida state legislative panel just voted to support a bill allowing teachers to bring guns to school. Once again, the nation endorses the Orwellian logic that would “solve” the problem of too many guns by adding more guns.
How do you suppose we would explain that to Jonylah or Antonio? Which of the gun lobby’s inane platitudes would we use to justify our failure to keep them safe? Jonylah, guns don’t kill people; people kill people. Antonio, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun …
Sigh.
This year as every year, foes of abortion publicly mourn the loss of babies who could have been. But they — we — remain silent on the loss of babies who actually were, who died because we could not get our act together, because ours is a nation that does not simply enable private gun ownership, but that worships and fetishizes it to the point where sensible restriction — even sensible conversation — seems impossible.
As a result, we are a nation where what happened to Jonylah and Antonio has become grimly, sadly… routine. That fact alone starkly illustrates the insanity to which we have devolved, and the challenge that faces faith this Easter week.
We keep crying the bitter tears. We are still waiting for the joy.
By: Leonard Pitts, Jr., The National Memo, March 31, 2013
“Shame On Us”: If Newtown Is Forgotten, Congress Will Forever Have Blood On Its Hands
Shortly after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, it was fairly common to hear skepticism about President Obama’s willingness to follow through when it came to proposals to reduce gun violence. Sure, the argument went, Obama was saying the right things in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, but would he stick with the issue?
At this point, I think the answer seems fairly plain. About 100 days after the Newtown shootings, the president hosted another event in the White House today, joined by parents and law-enforcement officials, demanding real reforms.
For those who can’t watch clips online, this portion struck me as especially significant:
“There’s absolutely no reason why we can’t get this done. But the reason we’re talking about it here today is because it’s not done until it’s done. And there are some powerful voices on the other side that are interested in running out the clock, or changing the subject, or drowning out the majority of the American people to prevent any of these reforms from happening at all. They’re doing everything they can to make all of our progress collapse under the weight of fear and frustration, their assumption is that people will just forget about it.
“I read an article in the news just the other day wondering ‘Has Washington Missed Its Opportunity?’ because as time goes on after Newtown, somehow people start moving on and forgetting. Let me tell you, the people here, they don’t forget. Grace’s Dad’s not forgetting. Hadiya’s Mom hasn’t forgotten. The notion that two months or three months after something as horrific as what happened in Newtown happens and we’ve moved onto other things? That’s not who we are. That’s not who we are.
“And I want to make sure every American is listening today. Less than 100 days ago, that happened. And the entire country was shocked. And the entire country pledged that we would do something about it and this time it would be different. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten. I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten.”
We don’t yet know whether Congress will even consider popular measures that enjoy overwhelming public support, but it appears the White House’s commitment has not changed.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, March 28, 2013
“Fighting Big Money With Big Money”: Until Citizens United Overturned, Best Way Out Of Our Dilemma Is To Democratize The Money Game
If you are tired of seeing the debate on guns dominated by the National Rifle Association and yearn for sensible weapons laws, you have to love New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. When most politicians were caving in or falling silent, there was Bloomberg, wielding his fortune to keep hope alive that we could move against the violence that blights our nation.
But imagine that you also believe the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision was a disaster for representative government because a narrow majority broke with long precedent and tore down the barriers to corporate money in politics. The decision also encouraged the super-rich to drop any inhibitions about using their wealth to push their own political agendas.
When it comes to policy, I fall into both of these camps — pro-Bloomberg on guns but anti-Citizens United. So I have been pondering the issue of consistency or, as some would see it, hypocrisy.
Put aside that the hypocrisy question rarely is raised against those who defend unlimited contributions except when the big bucks are wielded against them. Can I be grateful for what Bloomberg is doing and still loathe Citizens United? I say: Yes.
Are opponents of Citizens United and the new super PAC world required to disown those who use their wealth to fight for causes we believe in? I say: No.
To begin with, even before Citizens United, the regulations on “issue advertising” — most of what Bloomberg is doing now — were quite permissive for activities outside the period shortly before elections. The Supreme Court’s 1976 Buckley v. Valeo decision already had given wealthy individuals such as Bloomberg a great deal of leeway.
And, unlike those who donate large amounts anonymously, Bloomberg is entirely open about what he’s up to. He is simply offsetting the political might of the arms manufacturers.
Supporters of universal background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines simply cannot be asked to repudiate the help they need to face down the power of the gun lobby.
To put it in an unvarnished way, I’m glad some members of Congress will have to think about whether enraging Bloomberg is more dangerous than angering the NRA. And Bloomberg’s advertising serves to remind politicians inclined to yield to the gun lobby that their constituents support universal background checks by margins of around 9 to 1.
The Supreme Court has stuck us with an unsavory choice. If the only moneyed people giving to politics are pushing for policies that favor the wealthy, we really will become an oligarchy. For now, their pile of dough needs to be answered by progressive rich people who think oligarchy is a bad idea.
But playing the game as it’s now set up should not blind anyone to how flawed its rules are. Politics should not be reduced to a contest between liberal rich people and conservative rich people. A donor derby tilts politics away from the interests and concerns of the vast majority of Americans who aren’t wealthy and can’t write checks of a size that gets their phone calls returned automatically. A Citizens United world makes government less responsive, less representative and more open to corruption.
That’s why many who welcome the continued political engagement of President Obama’s campaign organization are nonetheless concerned about its dependence on big-dollar givers. This creates a troubling model that other politicians are certain to follow. It would be far better if Obama concentrated primarily on building off the pioneering work his campaigns did in rallying small donors.
This points to the larger danger for those who tout their tough-mindedness about using the current system for progressive purposes while still claiming to be reformers: Politicians are growing so comfortable with the status quo that they largely have given up trying to change it.
Two who haven’t are Reps. David Price (D-N.C.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), sponsors of the Empowering Citizens Act. It would provide a 5 to 1 match from public funds for contributions of $250 or less, thus establishing strong incentives for politicians to rely on smaller donors while offering the rest of us a fighting chance against the billionaires. Harnessed to new technologies, this approach could vastly expand the number of citizens who are regular contributors. Similar reforms are being proposed at the state level in New York, and Obama’s organization says it will push to get them passed.
Until Citizens United is overturned, as it should be, the best way out of our dilemma is to democratize the money game.
So, yes, let’s cheer for Mike Bloomberg. But let’s also insist on creating a system in which we will no longer need his money.
By: E. J. Dionne, Jr., Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, March 27, 2013
“Shifting Tectonics On Guns”: It’s No Longer The Simple Question Of Doing What’s Right Versus Doing What’s Expedient
As the Senate moves towards a vote on Harry Reid’s gun violence package, which now (after the excision of a renewed assault gun ban and high-capacity ammo clip restrictions) centers on a quasi-universal background check system for gun sales, there are a lot of shifting techtonics to keep in mind:
First, public opinion remains overwhelmingly in favor of universal background checks across just about every subset of the population. The opposition may be noisy and influential, and benefits from the perception that this is a “voting issue” only for opponents, but this is at present not a close call in terms of where the public stands.
Second, the near-unanimity of public opinion probably reflects the ironic fact that for many years a stronger background check system was the default-drive alternative offered by the NRA to every other gun measure. Yes, the gun lobby has been fighting to protect the “gun show loophole” to background checks for some time, and has quietly worked to undermine the system as it exists, but it’s still difficult for Lapierre and company to pretend it represents a deadly threat to the Second Amendment.
Third, we are in a period where the once-powerful force of red-state Democratic reluctance to make waves on “cultural issues” is waning. There are fewer red-state Dems to worry about, for one thing. For another, voter polarization and reduced ticket-splitting have made the route to survival for red- (and more often, purple-) state Democrats depend more on base mobilization than has been the case in the past.
This last factor remains important in the 60-vote Senate, however. Plum Line’s Greg Sargent runs the numbers this morning, and identifies five Democrats and three Republicans who are being cross-pressured by the usual NRA threats–but also by Michael Bloomberg’s lavishly funded upcoming ad campaign pushing back.
How individual senators, the two parties, and the White House calculate all these factors will largely determine what happens after the Easter Recess. But in this installment of the Gun Wars, it’s no longer quite the simple question of doing what’s right versus doing what’s expedient that it used to be.
By: Ed Kilgore, Washington Monthly Political Animal, March 25, 2013
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