By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The horrific events in Newtown, Connecticut have left us all with a sense of shock and helplessness. Twenty elementary school children dead, six educators slaughtered, and a place we all like to think of as a safe haven from the misery of the world polluted by horrific violence wrought by weapons more properly used on a battlefield. Politicians from President Obama to New York Mayor Bloomberg have called for “meaningful action” to combat gun violence which is endemic to America.
But does this mass murder of innocents present the right case to support effective gun control? From what we know now the answer is “no.” The shooter, 20-year-old Adam Lanza, was a troubled teen who suffered from either Asperger’s syndrome or a personality disorder according to the New York Daily News. One family friend described the young man, saying, “This was a deeply disturbed kid. He certainly had major issues. He was subject to outbursts from what I recall.”
Lanza also had strange permutation of the syndrome in that he was impervious to normal stimuli. Another “longtime” family friend said Lanza had a condition “where he couldn’t feel pain. A few years ago when he was on the baseball team, everyone had to be careful that he didn’t fall because he could get hurt and not feel it.”
Asperger’s syndrome is an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) which allows the sufferer to maintain high academic and cognitive functioning but handicaps social interaction. It is the classic high school brainiac who is unable to ask a member of the opposite sex out on a date. The cause is unknown but certain genetic markers may be present to suggest that is its origin. Thus, Lanza may have acted from a motivation he had little control over and which no amount of gun control or mental health legislation could control.
Additionally, the guns used in the slayings were purchased legally by Lanza’s apparent first victim, his mother, Nancy. Lanza stole the weapons — a .223 Bushmaster assault weapon*, and two semi-automatic handguns, a 9 mm Sig Sauer, and a 9 mm Glock — after murdering his mother and thus began his rampage. The simple fact is that no gun control measures either on the books or reasonably under consideration could have stopped such a disturbed person from acquiring these weapons if he was willing to kill to get them.
As much as many of us would like to see guns regulated at least as much as cars or liquor, the facts here do not present the best case to achieve this goal. The American love affair with guns is seemingly getting stronger with sales of firearms setting new records. Gun manufacturers and their minions at the NRA have succeeded in scaring many Americans into believing that Obama and the Democratic Party have a secret agenda to disarm the public.
In fact, the public’s support for gun control has been on a steady decline according to polling conducted by Pew Research. Even the school mass murder at Columbine registered only a bump of support which quickly vanished. The chart below (from the Huffington Post) graphically demonstrates the public’s attitude about guns in an era of distrust with government and the political process.
It would take a paradigm shift in the culture to create the political will to take on the Second Amendment. It is a telling — and perhaps damning — fact that even the death of 20 children under age 10 is simply not enough.
Source: CNN; New York DailyNews; Huffington Post
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
PSs:
Our good friend, slartibartfast, has provided a link on the effectiveness of the federal ban on assault weapons. It’s good reading. Here it is: Did the federal ban on assault weapons matter?
*Also commenter, Roman Berry, (9:19 am) has provided some context for the term “assault weapon.”
Thanks, guys.
In the 12 years since the law reforms, there have been no mass shootings.
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Nal…. that is EXACTLY right……..
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Gene… The list you just suggested is EXACTLY what I suggested this WHOLE time… this thread and the last gun thread…..
NOT ONCE did I even come CLOSE to advocating for total gun ban…..
and fact is… the VERY people who cling to their guns, are the VERY ones who are always wanting to cut social services and not find ways of getting these parents the help they need……..
That is what the LIBERALS are always fighting for…..
Gene,
Per the issue of being rationally related to a legitimate purpose, don’t forget the actuaries.
Odds of kids being killed in school massacre compared to odds of kids being killed in more mundane disaster; like a car crash.
Changing the law to prevent the statistically improbable isn’t quite rational.
Raff,
I concur with what Gene said and would add the following.
First, banning all semi-automatic guns is as much a pipe dream as banning all guns together. You’ll have to repeal the 2nd amendment to do it.
Second, I agree with the principle behind the idea of mental health checks for handguns and assault rifles, but I’m keen to guess how you’d go about implementing that without seriously stamping on the rest of our civil rights. Seems to me that would open the door to a psychiatric state; where it’s far easier to keep changing the definition of “sane” to control the populous.
Bob K.,
“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation. . . Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” – James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, in Federalist Paper No. 46.
“The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate size, upon such principles as will really fit it for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.” – Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 29.
Madison was the primary drafter of the Constitution and Hamilton was a delegate to the Constitutional convention.
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Bob, Esq.,
“I’m still waiting to hear what law, rationally related to a legitimate purpose, would have prevented this tragedy.”
As am I. And that’s the bottom legal line here. No law rationally related to legitimate purpose would have prevented this horror.
Great link Elaine!
Gene,
I can’t keep up with you guys on my phone, but I will go even further. A constitutional amendment restricting these ultra lethal weapons and ammo. The balance of strength between the government and its firepower and citizens is almost as wide as the Grand Canyon of a gulf between the uber wealthy and the poor.
“The simple fact is that no gun control measures either on the books or reasonably under consideration could have stopped such a disturbed person from acquiring these weapons if he was willing to kill to get them.”
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If Lanza’s mother hadn’t had guns readily available to her son–maybe no school massacre would have occurred in Newtown. Lanza was prevented from buying a gun at a sporting goods store in Connecticut earlier in the week:
Reports: Lanza Attempted To Buy Rifle Days Before Shooting, Was Denied
by Anjali Sareen
December 15th, 2012
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/reports-lanza-attempted-to-buy-rifle-days-before-shooting-was-denied/
NBC’s Pete Williams reported this morning that, according to federal and state officials, there were four handguns found at the scene of the Connecticut school shooting, instead of two as previously thought. Adam Lanza also had an assault-style rifle that he reportedly left in his car. Williams also told the Today audience that on Tuesday of this week, December 11, Lanza attempted to purchase another rifle from a sporting goods store in Danbury, Connecticut, but was denied.
According to Williams, Lanza was unable to buy the rifle for several reasons, one of which was Connecticut’s stricter gun laws which mandate a waiting period before purchase.
Elaine,
I have no issue with banning gun shows and requiring registry of private sales, banning extended magazines, banning certain types of ammunition, banning folding stocks and bayonet mounts and some large caliber semi-automatic rifles like .50 cal sniper rifles. I’m even for the idea of a mental health check and a “blind” database where mental health workers can list people they think are dangerous to themselves or others to restrict sales. Concurrently though I am for free quality public mental health care. There are actually quite a few areas I’m willing to talk restrictions and other mitigations.
However, banning semi-automatic weapons of any sort is simply going too far. 1) It would shift the balance of power too far to the government in what is already a unfair fight should it break out, 2) banning would only result in a black market and the attendant crime that goes with black markets 3) a prohibition would be ineffective as guns of all sort are fairly easy to make from scratch as a fabrication issue, and 4) there are many legitimate self-defense and sporting reasons to prefer a semi-automatic over a revolver or manual loading design.
Bob, Esq.,
Just because Congress has been afraid to tackle the Gorilla in the room, does not diminish the call to restrict mentally ill people from getting guns. I have called repeatedly for a ban on semi-automatic weapons of all kinds and the high capacity magazines and clips. This is not a new issue,but if society doesn’t push Congress and the President in the correct direction, who will? All movements in the past have started with the people pushing the government forward.
Bron,
The citizens of the former British colonies were not British citizens when the Constitution was written. The Constitution was written long after the Declaration of Independence, and the conclusion of the Revolutionary War.
Regarding drone strikes “You say yes, it is less repugnant in Pakistan.”
No, I did not say that. Don’t put words in my mouth. You said that.
Gene H.,
“Protecting ourselves from the potential abuses of government was indeed one of the reasons they adopted the 2nd.”
Do any of your quotes involve whoever wrote that amendment, saying specifically that that was the meaning of the amendment? Where does “well regulated militia” fit into warfare against your own republican government?
Gene,
It’s a crucial ancillary point; bringing the murky problem of argument from hysteria into specific relief.
I’m still waiting to hear what law, rationally related to a legitimate purpose, would have prevented this tragedy.
I agree with Mespo’s initial assessment:
“The simple fact is that no gun control measures either on the books or reasonably under consideration could have stopped such a disturbed person from acquiring these weapons if he was willing to kill to get them.”
Just because you feel morally outraged by a certain event, it does not follow that there exists a change in law that will address the problem.
Moral outrage and “moral feelings” (like Scalia’s) are no substitute for reason.
Kant: …”whereas a mixed ethics, compounded partly of motives drawn from feelings and inclinations, and partly also of conceptions of reason, must make the mind waver between motives which cannot be brought under any principle, which lead to good only by mere accident and very often also to evil.”
Gene,
“I’ve said all along there is room for reasonable restriction.”
Then…maybe we are in agreement. What do you have in mind when you say that you are in favor of “reasonable restriction?”
Great link Nal. Japan is another good example of rational gun control.
How civilized countries (even those with conservative political leaders) respond to mass shootings
The case of Australia:
Our 1996 reforms were precipitated by the Port Arthur massacre, the 13th mass shooting in 15 years in which five or more victims died in places like Hoddle and Queen Streets in Melbourne and Strathfield Plaza.
The central provisions of the reforms were the ban on semi-automatic rifles and pump action shotguns, accompanied by gun amnesties and two national buybacks, which together saw some 820,000 guns destroyed. Because of their rapid firepower, semi-automatics are the guns of choice for those intent on killing many people quickly. John Howard introduced the reforms to prevent US-style mass killings….
In the 12 years since the law reforms, there have been no mass shootings.
Gene,
Ancillary or red herring, the drone issue is meant to distract the public to the continuing flood of red blood. Caused by people with guns who shouldn’t have them. And the types of guns and ammo that should only be in the hands of the military.
Even Scalia agreed that reasonable restrictions on guns would be acceptable under his skewed logic. BTW, it is hard to type in these responses on my iPhone. My fingers are too fat. 🙂
Elaine,
Again, you are using the big brush. Some of you – including you – use reason. Some of you don’t. The same can be said of the pro-gun faction as well. The disjunction is in the severity of the reactions to equivalent events – the death of children.
You also seem to be under the misconception that because I’m pro-2nd means I’m anti-control. I’ve said all along there is room for reasonable restriction.
My first duty is to the Constitution. Which if you recall is why I’m the guy who didn’t vote for any of the last batch of Presidential contenders. I won’t see the Constitution shredded no matter what the underlying rationale might be, noble intentions or not.
Gene,
Are you implying that those of us who advocate for gun control haven’t used reason and reflected on the issue? Speaking for myself, I have done it many times. What is the “disjunct” thinking of those of us who believe that we need to look at the problem of gun violence in this country and consider some measures that might lead to restrictions on certain types of weapons?
“I happen to think that the culture of guns IS a part of the culture of violence in this country. That doesn’t mean that I believe that all people who own guns are violent by their nature.”
That works on a Venn diagram, Elaine, but it doesn’t change that a culture of violence is the underlying problem. The culture of violence is a larger circle than the culture of guns. If we had a peaceful culture, gun ownership for other than legal and sporting purposes and guns themselves would be a moot point.
raff,
I think there is a difference between a red herring and an ancillary point. I will stipulate Bob’s observation is an ancillary point. He may not think so, but I do.