Cameron Conaway goes beyond the clichés to discover why we gun each other down.
“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” And with that the speaker gives a smirk and the burning conversation is squashed like a cigarette under the shoe. Most recently Jesse Ventura ranted on Piers Morgan: “I have a gun safe at home and I’ve never come home and heard those guns going off on their own.” Then he gave the pro wrestling glare and delivered the finale: “People kill people.” Boom! He dropped the powerbomb as though it was an entirely unique move. As though it solved problems.
Why must the debate be framed around what cannot be debated? Why must our discussions veer towards kitschy one-liners? Why must we only talk about our excessive rate of murdering each other with guns (eight times the rate of countries economically and politically similar) when sparked by the absolute rarity of a lone gunman going berserk?
Do we need to evaluate our gun control laws? Probably. But thinking law alone will fix the problem is like blowing seeds off a dandelion and thinking we’ve killed the weed. In actuality, we’ve only enabled the seeds to spread while completely ignoring the root.
So what are the roots of our firearm violence and how can we get the footing needed to pull them out? I asked criminologist Dr. Edward Day, Director of the Earl Babbie Research Center at Chapman University, this exact question. Here’s what he had to say:
“Although most people don’t seem to be aware of it, the U.S. doesn’t have a particularly high crime rate compared to other western industrial nations. We’re not inherently more violent and we don’t steal from each other more. We do, though, have high rates of armed robbery and very high rates of homicide. That is, we’re unusually high on those crimes that use guns. So to say that our gun policies have no effect on crime is silly. On the other hand, putting the blame on guns is equally silly. Violent crime has been dropping like a rock in this country since the early 1990s. It’s down over 50%. It’s at historical lows. There aren’t fewer guns. Having a lot of guns around helps explain the distribution of certain types of crime, but when you’re trying to explain the amount of violence, you have to look for root causes somewhere else. It would be great if we could look at just one factor like guns and solve the problem, but the world, sadly, isn’t that simple.
“So what are the causes? There are almost as many as there are crimes. Yes, there are psychopaths and psychotics that get headlines and cause media pundits of all stripes to get all foamy at the mouth, but there really aren’t that many of those and they don’t account for most of the violence. If you put all your thought and energy into going after those people, you’re ignoring the everyday violence that costs many times more lives. The jilted husband who murders his wife and kids – he’s an asshole, not crazy. He just came to a stupid conclusion that this is a way to protect his honor. The gang member who shoots rivals over drug dealing turf – he’s not crazy, he’s making a cold but rational business decision in a market where you can’t go to the courts to enforce a contract.
“And those scenarios point to the two areas where you have to look. For the individual who is making the choice – where the heck did he learn that this is okay? It’s not. So you look for how those messages get out there. What’s taught in the home, what’s taught in media, what’s taught in the peer group. Who is saying that violence is okay, that it solves a problem? You need to target those messages. And you need to look at policies that actually make violence a rational choice. Most of the violence associated with drugs, for example, isn’t from people who are high. It’s from people who are dealing. Heck, we spent the equivalent of billions in our decade-long experiment with Prohibition and should have learned this lesson then. If we legalize some drugs, we’ll have more health problems, family and work issues, and more dangerous highways – are we willing to trade that for less murder? When we want to get serious about violence, those are the kinds of questions we’ll have to ask.”
♦◊♦
We often frame this issue as though it’s black or white, conservative or liberal. We talk of it in the form of a debate whereby one person can gain public approval and appear correct simply by spouting off a witty one-liner. But Dr. Day’s insights show the true complexity of this issue: there are almost as many causes as there are crimes.
We need more informed voices to share their ideas on this issue. What steps, if any, do you feel we should take?
—Photo zion fiction/Flickr
People are killing people, because no one cares to help.
Everyone has an opinion but provide no assistance.
The hospitals are becoming “revolving doors” It is not their problems.
They talk to people and do not diagnose them.
They are send home.
I know
Speaking as someone who lives in a country where guns are not the weapon of choice, I can tell you that in urban areas we have seen a steady increase in knife crime. Whilst the tool is different, the intention is similar. So I have to ask, at what point did it become acceptable to carry a knife, let alone use it? Weapons are the great equaliser. Having a weapon turns most anyone in to a very real threat. How intoxicating to suddenly have the power, how difficult to then back down. Digging a little deeper, if you look at… Read more »
It became acceptable to carry and use a knife back in the stone age when humans invented knives. Large numbers of unarmed people is a modern anomaly.
Ronnoch- Thx for your insightful response. I think your comment is right on point.
“We need to teach people how to de-escalate and discuss. If your first reaction is to reach for a weapon the prospect of meaningful discussion is gone.”
Totally.
@Rannoch- don’t know where you are from… I’ve lately noticed the frequency of knife scars on the faces of German & Irish tradesmen, often accompanying long sleeves covering defensive wound scars, but not always. Some of them tell me it is not uncommon for slashings to occur akin to what we used to call sucker punches. (25 years ago I equated the same type of scars on older black mechanics with having been from the US south- which could lead me around to my “gun control laws are at their source rascist. That being said not being able to carry… Read more »
@J.A. Fascinating stuff. Looking forward to your response.
~Cameron
@ Cameron- thx & it is Drew This is the outline for a piece I hope to expand someday- it walks in and out of my fiction as well. Accidental – includes dumb conflicts such as bar fights and people killed by drunk drivers. An accidental murderer, On the day of his crime did not get out of bed intent on murder. Incidental- James Holmes’ victims were incidental. An incidental murderer awoke planning on killing someone. Consensual- the most obvious example of what I identify as a consensual murder is Bloods & Crips getting into an OK Corral shootout; in… Read more »
Rannoch, Right on. I’ve long disliked how weapons are the great equalizer. As a martial artist I’ve put a significant amount of time in hand-to-hand combatives but I’ve never been interested in weapons training. I’ve heard from many that it improves empty-hand technique, but since our own body can do so much I’ve just never found the intimacy in it. When it comes to weapon crimes, however, sticking a knife into another human body confronts the perp with a kind of intimacy not present when standing halfway down the block and blasting away. Guns can destroy another person while also… Read more »
Cameron, as a martial artist, presumably could kill a person with your bare hands, yet, I’d guess YOU wouldn’t do so unless you had no alternative. Why do you assume that a person with a weapon would? I would say that a society in which weapons were not available would be dominated by larger, stronger, or better trained individuals, like Medieval Europe or Japan. Sorry, I prefer a more democratic distribution of lethal force along with some well developed social institutions requiring it to be used wisely. One problem in our society is that while everyone claims to be against… Read more »
@Cameron- by definition a guy who can use his hands would “dislike(d) how weapons are the great equalizer” – I hate showing up for a gun fight with just a knife. But to go back to it being honorable, just AND NOT NECESSARILY life changing for young men to throw up hands, have it out & shake hands afterwards ain’t going to happen. It should, but it won’t . Seems to me that getting my nose bloodied in the school yard was not too humiliating. Fighting was a lot less detrimental to my self-esteem than running away would have been.… Read more »
Dear Jari,
Are you saying that you think skin color alone is the cause of our gun violence problem? Or that the environment and life situations many minorities find themselves in are breeding grounds for crime? Please expound.
~Cameron
I’ve never believed that anyone was predisposed to crime, but regardless of the impact on the crime rate, it’s ultimately in everyone’s interest to create a society with less poverty, inequity and hopelessness. Social justice may or may help alleviate gun violence, but it’s a worthwhile end in and of itself. It’s terrifying to live with hopelessness.
I think it’s fairly obvious that he’s a racist Cameron. No need for playing games.
Pinker addresses that issue as well in his book.
It has little to do with “melanin” as jarl so elegantly put it. I.e. it isn’t because of black people.
I think it has something to do with melanin.
“…something to do with melanin”
@jarl
I don’t think I heard you right.
I thought you said “something to do with methamphetamine” (Melanin, no. Just no.)
The Wet One, Thanks for the suggestion here. I’ve read much of Pinker’s other work but have yet to read “The Better Nature….” Here’s a good profile of it for those interested: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/books/review/the-better-angels-of-our-nature-by-steven-pinker-book-review.html?pagewanted=all And a few quotes from the NYTimes Review: “During the Enlightenment, in 17th-and 18th-century Europe and countries under European influence, another important change occurred. People began to look askance at forms of violence that had previously been taken for granted: slavery, torture, despotism, dueling and extreme forms of cruel punishment. Voices even began to be raised against cruelty to animals. Pinker refers to this as the “humanitarian… Read more »
I’m not going to suggest that Stephen Pinker has the answer as to why America is so violent relative to the rest of western world, but he does have a theory. It’s in his book “The Better Angels of Our Nature.”
I won’t bother to try to explain it here because I know I’ll just mangle it. However, it made some sense to me and is a better explanation than most of what I have read anwywhere else. Give it a whirl if you’re actually interested…