I wrote this blog post in 2017, after the Sandy Hook mass shooting of school children. Remember that? Horror. Additional comments in red color, but the sad fact remains that America has the same senseless gun violence as it had then. Just in the last month, shooting in Las Vegas and shooting at a Texas church. All senseless. So cowardly.
US gun violence is a problem
Approximately 12,000 Americans are murdered each year with a firearm. This per capita homicide rate is 4x that of England and 6x that of Germany.
In the 14 days after the sad day in Newton, CT, there have been 242 reported fire arm homicides in the US. All Americans can probably agree that too many people are dying.
It’s a complex problem
Gun violence in the US has many root causes. We Americans get a bit excited when we talk about guns, gun control, and violence. Unfortunately, the discussion is often scattered. Too-quick to place blame, and too-quick to offer solutions. Often times, the conversation looks something like this word soup.
Unstructured conversation is just brain storming
When the conversation is this unstructured, it is difficult to make heads or tails. Some ideas seem good, but upon reflection you aren’t sure. The same type of confusion happens in companies all the time. Lots of good ideas are circulated, but they are often unstructured, and inadequately thought through. As a result, a lot of good ideas are actually ignored.
Trust. When discussing anything like this – charged with emotions and opinions – we all need to come from a place of trust. Trust that the other person is open-minded. Trust that we are all Americans looking for a good answer. Trust that we will come out of the discussion smarter. Trust is sorely lacking in the US. Let’s bring it back.
Break the problem down
Consultants like to “bucket” problems into root causes or at least categories. While there are probably dozens of institutional factors, at a high-level it looks like there are 3 major ones that deserve consideration:
- People: How responsible are the people who buy or obtain guns?
- Weapon: How dangerous are the weapons available to the public?
- Use: What is legal use, and how to prevent people from using them illegally?
1. People
Every responsible person should have the privilege of owning a rifle to hunt / skeet, or a handgun to protect themselves.
Challenge: Not everyone is as responsible, trained, mature, or thoughtful as you. As George Carlin not-so-delicately put it, “Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are even stupider!”
Do we believe that people are rationale all the time? No way. DUI. Shotgun weddings and divorces. We act on biases, bad information and according to our impulses all the time. If we were rationale, then the US would not have an obesity problem. As I tell students all the time. . . people are beautiful and messy. If you want to see how reckless and uninformed people can be with guns, go to YouTube and type in “biggest gun fail”. Completely scary.
2. Weapon
There is a lot of talk about the type of guns, bullets, and magazines that are available to the public. In my mind, it comes down to what is civilian-use and military-use. The public has to decide that.
Challenge: We have to be careful of false equivalency and false choice. For example, an argument for limiting the sale of automatic weapons is not the same as saying that the government is going for confiscate all guns. We need more thoughtful and respectful dialogue; less vitriol.
3. Purchase / Use
The public needs to decide what is legal and what is not.
Challenge: There is a law that says people should have a background check prior to buying a gun. That makes common sense, but about 40% of guns are not purchased through licensed gun dealers. Apparently, there is a gun show loop-hole that allows for sale of guns between private parties without a background check in most states.
To me, this is the biggest problem. Owning a gun is a privilege and a powerful thing. It’s in everyone’s self interest to keep guns away from those who don’t deserve to have them.
Great link provided by reader. This is how Japan feels about guns here:
- Must attend a 1 day training seminar, written a test, 95% or better
- Shooting test, mental health exam, drug test
- Renews license every 3 years
- Can only buy guns from 3 places in each prefecture
- Must lock guns and amo in separate places, under lock and key
- Can only buy new amo, buy bringing the old amo shells back
Challenge: The US approach to gun control affects other countries. In a recent study, approximately a large number of the guns confiscated by the Mexican authorities that are used for criminal activity can be traced by the United States.
Excellent note from commenter: 1) the 87% number was for weapons submitted by the Mexican government that can be traced 2) a large number of guns were legally sold to the Mexican military, that then fell into the arsenal of criminals.
America is different. We are not the UK.
The British decided to essentially ban private ownership of handguns after they had a mass shooting in 1987. Australia banned guns in 1996. That will not happen in the US. There are 300 million fire arms currently in the United States and the demand for guns continues to grow. The US is 4.4% of the world’s population, but we have 42% of the world’s guns.
Similar situation in China. None dead.
To me, the biggest reality check was that a similar attack of school children happened in China on the exact same day – December 14. A mentally ill man stormed into a school and attacked children. He did not have a gun. He had a knife. Many children were hurt, some critically, but none died. The children of Sandy Hook elementary were not so lucky.
Studies have shown that crime is not the problem. You are just as likely to be robbed in New York as in London. The problem is that the crime is a lot more violent in the US. The odds of getting robbed are about the same. The odds of dying in NY from the robbery are 54x more likely that you are killed in the process. That is 5,400%.
There are studies that show a correlation between the number of guns and murders. It is correlation, not causality – but intuitively it makes some sense because we are all human. Emotions get the better of us. Words turn into punches. Punches turn into knives and guns. As George Carlin aptly described us 20 years ago, we can all be a little bit stupid.
800 US Mayors
There is a coalition of US mayors that are asking for the US President and Congress to come up with a plan. One of the most vocal proponents is Michael Bloomberg – who always struck me as a no-nonsense leader of NYC. Lots of Hollywood stars lend their voice to a promotional video below. If you want to see how divided the country is on this topic, take a look at the number of up / down votes the video has.
Post-script: Harvard Business Review article on creating a $100 billion gun safety industry
Complex problem? If there’s one thing I find odd about working here, its the resilience to which Americans believe in at least some right to own lethal weaponry. Even the most ardent liberals would rarely vouch for a full civilian ban on firearms – it’s simply mind-boggling. You could ask the same question worldwide and most people on both ends of the political spectrum would support a full ban.
I’d certainly bet on international solutions working here. Australia’s gun buyback programs did wonders there and nobody here’s taken gun control seriously enough to try anything similar nationwide. Assuming that positive incidents of gun usage are negligible (just 200 or so justifiable homicides vs. 30k gun-related deaths annually), the causality between guns and undesirable incidents is pretty clear, certainly as much so as between smoking/lung cancer and pollution/climate change. Also, your numbers are off – US gun homicide rates are closer to 40x higher than the UK’s than 4x.(http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-38365729). Pretty clear that less guns = less shitty stuff that happens due to guns = more “winning”.
Again, a real shame about the gun culture here. Regulations help, but until someone here can see a future where even police patrols don’t carry guns, as is the case in the UK, nothing will change for the better.
Appreciate your feedback. The article on Japan was informative – will link that in. Looks like the Economist says the gun murder rate is 4x. That may seem low vs. your 40x number because a good number of US gun deaths are suicides. That still does not excuse the senselessness of it.
Thanks for your feedback.
All firearms (especially those owned and registered to private citizens) should be controlled and stored by the State National Guard in local armories and perhaps administered by the American Legion and Gun Clubs. If a person needed to use a firearm ( say for hunting), it would have to be checked out similar to the way a library book is borrowed. Therefore the use of that weapon would be catalogued and known. Also the purpose for its use would be known (say for target practice). Because a firearm would not be stored at a private residence the opportunity to misuse it would be drastically slashed and this will cut down on the crime rate. This will also not prevent a person from owning a firearm under the second amendment separate from militia service, just its misuse.
Nosy Neighbor
Hello, that is the way that Japan does it. Many Americans – for many reasons – don’t believe this is a good system. That said, it is clear that we – as a society – need to take a more mature and holistic approach to this. All we see is very sad news daily.