Photo from: http://www.guns.com/2018/02/16/gun-stocks-react-to-florida-school-shooting/
So we are almost one week past the latest ‘mass murder by gun’ in America and I have held back on commenting and contributing to the debate to allow me some time to watch the events, commentary, and reporting unfold. Firstly however let me extend my condolences and prayers to those injured, killed, and the broken and destroyed families as a result of this shooting. Since a young person with a semi automatic rifle opened fire on his former class mates killing 17 and wounding 14 at Stoneman Douglas High School, we have seen a large number of comments from the left and right, admonishments, blame, statistics, calls for change, anger, and a universal sadness at the outcome and it’s repeat of previous school shootings. I have listened to a number of the commentaries and will put forward my own views on the aftermath. There is no denying the raw emotion and grief that exists at the moment however this will be a commentary focusing on politics, statistics, and society. Not a white paper or thesis but a collection of my own thoughts. America is different to everywhere else in the world. The outlook is different, the country is different, the people are different, it’s history is different, and it’s society as a whole is multi dimensional and different. To compare other countries and other responses to mass shootings as a yardstick for application in America is to lose sight of the 300,000,000 guns that are presently in circulation in America. Let that sink in, 300,000,000 guns. For ‘gun control’ proponents, America is the archetypical example of ‘the horse has bolted’. Gun buy-backs as per Australia, tougher laws as per the UK etc., they all simply will not fully work due to the volume of guns that are in circulation in America. The much vaunted example of Australia’s gun buy-back or ‘enforced gun confiscation’ (depending on your viewpoint) will struggle for success in America due to the sheer volume of guns held in the country. In addition Australia has a different societal outlook where the common good was viewed as a primary driver rather than apocalyptic self-reliance and the maintenance of direct lineage with the countries fathers and current rights which pervades so much of American society today. Americans pledge allegiance to the country and flag at school every day and that includes their rights and especially the second amendment right. Having said that Australians did not hand in all of their semi automatic rifles and pump action shotguns. One example was for semi-automatic Ruger 10-22s and if my memory serves me correctly, there were over 200,000 of the rifles sold in Queensland alone with ~70,000 handed back in. Seems to me there are a lot of flower beds hiding some distinctly non-gardening hardware throughout the state. American’s culture of self-reliance and suspicion of government promotes a society that is vigilant and wary of any encroachment on their rights. The rights of Americans are a luxury that many in the remainder of the free world do not have or do not have guaranteed in a similar fashion as Americans. This places the government of the day in a dilemma as any movement to remove guns from circulation via a reduction in perceived rights will be tied up in legal challenges and outright refusal. Additionally any attempt to water down the perceived rights will result in the potential for unfavourable outcomes at the polls. It just falls into the too hard basket from a political perspective. The Democrats with Clinton and Obama have had plenty of opportunities to implement some curbing of rights and only ended up with 10 round magazines and a half hearted ban on bayonet mounts on ‘assault rifles’. Curbs that were sunset and died out 10 years later with little to no effect. Mass shootings represent 1.1% of violent gun crime in America. In a country de-sensitised to violence, and gun crime in particular, what is so different about these repeated incidents that draw such a visceral response from the public? There is of course the nature of the victims, young men and women, children, going to school and never coming home. In reality the acts are acts of terrorism as they do not elicit the same responses as the normal violent crime. Acts of terrorism are unknown, unseen, unexpected, and it is this nature that promotes a response that is out of proportion to the statistics and facts and this demonstrate that emotion is driving the debate rather than rational figures and facts. For the Democrats and Republicans they are locked in an enormous game of chicken where neither will blink or move from identity politics and so no movement is forthcoming. ‘The NRA is making this happen’ is the histrionic cry from the left. Claims were made that the NRA was influencing and indeed buying off politicians to ensure favourable legislation was put forward and gun control legislation undermined. Recent commentary from Ben Shapiro highlighted that contributions from the NRA to externals or political parties were 2.5% of the contributions provided by the union/labour movement to Democrats in 2016 alone. The figures and scale of these contributions are mind blowing when you consider the scale of political contributions in smaller democracies such as in Australia and the United Kingdom. Evidently either the NRA is incredibly effective with it’s smaller donations or the perceived influence is overstated. Little is said of the influence exerted over democrats by the labour movement. Shining the spotlight on the gun control lobby shows a number of alignments with UN programs, disarmament initiatives and a sort of circular reinforcement of their position through biased and partisan statistics labelled as ‘research’ and being brought forward along the lines of ‘Associate Professor” Philip Alpers and the gunpolicy.org mouthpiece at the University of Sydney. Research and reports I might add, commissioned by the gun control lobby. If ever there was an example of mutton dressed as lamb then this is it but unfortunately mainstream media is all too willing to position their story to either reinforce public sentiment or even to generate it where it follows a particular agenda. This does not allow a reasonable and honest debate and the main stream media has in fact failed the population in not providing an independent and factual account of the current position. Recognising that various papers and news outlets have their own built in biases there is still room for improvement to move away from the biased reporting and turn back the adoption of identity politics. Separation will not precipitate a consolidated response or solution. Mental instability plays a part but how big a part and how frequently does it turn up? One need only look to Anders Breivik and see how unhinged he is with a warped ideology that he believes safeguards European culture. There are certainly many examples of extreme mental illness including Australia’s own mass murderer - Martin Bryant. What is now becoming prevalent in the discussion is the notion of anti-depressants being a factor in these events. From my perspective this would seem to be a long bow to draw with a large section of the population battling depression at any one time and an equally large portion of that on some form of anti-depressants. I would expect a correlation with increased gun suicide rather than mass shootings or even any other form of mass killings via truck, improvised bomb etc. Political allegiances are also drawn forward with a number of mass shooters being democrats or the latest one being a reported member of ANTIFA and/or a white supremacy group. Much commentary has been made of this, particularly in the US where identity politics is rampant and the tribalism that substitutes for political discourse and interaction is debasing positions both on the left and right side of politics. All too often there are a large number of disaffected people who identify with the ideals of ANTIFA and similar organisations and as has been proven now go ahead and act on their view of the ‘resistance’. The usual knee jerk response of more laws being needed, more control, less guns, harsher sentences abound and, well yes and no, some of these can make a difference but they are not THE difference. The above only go so far and the reality is that for a country with 300,000,000 guns in circulation, the ability to procure a firearm illegally is relatively straightforward if not speedy. It would appear that there are a number of laws in certain US states and cities that directly relate to the sale and ownership of firearms. No weapons available to convicted felons, no straw purchases, no domestic violence charges, background checks, etc etc. They are there and they are applied but the issue remains. In fact when looking at this particular case the tips sent to the FBI were not acted upon on two seperate occasions and one would wonder if these people would be alive if the law enforcement agencies had simply done their job. Similar parallels are drawn with Martin Bryant and the Port Arthur massacre and the number of tips and indicators around Bryants mental state that were provided to authorities. And interestingly enough they and even stricter controls are present in the United Kingdom yet there exists a growing gun violence problem despite these controls and stiff penalties for offenders. Australia reportedly has ‘world class’ gun controls and they have not had a mass shooting since they were enacted. Alternatively New Zealand has much laxer laws and they are similar to those that used to be in Australia and they have not had one mass shooting in the same amount of time. Is it just a matter of waiting for the worst? I hope not. Even a fool can predict rain every day and eventually they will be right. The point here is that the cause and effect around gun control laws and mass shootings is not readily evident. There are plenty of cases that can be put forward to undermine stricter laws and the machinations and contortions of the gun control lobby to promote the statistics of merit are well known including only counting ‘developed countries’, redefining ‘mass shooting’, including suicide by gun, etc. etc. The statistical war is certainly one without end for as long as logic and reason are absent form any discourse on the matter. I made comment on the nature of the US being the outlier to the rest of the world in terms of guns circulating and their place in american society. Interestingly when you look at school massacres in other countries some of which have many guns (Israel) and some of which have few (China) the statistics do not add up with guns or their proliferation as the driver for school massacres by volume. In fact stats for school massacres below show that even with no guns being used in school massacres China has almost eight times Israel’s which as a low level war zone can be agreed to have quite a few firearms in circulation. Russia a country with many firearms in circulation and a healthy black market shows only 2, one of which was the Beslan school terrorist attack in which 334 died. There is an argument that easily accessible firearms drives the number of school massacres in America. But does it really with China so close behind and having no access to firearms. What I take away from these statistics is that there is an underlying problem that the prevalence of firearms in one country does not correlate to school attacks in another country and ultimately while a contributing factor it is not ultimately the cause of the schools shootings and attacks. America - 40 (36 involved firearms) China - 16 (no guns used in attacks) Israel - 2 (both firearms) Russia - 2 (1 was a terrorist attack, the other with firearms) So where do we sit after a cursory examination of events and context - even if from a law abiding firearm owner such as myself? Recognise that there is a lack of political will in the United States to enact legislation of any significance on firearms, their possession, and use. Recognise that American society is fractured on the issue and will not submit as willingly to enforced gun buyback/confiscation as the Australian population did. Recognise that with 300,000,000 firearms in circulation that there will be no single event, law, or action that will address the prevalence of the gun in American society. Recognise that identity politics as currently exists paints a scene of us vs. them and promotes no willingness to discuss or debate alternative view points in an open fashion. As long as identity politics continues there will be no coming together as one to reach a workable solution. Call them what they are - terrorism attacks. Only terrorist attacks can evoke such a visceral response from the public despite all the statistics and facts showing that these are anomalies and not the norm. Recognise that society has changed and there are either more people with mental issues on the street, more disaffected people, or there is a serious issue with the glorification of gun violence and an almost ‘death race’ to see who can generate the most amount of kills and take their place in infamy. Recognise that the gun control lobby has a lofty goal of no guns. Zero. The old saying that ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ is particularly apt here. To promote and continue their sustained attacks on law abiding firearms owners, particularly in America which has a history of rising against unjust practices and laws (as per Bundy) will only swing the pendulum back to an opposite extreme and generate a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some thoughts to provoke thinking and discussion.