sábado, 8 de diciembre de 2012

People kill people, with guns - InsideVandy

Posted: Thursday, December 6, 2012 2:00 pm

On Sunday night, the Kansas City Chiefs played the Carolina Panthers, but the biggest story to emerge after the game was not the narrow margin of victory. Rather, every news outlet pointed out that one of the Kansas City players had, hours earlier, killed himself and someone else. In the face of this tragedy, the rest of the team voted to go onto the field as scheduled. Bob Costas, the central commentator on NBC's "Sunday Night Football," pointed out on air that this murder-suicide would probably not have been possible (it certainly would not have been so simple) without a gun. 

The most outspoken second amendment advocates were up in arms immediately, as you might expect. Herman Cain tweeted, "You tune in for a football game and end up listening to Bob Costas spewing sanctimonious dreck." He was among a chorus of outrage. Cain's comment is indicative of one of the largest problems surrounding this whole issue: Gun advocates will not talk about it. Any attempt at conversation is shut down with "Guns don't kill people, people kill people" or "It's in the Constitution." No one is talking about banning guns, but the issue of gun violence must be taken more seriously. 

Southern states, along with Montana, Idaho and the Dakotas, are the regions with the most guns per capita according to a Washington Post poll. That is probably not surprising. What should also not be surprising is that these states also boast the highest rates of gun violence and gun deaths according to a comprehensive report by Aljazeera. What is so compelling about the latter study is that it shows rankings of gun ownership and gun violence side-by-side. For example, Tennessee, which ranks in the top 10 of both categories, has a rate of about 16 deaths per 100,000 people that are a direct result of gun violence. Massachusetts, on the other hand, is nearly last on both categories with a rate of 3 per 100,000. A Tennessean is four times more likely to own a gun, and five times more likely to get killed by one than someone in Massachusetts. The standard comeback should instead be "People kill people, with guns."

I'm writing all of this as a Southerner. I'm also writing all of this as someone whose family owns plenty of guns; everyone in my family hunts. We can still go hunting and protect ourselves with much stricter gun laws. Readers already know about the precautions that are taken — and taken seriously — in most states: waiting periods, background checks, etc. There is much more that we could be doing and are not. The easiest and first step that should be taken would be to ban high-capacity magazines. These are magazines for handguns that are meant for killing people. They hold many more bullets than normal and are culpable, along with their users, in several school shootings as well as the movie-theater attack on Colorado this summer. That single point should just be the start of the conversation because it's simply common sense. 

What must also change is our culture, and that might be easier than it sounds. A gun may always be a symbol of power or manliness; there is nothing that can simply be changed about that, but what people should recognize with a little research is that guns are not effective tools for self-protection for three reasons. One, in the event of a home invasion or personal attack, an assailant is more likely to shoot someone who they believe to also have a gun. Second, in a situation where one is likely to draw a gun for protection, either the owner will be too afraid to use it — or the aggressing party will use the gun against the owner. And finally, accidents happen too often. These three problems are shown repeatedly in studies referenced in New Scientist by Ewen Callaway and on CNN by David Frum. People must understand that guns don't actually make them safer. 

So what is the solution? Yes, there are a few states that need stricter laws, and there are some gun accessories that are made for killing people and should not be legal. More importantly, we must accept that a gun is a good investment for a hunter or shooting sportsman; it is a bad investment for home security. A family or home is much better served by an alarm system and the police than it is by a gun. 

 

— Skyler Hutto is a senior in the College of Arts and Science and vice president of the Vanderbilt College Democrats. He can be reached at skyler.b.hutto@vanderbilt.edu.

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