With the recent mass shooting in Orlando, many lawmakers are trying to block assault rifle sales throughout the US. The idea is that the type of assault rife that many gunmen use make it easy to kill lots of people in a short time, so making those kinds of guns illegal will save many lives.
When I first heard about the latest push, I got very upset. It's not that I'm a staunch supporter of the second amendment (I don't care for guns and I don't plan on ever personally owning one), it's that I get mad when people, particularly politicians, ignore the big picture in favor of flashy, trending topics.
The Orlando shooting had the most victims of any mass shooting in the United States, with a total of 49 fatalities. And since mass shootings are becoming increasingly more frequent, that record may not stand long. Those 49 people senselessly lost their lives, yes, but what about the thousands who lose their lives every year? Mass shootings make the news because they are legitimately terrifying, but they overshadow the individual murders that take place every day. In 2012, 8,855 people were murdered with a firearm. Where are the politicians rallying for them? In fact, from 1980 to 2008, mass shootings accounted for only one percent of homicides. In other words, the number of people who die in mass shootings are statistically insignificant.
I am not trying to make light of the murders that have taken place -- a murder is always tragic, regardless of the circumstances. I am, however, trying to point out that many lawmakers (and many average citizens) are going after the wrong problem. While I can't find any firm numbers by a reliable source, everyone agrees that the majority of guns used in criminal activity are illegally obtained. But homicides committed with illegal firearms don't make for good headlines, so they're often ignored. To be fair, law enforcement agencies all over the country are working constantly to stop the flow of illegal weapons, but it's a task for which they are understaffed and underfunded.
After mass shootings like the one in Orlando, lawmakers feel like they "have to do something," even if that "something" is pointless and ineffectual in solving the problem. Now, the argument could be made that if even one life is saved by banning assault weapons, then the effort was worth it. But if we can save even more lives by going after illegal guns, why don't we do that first or at least simultaneously?
Should the average citizen be allowed to purchase a military-grade assault rifle? I don't know the answer to that question, but what I do know is that the City of Baltimore saw 344 homicides in 2015 and zero mass shootings. Are those deaths less tragic simply because they were spread out over the whole year instead of happening on one night?
2 comments:
FBI statistics indicate that 68% of US homicides were committed with guns. That means 32% were done some other way. At the same time, less than 11% of gun murders were committed with legally obtained guns. This means 63% of homicides were committed with illegal guns, for a total of 95% of US murders done by illegal guns or some other way. Perhaps we should focus on illegal guns, poison, baseball bats, lamp cords, kitchen knives, and automobiles. Not to mention fists, feet, and table corners.
The 8,855 homicides that I referenced in the post are only gun-related ones. According to the FBI, 14,827 total homicides occurred in 2012, of which 12,765 used weapons. That means that 57.9% of all homicides and 69.3% of homicides involving weapons were committed using firearms. Either way, the most common method for killing someone is using an illegal gun.
Legal guns are used more often in suicides: in 2013, 21,175 suicides involved a firearm (of 41,149 total suicides). I don't have any statistics on what kind of guns are used in suicides, but I doubt many, if any, involved assault weapons.
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/violent-crime/murder
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2008-2012.xls
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_7_murder_types_of_weapons_used_percent_distribution_by_region_2012.xls
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm
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