[Vision2020] Guns, Smoke and Mirrors

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

------------------------------
December 21, 2012
Guns, Smoke and Mirrors By CHARLES M. BLOW

What was that?

Seriously, what was the National Rifle Association performing on Friday? I
thought it was going to be a press conference. It wasn’t. I really don’t
know how to describe it. A soliloquy of propaganda? A carnival of canards?
A herding of scapegoats?

Wayne LaPierre, the N.R.A.’s executive vice president, blamed gun violence
in general, and mass shootings in schools in particular, on everything
except for the proliferation of brutally efficient, high-capacity guns and
his organization’s efforts to resist virtually any restriction on people’s
access to those weapons.

It was an appalling display of deflection and deception. So much smoke and
so many mirrors.

He blamed American culture, and the media, and video games and even natural
disasters. But not a society saturated with guns that spray bullets the way
that Super Soakers spray water and have made us the embarrassment of the
developed world.

He blamed “every insane killer,” “monsters and the predators,” and “people
that are so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons
that no sane person can ever possibly comprehend them.” It is true that
America has those types of people, but so do other countries. The
difference here is that help can be too hard — and guns too easy — to come
by.

The simple truth is that more guns equal more death.

* An analysis this year from the Violence Policy
Center<http://www.vpc.org/press/1204death.htm>found that “states with
low gun ownership rates and strong gun laws have
the lowest rates of gun death.”* The report continued, “by contrast, states
with weak gun laws and higher rates of gun ownership had far higher rates
of firearm-related death.” According to the analysis, Massachusetts,
Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut had the lowest per capita gun
death rates. Each of those states had “strong gun laws and low gun
ownership rates. On the other hand, “ranking first in the nation for gun
death was Louisiana, followed by Wyoming, Alabama, Montana, and
Mississippi.” Those states had “weak gun laws and higher rates of gun
ownership.”

What’s more, deaths may be a misleading statistic that minimizes the true
breadth of gun violence. Another report this year by the Violence Policy
Center <http://www.vpc.org/studies/moreguns.pdf>, using data from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that while gun deaths
remained relatively flat from 2000 to 2008, the total number of people shot
went up nearly 20 percent since 2001. Why the difference between rates of
shootings and deaths? “Advances in emergency services — including the 911
system and establishment of trauma centers — as well as better surgical
techniques,” the report said.

Just because more people aren’t dying doesn’t mean that more aren’t being
shot. And the report points out that survivors’ injuries are “often chronic
and disabling.”

LaPierre didn’t talk much about the broad societal implications of all
this. Instead, he kept his “solutions” (if you want to call them that) to
school safety. His big thought: Put armed guards in school. As LaPierre
said: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a
gun.”

That seems to be quite an apocalyptic gun policy, especially since lax gun
regulations pump an ever-increasing number of guns into our country,
thereby increasing the chances that “bad guys” will get them.

How about taking the opposite approach and better regulating guns? How
about not giving up on so many children that we label “bad boys” so that
they grow up without hope or options and become “bad men?”

As the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education
Association said in a joint
statement<http://www.aft.org/newspubs/press/2012/122012.cfm>on
Thursday:

“Guns have no place in our schools. Period. We must do everything we can to
reduce the possibility of any gunfire in schools, and concentrate on ways
to keep all guns off school property and ensure the safety of children and
school employees.”

The statement continued:

“But this is not just about guns. Long-term and sustainable school safety
also requires a commitment to preventive measures. We must continue to do
more to prevent bullying in our schools. And we must dramatically expand
our investment in mental health services. Proper diagnosis can and often
starts in our schools, yet we continue to cut funding for school
counselors, school social workers, and school psychologists. States have
cut at least $4.35 billion in public mental health spending from 2009 to
2012, according to the National Association of State Mental Health Program
Directors. It is well past time to reverse this trend and ensure that these
services are available and accessible to those who need our support.”

It’s time to call out the N.R.A.’s sidewinding and get serious about new
set of sensible gun regulations.

•

I invite you to join me on Facebook
<http://www.facebook.com/CharlesMBlow>and follow me on
Twitter <http://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow>, or e-mail me at
chblow at nytimes.com.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20121224/034fde94/attachment-0001.html>