Twenty-one years ago, former Assistant to President Reagan and White House Press Secretary, Jim Brady was shot in the head as six bullets were fired at the president in an assassination attempt. Forcing him to rely on a wheelchair for the remainder of his life, the injury led Brady–a strong conservative–to the understanding that guns are (shockingly) dangerous.
He and his wife began the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which required the national instant criminal background check system, establishing a waiting period before the purchase of a handgun, and calling for all firearm dealers to contact the system before the transfer of any firearm. The Act was passed in 1993.
In 2011 there were 32,163 gun-related American deaths. That same year, there were 146 gun-related deaths in the United Kingdom.
“Well, America’s a big country,” you say. How about we crunch some numbers and compare the two proportionally.
Across the pond, 0.23 percent of every 100,000 people were killed by gun in the United Kingdom. In America, per every 100,000 people, 10.3 percent were killed by gun.
“How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?” Bob Dylan asked this question in 1962, and today we’re still wondering.
The National Rifle Association has often argued that if people (who obtain guns) weren’t so crazy, weren’t so homicidal, weren’t so unpredictable–then we wouldn’t have these mass shootings.
Problematically, as a government we can’t legislate mental stability. We can’t make a law that forces everyone to have a sound mind. What we can do, however, is control gun access. The government is capable of legislating gun control and keeping harmful weapons away from the public. That’s realistic, proactive, and tremendously less complicated. The government has let go of almost all control, but that’s not what we need. It’s clear that we can’t be responsible with guns; we need to take them out of the equation.
Some argue that making something illegal doesn’t stop it. A good point well made that is, but here is the truth: murder will always need to be illegal. Robbery will always need to be illegal. Access to weapons–especially weapons of war–needs to be illegal.
As Edwin Starr sang that war “can’t give life, it can only take it away,” one can say the same about guns. It doesn’t make sense to go to war in order to promote peace. Guns don’t protect people; people do.
Stop giving people weapons. Stop allowing murder to be normal.
John Lennon invited us to “imagine no weapons,” so let’s. Imagine a world with no weapons. Imagine a world with no violence. We live in a beautiful country; imagine what America could be with its people embracing peace.