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The War Over Gun Control

Oct 30, 2018
by Caroline Miller
9/11/11, Armed and Dangerous, firearms in the U. S. A., gun control, gun control in Japan, NRA
4 Comments

Courtesy of google.com

Here’s a fact that should give us pause: “Crime in Japan has become so rare that police often have nothing to do.  In 2015, there was just one gun homicide.  Guns are virtually illegal there.” (“News,” The Week, October 27, 2017 pg. 16.)  No wonder the Japanese have so many festivals.  They have much to celebrate.

In other countries, where guns are restricted, the death rate from firearms is lower than in the United States. (Click)  The National Rifle Association (NRA) argues against what seems to be statistical fact.  They insist more guns in a society keep it safer.  But they are wrong. “In the past 50 years more Americans have been killed by guns than all the wars in the nation’s history.” (“Armed and Dangerous,” The Week, October 27, 2017, pg. 22.)  What’s more, in states where gun control laws are lax, like Alaska and Louisiana, death by firearms is higher than in states where they aren’t, like Massachusetts and Hawaii. (Ibid, pg. 11.)

So far, the NRA has succeeded in blocking legislation to control even the most dangerous firearms, those designed for the military, guns with high-powered magazines that fire as many as 100 rounds without needing to be reloaded.  Government’s failure to pass modest restrictions has left us with nearly 6,000 children shot each year.  In the general population for 2015, 36,252 firearm deaths occurred. (Ibid, pg. 11.)

The NRA supports policies that have turned our streets into war zones and sent more citizens to morgues than soldiers from the battlefields.  We lost 3,000 citizens on September 2011.  We lost ten times that number to home-grown violence in 2015.  If the NRA were declared a terrorist organization, we’d be forced to admit it was more effective at destroying the nation’s peace than are our enemies from abroad.  

Of course, the NRA isn’t a terrorist organization.  My father was a lifelong member.  He loved guns and he served and loved his country.  Had he been alive, he would have wept for me had I been  murdered at a music concert in Los Vegas.    

So how do we, who want stronger gun regulation, dialogue with those say we need more guns in our society? How do we address their suspicion of government, which is at the core of this national debate, and show them their fear is tearing this country apart?   We didn’t succeed in reaching hearts and minds about slavery.  We had to go to war.  On the question of gun control, is that what we  want for our future?  Russia will be happy.  But what about us – we-the-people?     

(Originally published 11/6/17)   

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4 Comments
  1. John Briggs November 7, 2017 at 2:04 pm Reply
    We did indeed reach hearts and minds about slavery. Without the powers of persuasion that Lincoln and others exercised between 1854 and 1860, the Republican party, would not have been formed of such disparate elements to stand against the spread of slavery into the territories and to promote its "ultimate distinction." Some of those elements included western settlers who were vulnerable to Democrats' appeals to their Nimbyism: no slaves in my back yard and you can have slaves in yours. The new Republican party was not a war party. Lincoln was not elected as a war president. His restraint during the siege of Fort Sumter proved the depth of Lincoln's refusal to follow advisors urging him to attack the South. In 1860 Seward failed to win the Republican presidential nomination precisely because he spoke without caution about an "impending conflict" and northern armies sweeping into the south. The Emancipation Proclamation came in January 1863 -- late by abolitionists' standards -- precisely because Lincoln wanted to ensure that the most militarily crucial border state, slave-owning Kentucky, stayed in the Union until leaving it was no longer a viable option. Again, his powers of persuasion, explicit and implicit were crucial to the outcome. Yes, there was war. But Lincoln never spoke beforehand in favor of it or declared it inevitable. The danger of In the 1860 Cooper Union Address he concluded by indeed invoking the "sword" held in the hand of the Union should the South secede and war commence, but his emphasis is upon the holding of the sword, not its use. His "House Divided " speech spoke of the inevitability of a divided house's fall, not by war but by the internal political and psychological conversion of one side by the other -- for better or for worse. The modern trend toward distrust of government, now shared -- since the last electron -- in large measure across the political spectrum, is now rivaled by elites' distrust of benighted commoners, and vice versa. If Japan is the model for gun control, why shouldn't s gun owner wonder when all the guns will be collected? Why shouldn't a gun control advocate begin assuming that house-to-house searches might be necessary to bring that change about? Neither view does much for our struggling republic. I say, "Remember Lincoln."
    • Caroline Miller November 7, 2017 at 3:31 pm Reply
      Well, you wrote the book on Lincoln. But proclamation or not, it took the Civil War to end slavery. (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/slavery-abolished-in-americaslavery.) As for changing hearts and minds, for some yes. In my view, we are still fighting for those hearts and minds. That's what Black Lives Matter is all about. I understand your point about divisions in our society that go beyond the question of gun control and how those distrusts might impded solutions to various social disonnects. But that isn't new, is it? Frankly, I don't know how Japan managed its gun control movement. An intersting question but the answer is probably irreleavant to the United States. If we ever decide to stop the killings, I've no diea how we'd go about enacting and enforcing new laws. Like our health care plan, we'll go our own way and ignore the successful solutions of other countries, because we aren't like other coungries by history or culture. All I know is I'm sick of the killing, and the flags at halfmast, and the flowers left to decay at the crime scenes, empty rituals that may be heartfelt but are incapable of bringing one dead child back. Somebody has to start trusting somebody. People have to talk across the divide. I'm sure you agree.
  2. Susan October 30, 2018 at 3:01 pm Reply
    Both comments above are thought provoking and true in most respects. Thank you.
    • Caroline Miller October 30, 2018 at 4:48 pm Reply
      Thank you for your thoughts.

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Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published five novels

  • Getting Lost To Find Home
  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

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