You Can’t Take Back a Bullet
TL;DR Version: Humans aren’t responsible enough to handle firearms.
There has been no end of discussion about gun violence, gun control, and gun rights. That’s good and it needs to continue happening. The discussion part. That degree of concern and pressure needs to burn and boil and then hiss and spill onto the stovetop that is our country so that we actually start doing something rather than wishing it away with “thoughts and prayers”.
Are you a gun owner? Good. So am I. I spent part of my formative years in rural Northern Nevada. We shot everything all the time. Any gun owners who claim to believe in gun safety should also be donating to organizations like EveryTown.org and never, ever be a part of violence advocacy groups like the NRA. At the end of the day, that’s the only way responsible gun owners can marry our right to bear arms with the safety of ourselves and everyone around us.
If you’re a responsible gun owner and you don’t support gun safety, then you’re part of the problem.
To compare, the automotive industry spends millions every year to increase the safety of their products. Their efforts have not gone in vain. Automobile injuries and death have gone down, year over year, almost every year since the 1970s despite the increase in vehicles and drivers every year.
Can they do better? You bet they can! They’re working on exactly that and no one is standing in their path at every turn screaming about rights and abusive overreach.
Safety and safety advocacy hasn’t impacted the ownership or availability of automobiles in the least. Why would it? It’s only made us freer and safer.
On the other hand, even though firearms have injured or killed as many or more people than automobiles, gun safety and gun control have been stymied at every turn mostly by the one agency who used to work with government to create sensible gun laws. The NRA.
The original goal of the NRA was the safe ownership and use of firearms. They worked with local, state, and Federal government to create laws that made firearms safer. When it was clear that some weapons shouldn’t be in the hands of the average citizen, like the readily available machineguns used by mafia in killings like the St. Valentine’s Massacre — they advocated strongly for an outright ban. Then president of the NRA, Karl T. Frederick, gave testimony to congress saying: “I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.” https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-forgotten-nra-leader-gun-control-20171007-story.html
That tone continued up through the 1970s when radicals took control of the organization, and gun manufacturing profiteers saw a golden ticket. The NRA adopted a narrative of national myths to perpetuate their newfound rationale of profit over safety. Instead of being the first in line to adopt regulations for firearm safety that would prevent unnecessary suffering and death, they stood firmly in the path of any regulations, no matter how benign, that would prevent the sale of more and more weapons. They cried foul at any attempts to address the problem and preach an unending sermon of fear and distrust, all in the name of selling more and more guns.
The NRA, backed by gun manufactures counting their blood-soaked money with glee, has been so effective that we now have penetration of guns on an unprecedented scale — there are more firearms then people. This means that legal or illegal, if you want a gun, you can get a gun for any reason at almost any time. Far from taking guns away, the Federal government has been rendered wholly impotent — either out of fear of, or with their pockets stuffed by the NRA with a political gun resting against their necks.
The result of all this posturing and mythmaking is that firearm ownership is at an all time high. There are more guns in the hands of owners then there are people in the whole United States. Some 393 million weapons are currently owned by U.S. civilians with more being made and sold every day. There are only 328 million people, including children and the elderly, in the U.S.
The saturation is so great that if you want a gun, legal or illegal, you can get a gun for any reason at almost any time. The reports of the use/misuse of guns to solve “problems” and settle scores is a litany of stories only slightly longer than the Bible — the same document which advocates “Thou shalt not kill” and “turn the other cheek”. In the only first world country where this kind of event happens regularly, we continually shrug our shoulders and claim nothing can be done. We wantonly put the power to impact tens, hundreds, thousands and now tens-of-thousands of lives into the hands of frightened, panicky, scared, irresponsible, immature, and overly emotional humans.
All because the NRA doesn’t care who is holding a gun, or how safe they are with that weapon. Only that the money keeps pouring in as their lies keep going out.
We all recognize that we have a problem. Let’s start addressing it. Because whether you love or hate guns, you can’t take back a bullet.
