No more candle light vigils. No more piles of teddy bears. No more stacks of flowers. No more fences covered with ribbons. No more platitudes or speeches of remembrance. We react compassionately to tragic events after the fact. They fade from memory and we fail to act to prevent the next one.
There were probably a multitude of factors that collided in the Tucson shooting that left 6 dead and many more wounded.
First, it is much, much too easy to get guns in this country. I read recently that there are 85 guns for every 100 people in the US. If they were evenly distributed that would be almost be a gun for every man, woman and child in the US.
Secondly, access to health care in this country is atrocious even if you have insurance. If you do not it becomes a nightmare. Access to mental health services is even tougher. Add to that the stigma associated with mental illness in this country and it equates with a lot folks not getting the care they need.
Thirdly, the tone of political rhetoric in this country has reached obscene levels. The vast majority of it is coming from the Right. This rhetoric excites and polarizes even the supposed sane amongst us. Imagine what it would do if you are less than stable.
Here are some facts about violence in the United States. Last year 15,241 murders were reported in this country. That is a murder rate of 5 per 100,000. That murder rate has us sandwiched between Argentina and Moldova. We are at the bottom of the 2nd quintile. This means that our murder rate is higher than 60% of the countries of the world. Our neighbor to north, Canada – remember, has a rate of 1.81 per 100,000, less than half of ours.
From a Wikipedia article – Gun Violence in the United States
Homicide rates in the United States are two to four times higher than they are in countries that are economically and politically similar to it. Higher rates are found in developing countries and those with political instability.[
Prevalence of homicide and violent crime is greatest in urban areas of the United States. In metropolitan areas, the homicide rate in 2005 was 6.1 per 100,000 compared with 3.5 in non-metropolitan counties. In U.S. cities with populations greater than 250,000, the mean homicide rate was 12.1 per 100,000. Rates of gun-related homicides are greatest in southern and western states.
Most murders are by handguns. See chart below.
Suicides, homicides, accidental shootings are all higher in states with liberal gun laws. When are we going to do something to decrease the violence in this country? We could and should do better.
I won’t go on about access to health and mental health care in this country. There is huge battle going on right now over these issues. My take on it is that the for-profit players are driving the discussion to the ruination of this country. Anyone who is in the mental health field can tell you story after story of clients being dumped into the streets due to funding cuts. Anyone who has been to metropolitan areas will see the homeless, many who have mental problems, wandering the streets. We could and should do better.
People will disagree about solutions. Frequently they disagree about whether there is a problem, or what the problem is. Civilized folks sit down like grownups and discuss these issues. They strive to come to solutions that benefit the majority of the citizenship. There is not an ambiance of compromise and discussion in this country. One study demonstrated as the wealth inequality goes up; this degree of political disharmony follows. We need to address the gap. We need to address the dysfunctional nature of our political discourse. We could and should do better.
Sources/Resources:
- DisasterCenter.com
- Gun Violence in the United States
- Why Not Regulate Guns as Seriously as Toys?
- A Tale of Two Moralities — Paul Krugman @ The New York Times
- Helpless in the Face of Madness — Bob Herbert @ The New York Times
- How Many Deaths Are Enough? — Bob Herbert @ The New York Times
- Guns and Madness — Erica Jong @ The Huffington Post
- This comes under the rubric of “if what you are doing does not work, then just do it more often and harder!” The Myth of the Hero Gunslinger — Timothy Egan @ The New York Times
As the song says, “handguns are made for killin’, ain’t no good for nuthin’ else” (Lynyrd Skynrd, who back in 1976 wrote “Gimme back my bullets”.) Even redneck southern rockers saw the light, eventually.