I felt compelled to write today, even though I have about seventeen billion other things I need to do-including, but not limited to the following: wash dishes from last night, throw out all garbages that have wet diapers in them, do homework for an online class I'm taking (because apparently I have that kind of free time), vacuum up all cookie/bread/cheese/spaghetti remnants that have made it onto the floor before we end up with some sort of infestation. But through all those things, something else has been on my mind, so here goes.
It's about the gun thing. Today I saw someone comment on a gun-control post, "Gun control laws aren't the answer, and they won't work." This stood out to me because 1. there is very little reason to think they won't work, and 2. That's just an empty excuse that people give because they don't want their own precious precious guns to be taken away by the big bad government.
Since I’m a teacher I thought maybe we would take the good
ol’ elementary school scientific method approach that we all learned in, like,
the 4th grade. I mean, the guns keep coming to the schools, so let’s
bring the schools to the guns, shall we?
How does one test if
something “works”?
Ask a question:
Well, we’ve got that covered, “Will restricting automatic and semiautomatic weapons
lead to fewer mass shootings in the United States?”
Do Background
Research: Cool, okay.
Ø
Australia had 13 mass shootings from 1979-1996
until they imposed a series of new gun laws after the Port Arthur Massacre in
Tasmania (I guess it was “time to talk
about this” after THAT massacre), including a national buyback system for
guns. They haven’t had one mass shooting since.
Ø
Japan has strict gun control laws, including
requiring citizens to pass a series of stringent tests before being permitted
to own a gun, and the nation has fewer than 10 gun deaths per year on average
in a country with a population of 127 million (For reference, the US has approximately
323 million and in 2015, 475 people were killed in mass shootings and 13,286
people were killed by firearms. On average, there are about 13,000 gun related
deaths in the US annually). They can only own shotguns and air rifles and must
retake one of the exams every 3 years to maintain legal ownership.
Ø
The UK also enacted a buyback program as well as
banning semiautomatic weapons. They are down to about 55 gun-related deaths per
year in a population of 65.64 million. (On an average DAY in the US, 96 people
are killed by guns)
Construct a
Hypothesis: “Making automatic and semiautomatic weapons illegal in the
US will cause a reduction in the number of people killed in mass shootings.”
Boom, hypothesis done.
Test With an
Experiment: “ABSOLUTELY NOT! NO! DON’T TAKE AWAY MY GUNS!!! GUN CONTROL ISN’T THE ANSWER! I HAVE AN AR-15
LEGALLY AND IT’S NOT FAIR THAT JUST BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE KILLED WITH THEM
DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD TAKE IT FROM ME! I NEED IT TO PROTECT MY FAMILY! THE 2ND
AMENDMENT WAS WRITTEN IN STONE WITH THE BLOOD OF OUR FOUNDING FATHERS AND THEY
WANTED ME TO HAVE THIS PRECIOUS HUNK OF METAL SO YOU CAN’T TAKE MY RIGHT AWAY!”
Well…there goes that.
If an experiment works in a lab in Australia or Japan or the
UK, in THEORY we have every reason to think that the same experiment would work
in the US. Sure, there are variables that have to be considered (a national
buyback system here would be massive considering the US owns approximately 46%
of the world’s guns, despite only making up 3% of the world’s population…but
conducting a buyback on the state and local levels might be more doable), but
that doesn’t mean we don’t TRY the experiment…right? Yet because some people in
this country are insistent on keeping these weapons as if they are an extension
of their own cocks, we will never get to test it here. And people will die.
They will die in church and they will die watching a movie and they will die
right after taking their pencils out in school and they will die at work and
they will die at home and they will be every race and age and religion and
sexual orientation but the certainty is…they will die.
The so-called “solutions,” of these same gun-toting
individuals (if one continues to use the scientific method) have actually NOT
shown to work. And new solutions, such as “arming teachers” (omgwtf?!?!? Sorry I had to pause for a
second to take in the ridiculousness of that suggestion for SO MANY reasons-
only one of which being that many schools don’t even seem to have the budget
for a pack of dry erase markers for each teacher, those things are like
colorful little sticks of gold) have no background basis to be effective. Right
to Carry laws have had no impact on reducing the number of violent crimes and,
in fact studies have shown that “Ten years
after the adoption of RTC laws, violent crime is estimated to be 13 [percent
to] 15 percent higher than it would have been without the RTC law” (http://www.nber.org/papers/w23510)
Even if we entertain the idea of “It’s a mental health
issue, not a gun control issue,” then what mental health laws have been
effectively put into place to prevent these tragedies from happening? NONE. In
fact, a law written in response to the Sandy Hook massacre (you know, the one
where bullets riddled the bodies of 6 and 7 year olds) that would have added
75,000 people to the NICS database if they received SS checks for mental
illness and were deemed unfit to handle their own finances was BLOCKED by the
Trump administration, NRA and ACLU. It was determined that it violated the
Second Amendment rights of the mentally ill without due process. So apparently
these shootings are a “mental health issue” but those people who have
demonstrated “mental health issues” must still be granted the right to own guns
because otherwise we would be violating the Second Amendment rights of those
mentally ill people.
blink blink
Don’t be confused, you read that correctly. It’s that
stupid.
With regards to the recent Florida school shooting, Trump
tweeted (by the way, “Trump tweeted” has become one of my most feared sentence
starters), “So sad that the FBI missed many of the signals…” WELL WHO IS IN
CHARGE OF ALL OF THE BUREAUCRATIC DEPARTMENTS INCLUDING THE FBI?!?!?!?!?!?!? It
operates under the US Department of Justice…one of the federal EXECUTIVE
departments. Led by a guy nominated by the Chief Executive himself, not that he
should take any responsibility in the matter…or in ANY negative matter ever of
course. Devin Patrick Kelley, the killer in the Sutherland Springs church
massacre, was supposed to be prohibited from owning firearms by the US Air
Force due to a history of violence, but they failed to record it into the FBI’s
database. The POTUS is Commander in Chief of the Air Force as well…but did
heads roll after this event? No. The tweets started pouring in… “I think that
mental health is the issue here…this isn’t a guns situation…it’s a little bit
soon to go into it.” Flags flew at half-staff, thoughts and prayers were sent
and all was well with the world until the next tragedy hit, further prolonging
the ridiculous time frame for us to be allowed to talk about it.
And I don’t want to hear the bullshit about “Kelley was
stopped by law-abiding gun-toting citizens! If they didn’t stop him with their legally registered guns, he
would’ve killed even MORE people!” The evidence I produced in the “Background
Research” section above strongly suggests that if stronger gun control laws were on the books AND
properly enforced by the executive departments, he likely never would have had
that gun in his murderous hands to begin with. Stop grasping at pathetic
excuses for straws.
As I type this, I have two little girls quietly sleeping in their beds
and I fear for their future. I hate being political, I really do…but there
needs to come a point where enough is enough. But 20 children sitting in their
kindergarten class wasn’t enough. Noah Holcombe, an 18 month old baby who was
murdered in church in the arms of her family wasn’t enough. So where does that point
come? When will we finally have "enough?"
'Our gun rights need to be protected. Our second amendment
must be protected. But our children, our grandparents, our workplaces and
places of worship and schools…those don’t need to be protected!' That’s the
mindset here. Disagree all you want, but to any logical mind, that’s exactly
what it sounds like. You don’t want guns to protect, you want them to kill. And
kill is exactly what they will continue to do.
At the end of an experiment, the "Analyze Data and Draw Conclusions" stage is when scientists reevaluate
whether the evidence supports the hypothesis or refutes it. I fear we may never
get that chance.
*Note to all three of my blog readers: I didn’t do a great
job of citing all my sources because I wrote this in the heat of the moment and
based it on the research I have been doing on the topic for the past few days.
I wasn’t researching the topic in order to write an essay, I was just trying to
be an informed citizen. I became inspired to write this morning and the words just came out without concerning myself with footnotes or MLA format or whatever. You want to look up a fact and prove me wrong? Go right
ahead. This is a personal blog entry not a fricking graduate thesis.
*Note to one of my blog readers in particular: Hi self. Pick
up milk and diapers when you go out later. You’re awesome!
