Editorial: Gun violence must be thwarted

Have we become numb? Have we given up? Are those thwarting any solution to the epidemic of gun violence too politically connected and well-funded to be confronted?

Shootings continue at a furious pace in America. As medical professionals, law enforcement and victims propose even modest limits on gun ownership, gun advocates insist the only way to curb this violence is to arm everyone. Thoughts of rapid-fire free-for-alls, crossfire fatalities and collateral damage don’t faze them.

Instead of standing up to such idiocy, Americans are less willing to confront this psychic disease.

A young woman is gunned down in her father’s arms in San Francisco, and America doesn’t ask how the criminal got the gun but rather why he hadn’t been deported a sixth time — as if deportation had ever deterred him.

Once we learned the man who murdered two women in Louisiana was mentally ill, we categorized his crime an anomaly and ignore the fact that a crazy man legally bought a deadly weapon.

Those shootings are the tip of the iceberg. Nine people were wounded in a Fort Wayne, Indiana, shooting July 5. Four were killed in a domestic dispute in Forsythe County, Georgia, on July 22. On average, 200 people are shot every day in America. In July, we’ve had 36 mass shootings — defined as four or more victims — leaving 42 dead and 144 wounded. In the first 206 days of 2015, there were 206 mass shootings.

We’ve become so inured we hardly blink, much less shed a tear, over one mass shooting a day.

Fifteen of those 36 July shootings were in the south, where a bellicose minority shouts down any restrictions on gun ownership. Some southerners wants to arm teachers; allow guns to be carried into schools, churches and hospitals. In North Carolina, legislators tried to do away with all background checks at gunshows — meaning any criminal, drug-runner or delusionally aggrieved lunatic could walk out the door and start shooting up a neighborhood. Or movie theater. Or home.

Gabrielle Giffords survived a head wound in a shooting that killed six in Arizona. She and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, established Americans for Responsible Solutions to promote sensible gun rules. But their entirely reasonable ideas are making little headway.

After the Sandy Hook shootings killed 20 children and six teachers in 2012, the Pew Research Center found that 58% of Americans favored making it harder to own guns; only 6% wanted to make it easier. Two years and some 90,000 shootings later, only 49% want to make gun ownership more restrictive and 15% want fewer restrictions.

Gun ownership isn’t for everyone. But even in states with tighter rules, mass shootings are common. Stockton has had four this year, tied with Miami for the most of any city. The most recent came July 13, wounding four and killing 1. That all four shootings were connected to gangs or domestic violence must make it easier to ignore five dead and 16 wounded.

Politicians like Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal go on TV and pretend such shootings are unusual. But the Lafayette, Louisiana, theater shooting that killed two and wounded nine was the ninth mass shooting in Louisiana this year. The bayou body count is 14 dead, 34 wounded.

Gun rights advocates are right in saying banning guns will not stop violence. A Modesto man is accused of murdering six without a gun. They’re also right in saying the weapons many find scary, so-called tactical rifles, are used to kill far less frequently than handguns.

The key isn’t banning a specific gun, it’s keeping all guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them — criminals and the psychologically unfit.

Americans for Responsible Solutions offers these: Waiting periods sufficient to allow thorough background checks. Sales only through licensed dealers. Anyone guilty of domestic abuse or any violence, disqualified from gun ownership. Buying guns legally for re-sale to criminals must be more severely punished. States should be required to robustly report those no longer allowed to own guns.

But there’s even more we could do. No one with a history of emotional instability should have a gun; after all, two-thirds of all gun deaths are suicides. Issuance of any restraining order must include giving up all guns. Guns can and must be made to operate more safely. There are 500,000 guns stolen from homes each year; if those guns could only be fired by registered owners, they would be useless to criminals.

None of these rules will be implemented if Americans just give up.

Yes, we have a right to own guns. With that right comes a responsibility to do all we can to stop the plague of gun violence.

This story was originally published July 29, 2015 at 8:30 AM with the headline "Editorial: Gun violence must be thwarted."