Guns Kill People
March 6, 2020
The following is an op-ed submitted by senior Billy Gardner, who can usually be found on The Forest Scout as guest co-host of The Watercooler, especially hosting his infamous “Joey Goodsir Show” segment. Want to share on opinion of your own? Send an op-ed to [email protected].
Guns kill people.
It seems that this simple fact is often disregarded or even denied when the debate over gun control occurs, but it’s quite simple: guns kill people. A gun is a tool, true enough, but it is expressly designed for the purpose of harming others. This is indisputable. So why do we tolerate something in our society that has no other purpose than to harm people? What possible use could the average citizen have for that?
There is something ingrained in the American cultural identity concerning firearms: the myth of the ‘Good Guy with a Gun’ — the idea that any random American citizen can step up to the call of duty and right the wrongdoings of the nefarious public shooter by shooting them, because even when they are used for good, guns kill people.
The ‘Good Guy with a Gun’ so beloved by the gun lobby is an irresponsible fantasy. It does not exist. The mass shooter in Dayton, Ohio was shot by police a mere thirty seconds after first opening fire, and in that time he was able to kill nine and injure forty-seven. Is the gun lobby seriously saying that an untrained civilian would have a better response time and would be able to resolve the situation better than the police? Would the ‘Good Guy with a Gun’ have been able to remain calm under pressure, evade fire, and return it without hitting any bystanders? Doubtful. When the police arrive, would they listen to him as he carefully explains the situation to them and send him home with a junior deputy badge for his service? Absolutely not. The police would shoot him, and they’d be right to do so.
There is no such thing as a ‘Good Guy with a Gun’ to them; there are only civilians and potential threats. And the person waving a gun around over a fresh corpse in the area that they just got reports of a shooting in? That’s a threat. People with guns are threats, because guns kill people. Let’s stop pretending that this myth is anything more than that: a myth.
Guns kill people. According to the Pew Research Center, almost 40,000 people were killed by guns in 2017. This number has only gone up since then. Two thirds of those deaths were suicides, one third were murders. Three quarters of all murders involved guns, and over half of all suicides did.
There have been 2,641 days since the Sandy Hook massacre. In that time, 2,389 mass shootings have occurred. There has been a single calendar week without a mass shooting, that of Jan 5, 2014. The longest break has been the eleven days from Jan 8, 2013 to Jan 18, 2013. Just over two months into 2020, there have been 47 mass shootings, in which 62 people were killed and 182 were injured. Guns don’t help people. A gun has one purpose. Guns kill people.
America has the most lax gun laws of any developed nation. How can we justify this when Harvard studies show that there is an undeniable correlation between higher numbers of guns and higher levels of gun violence? Our gun obsession is uniquely American. We are fixated on the idea that the Second Amendment is prophetic, that one day the Government will come for you, and the only thing standing between tyranny and freedom is the firearm-wielding citizenry. Discounting how utterly ridiculous it is to think that your average Joe — or anyone for that matter — with a twelve-gauge could take on the U.S military, this is emblematic of larger cultural idea about guns.
‘God created man, but Sam Colt made them equal,’ the saying goes. The expression stems from the Wild West, a period of rugged individualism where men were men, women were women, and the Sheriff and his six-shooter kept the peace through threat of violence. Even back then, guns killed people.
‘The Second Amendment protects the First’ is the modern day equivalent. The government would crack down on us, freedoms would be infringed, and a police state would rule, if not for the guns of the American people. Thank you, brave citizen, for protecting me. Can we protect African-Americans from police by using guns now?
Oh wait, we used to. Then we passed legislation to stop it. Believe it or not, Republican Ronald Reagan, then Governor of California, passed gun control laws to stop open carry — a right defended by many gun activists — and ban assault weapons, and even said that guns are “a ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will.”
Called the Mulford Act, it was written and signed into law due to Black Panthers’ practice of copwatching — following police patrols around while holding assault rifles, threatening violence to keep the government at bay. This was the exact scenario so often presented as the ultimate defense for guns, and the NRA itself supported the bill that stopped it. America has a complicated — and racist — relationship between minority communities and guns. African-Americans are almost four times as likely to be victims of gun violence than the average citizen. Of the three thousand children killed by guns every year, African-American children are ten times more likely to be a victim than white children. Guns don’t solve problems. Guns are the problem. Guns kill people.
Gun activists may shrug their shoulders and say that there’s nothing we can do. That banning guns will only make the problem worse by taking away guns from law abiding citizens. Ignoring those who commited suicide using a gun, who might have otherwise survived to go on to get help, and ignoring deaths due to mishaps with firearms, such as accidental and negligent discharges or hunting accidents, America’s firearm homicide rate is thrity people per million.
Australia, a different neo-European nation with a strong history of gun ownership, has a homicide rate of one-and-a-half people per million. In the wake of a 1996 mass shooting, Australia passed sweeping bipartisan gun control laws, enacted massive national gun buyback programs, and state gun amnesty programs. In spite of their history with guns, and the large numbers of people who owned them, Australia took decisive action, and it worked. Australia recognized that simple truth: guns kill people.
The Sandy Hook massacre shocked people to their very core. “Never again,” they said, “will we let anything like this happen.”
The San Bernardino shooting shocked people to their very core. “Never again,” they said, “will we let anything like this happen.”
The Pulse nightclub murders shocked people to their very core. “Never again,” they said, “will we let anything like this happen.”
The Las Vegas slaughtering shocked people to their very core. “Never again,” they said, “will we let anything like this happen.”
The Tree of Life massacre shocked people to their very core. “Never again,” they said, “will we let anything like this happen.”
The Parkland shooting shocked people to their very core. “Never again,” they said, “will we let anything like this happen.”
The El Paso shooting shocked people to their very core. “Never again,” they said, “will we let anything like this happen.”
Guns are not a friend. Guns are not a solution. Guns are not a multi-purpose instrument. Guns have one job. Guns kill people.
Michael Koch • Sep 3, 2020 at 2:59 pm
and my final thing gun control did not work in Australia the crime was going down in similar rates and why yes less gun death there was still similar death rates so why did crime rate not go down .there are millions of deaths in cars why not ban cars.
Michael Koch • Sep 3, 2020 at 8:49 am
corrections in wording because of auto correct bump stocks gun ban
Michael Koch • Sep 3, 2020 at 8:48 am
Also one more thing the average Joe can’t not stop them alone but if there is millions of citizens with AR 15s I’m sure the government would at least be somewhat threatened while and unarmed population will lose their rights like Nazi Germany also gun band are not effective sure they are effective for decreasing gun crime but not crime overall in countries with gun band used as examples the like Japan or Canada the crime was either already going down or they were a small hymognous country with low crime rates in general due to having a different culture.So this is why when you call for gun control gun owners don’t see it as keeping the community safe they see it as a way to give the government more power for citizens which leads to thousands killed .for example gun control advocates said hey we will only band bump stocks which gun advocates stupidly agreed to and now there coming for the AR 15 and the all 47 next it will be the hand gun until you get rid of all rights and you live in there authoritarian utopia where millions had to die to create it and even then was it worth it was it worth the millions of deaths you had to allow.
Michael Koch • Sep 3, 2020 at 8:35 am
OK so where do I start a good guy with a gun does exist according to the CDC between 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/firearms/fastfact.html and there are about 40000 gun deaths if you include suicide so that would mean at least 20000 deaths are prevented at the lowest figures. Also the whole reason of the right to bear arms is to be able to protect you from a tyrannical government like one of Nazi Germany which banned guns and then proceeded to kill millions of Jewish people and other citizens .So the reason I posted this is because the second amendment is of the most important rights as Patrick Henry said give me liberty or give me death.
Jim Athanas • Mar 13, 2020 at 11:15 am
Thank you Stan
Stan Smith • Mar 10, 2020 at 5:34 pm
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.
Put a gun on a table and tell it to kill…
Tell me what the result is…
Kelsey Marx • Mar 10, 2020 at 2:09 pm
Thank you for putting the good-guy fallacy into words! This is a great and very true contribution to this conversation.
Anonymous • Mar 10, 2020 at 10:10 am
Here we go… another one of these snowflake arguments to strip us of our rights.
Clare Lawler • Mar 10, 2020 at 9:26 am
Fantastic piece!
Carson Ward • Mar 10, 2020 at 9:19 am
An incredibly well-written piece, Billy. Hoping for more op-eds in the future!
A Convinced Reader • Mar 7, 2020 at 12:12 am
A brilliantly constructed rebuke of commonly held beliefs. Bravo!
anon • Mar 6, 2020 at 7:37 pm
This article is well-written, important, and incredibly timely. Thank you for writing!
anonymous • Mar 6, 2020 at 7:36 pm
This article is well-written, important, and incredibly timely. Thank you for writing!
anonymous • Mar 6, 2020 at 7:20 pm
I appreciate your piece. This definitely is an eye-opener to people who may not be as informed about the current political atmosphere regarding guns (because of all the mass shootings, I’d hope that people are aware). Ly bud.
Amazing • Mar 6, 2020 at 3:12 pm
Thank you for writing an actually insightful piece that has evidence AND reasoning to back it up (unlike some other columns I have read today…)
anonymous • Mar 6, 2020 at 3:08 pm
Thank you for writing this piece. Well said, well supported, and everyone should be able to get behind this…