Guns are killing kids

Another mass shooting at a school.

Nothing is going to change anytime soon.

I'm just being honest here. Nothing much will change because Americans who have guns want to keep them. They are organized as a disciplined coalition in the GOP.  Any Republican officeholder who steps out of line on gun rights will get "primaried" and lose. It is a litmus test: with us or not-with-us. 

The gun issue isn't a matter of smart public policy or a careful weighing of pros and cons on widespread gun ownership. It is cultural. Americans like their guns. And as I have written many times in different contexts, informed by my long career as a financial advisor, people experience loss at about five times the intensity as they experience gains. For a great many Americans, a restriction on their right to have guns around them would be experienced as a loss. 

So nothing much will happen. Guns are readily available and American culture validates their being used. They connote strength and agency. Mentally ill and angry people will continue to shoot up schools. 

All this makes the guest post by Bruce Van Zee, a retired Medford, Oregon, physician, all the more poignant. This post was written a week ago, before yesterday's incident in Minnesota. America tolerates an intolerable situation. Van Zee explains how wrong, dangerous, and hypocritical the widespread availability of guns is. Americans flood the country with firearms, then people with the power to enact gun laws act mournful when guns are used, yet again, in a mass murder. Van Zee writes like a man deeply frustrated at observing a condition that is wrong and illogical, yet not subject to change in a self-governing country. Surely we can do better. But we don't because we cannot. I subscribe to his Substack blog: https://bvzcvz.substack.com

Guest Post by Bruce Van Zee

The Epidemic Killing our Kids

The Hypocrisy of the Right-to-Life Movement

 

“Thoughts and Prayers, Thoughts and Prayers!”  That’s the usual comment by Republicans after another horrific mass shooting, and it usually signals the end of their engagement in the affair.

 

Over the past week, there have been at least 9 mass shootings (defined as four or more victims injured). Six persons are dead, 44 injured, and countless traumatized (https://massshootingtracker.site/). This does not count the CDC shooting on Aug. 9 in which 500 rounds of semi-automatic fire were emptied into the CDC buildings, because only 2 people died – the gunman and a policeman. This episode was triggered by RFK,jr.-inspired Covid vaccine disinformation since the shooter mistakenly believed his depression was caused by the vaccine. Since Jan.1, 2025 there have been 320 mass shootings and 6852 mass shootings since 1/1/2013.

 

There used to be at least a semblance of shock and regret over these tragedies from the Republican administrations, but even that is gone now. It’s like background noise that the GOP is accustomed to and doesn’t even warrant a “Thoughts and Prayers” anymore. Certainly, no talk of doing anything about the gun violence problem. Trump doesn’t even mention gun violence cases. Maybe someone should tell him to use it as a distraction effort from the Epstein affair.

 

Trump recently cut more than half ($158 million) in gun violence prevention from the DOJ.  This follows a pattern in which the GOP has tried to stifle gun violence research. America is unique among nations regarding gun violence. What is striking is that the epidemic of gun violence has particularly affected the young. Here is data from KFF showing the mortality rate of children and teens from gun violence – more than 28 times the rate of comparable wealthy Western nations!  I repeat, 28 times as much!   

 If this was anything else killing our kids -- infections, drugs, accidents – don’t you think there would be widespread efforts to decrease the risk? Gun violence is now the leading cause of death for children 1-17 in America. 

In this context, let’s remember that a major part of traditional Republican support is evangelical, conservative Christians because of the Right-to-Life value that motivates their alignment. I can understand their belief regarding conception as an act of God and the consequent sacredness of a fetal life; but are not all these slaughtered children at least equally sacred? How can this travesty be ignored while they march in protest at Planned Parenthood clinics? And how can they abide the cruel dismantling of USAID that serves AIDS-infected and starving children throughout Africa and the world. Many of them will surely die for the “gain” of saving less than 1% of our national budget. Credible estimates are as many as hundreds of thousands of deaths. Are not all lives equally sacred?

 

Republicans, of course, point to the 2nd Amendment and use that as a shield to prevent any action on gun violence, claiming, “Guns don’t kill people, people do.”  But there is no evidence that mental illness is any more prevalent in this country than others. And the idea that we could somehow predict which deranged individuals are contemplated mass murder is unrealistic. But what we do know is that the United States has far more guns and easier access to them than any other country.  We have 120 guns per 100 people in the USA. 393 million guns total. The next highest country is Yemen with 52.8 guns per 100 people (here). Here's a little-known fact that somehow escaped censorship by the NRA and the GOP: you are more likely to die by gun violence if you have a gun in the home than if you don’t.

 

To maintain that this number of firearms has little to do with the carnage is simply magical, distorted thinking. But then, the Far-Right is adept at that sort of thing  -- The 2020 election was stolen, the Jan.6 insurrectionists were patriots, Hillary Clinton ran a pedophile ring out of a pizza parlor, etc. 

 

Here is the 2nd Amendment verbatim: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." 

 

I mean, even if you’re an originalist jurist, like Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, it seems a stretch to assume every individual is equivalent to a militia. And since even the wisest and most forward-thinking of our founding fathers could not have anticipated the semi-automatic weapons of war now in the hands of almost anybody, shouldn’t a little humane judgement be used to limit them? 

 

We would go a long way in lessening the slaughter of our children by having universal gun purchase background checks, by paying to take some of the guns off our streets, by outlawing weapons of war, by enforcing red flag laws, and other efforts. But I don’t think that’s on MAGA and Trump’s agenda, and it is most unfortunate and will lead to more unnecessary deaths.

 

A final irony: Now that Trump is employing armed, minimally trained teenagers in ICE on the streets of American cities, there may be more gun deaths.  The fear that drove the Framers to write the 2nd Amendment was the King’s army in our streets.  And here we are. 

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