In the Aurora theater in Colorado last year, the lst Amendment right of free speech would not have sanctioned someone yelling FIRE in the midst of the hundreds of moviegoers.
Yet the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms is thought by many to protect the use of an assault weapon against them.
So when a pro-gun lobbyist like Alan Gottlieb says after a mass shooting: The gunman can't be "treated like a child, he's got his own life to live and he can make his own mistakes no matter how horrific these mistakes turn out to be." the opinion is treated as perfectly sane.
Or so the NRA would have us accept.
Not so Tom Diaz who, in The Last Gun, argues that rights-be-damned, it's all about and always about making money.
The number of people who own and buy guns has been decreasing so the gun makers are in a frenzy to sell more to those who still own/use weapons. Thus the amping up of campaigns to stoke paranoia and fear; the appeal to the wanna bes who play at being tough soldiers. There's also big profits in the accessories to guns; it's like legos for men someone said.
As motor vehicle deaths have decreased, firearm deaths are on the increase; not just mass shootings but through accidents and suicides as well. Mr. Diaz asks how so?
The answer lies in looking at a problem as a public health issue.
Those wanting to solve the problem of highway deaths stopped blaming "poor drivers" or "bad luck." Data related to the problem was collected and analyzed to pin-point causes. The result was changes in car construction, road building, safety laws, and educational efforts like MADD. And, despite an increase in total miles driven, the death rate has been steadily declining.
Compare this to the area of gun deaths (surely a public health problem when over 500 people are killed by guns EACH WEEK in America, and 1300+ wounded).
Taking the public health approach to this fact has been prevented by the gun makers who have paid to have put in place laws to prohibit the collection of data related to gun violence. Such data as is available is blocked from becoming widely known.
The media is complicit in this hush hush campaign; the author shows news stories of shootings that don't even mention the type of weapon involved.
The book asks do the "rituals of community healing" that take place after a massacre do anything to stop the violence? The answer is, of course, teddy bears and candle parades won't make a difference.
As Mr. Diaz says, "fleeting ritual embrace of public sorrow is not action." The media's "self-conscious sentimentality" just "give policy makers safe platforms to strike 'caring' postures."
The "weepy rituals" benefit the gun industry as the NRA pretend its "disrespectful to discuss gun-violence prevention while families...are grieving."
Pleading for gun registration and weapons bans has been unsuccessful so far in curbing the violence. Perhaps, as the author suggests, the first step is to find out the facts.
That collation of knowledge must be potentially very galvanizing if the gun makers want so badly to hide it.
America needs to demand the data.
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