Summary: To understand why we so many mass shootings in America, let’s cut through the myths and the lies to see the naked truths about gun control. Also, today we had our eight millionth pageview since we opened in Nov 2007!
Another day, another mass killing in America. To understand how this happens, look at events before the shooting. “The NRA Praised Nevada’s Most Powerful Lawmakers For Blocking Gun Control” by David Sirota at IBT — bipartisan gun love. From Politico: “A controversial bill to loosen restrictions on purchasing gun silencers won’t be reaching the House floor anytime soon …. A bill to allow concealed-carry permit holders to take their guns with them to another state could also be affected after the tragedy, the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.”
Why can’t we respond to the rivers of blood flowing through our cities, from individual shootings to the 59 dead at Los Vegas? We are lost in America in part because we have lost our history. Our love of guns — gun toting macho men, concealed carry and even open carry — comes from fake history about the Wild West. Learning the truth about this might help us find our way back.
To recall out real history we can start with Adam Winkler’s 2011 book Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America
“Guns were obviously widespread on the frontier. Out in the untamed wilderness, you needed a gun to be safe from bandits, natives, and wildlife. In the cities and towns of the West, however, the law often prohibited people from toting their guns around. A visitor arriving in Wichita, Kansas in 1873, the heart of the Wild West era, would have seen signs declaring, ‘Leave Your Revolvers At Police Headquarters, and Get a Check.’
“A check? That’s right. When you entered a frontier town, you were legally required to leave your guns at the stables on the outskirts of town or drop them off with the sheriff, who would give you a token in exchange. You checked your guns then like you’d check your overcoat today at a Boston restaurant in winter. Visitors were welcome, but their guns were not.
In my new book …there’s a photograph taken in Dodge City in 1879. Everything looks exactly as you’d imagine: wide, dusty road; clapboard and brick buildings; horse ties in front of the saloon. Yet right in the middle of the street is something you’d never expect. There’s a huge wooden billboard announcing, ‘The Carrying of Firearms Strictly Prohibited.’ {Click to enlarge.}
“While people were allowed to have guns at home for self-protection, frontier towns usually barred anyone but law enforcement from carrying guns in public.
“When Dodge City residents organized their municipal government, do you know what the very first law they passed was? A gun control law. They declared that ‘any person or persons found carrying concealed weapons in the city of Dodge or violating the laws of the State shall be dealt with according to law.’ Many frontier towns, including Tombstone, Arizona — the site of the infamous ‘Shootout at the OK Corral‘ —also barred the carrying of guns openly. …
“The story of guns in America is far more complex and surprising than we’ve often been led to believe. We’ve always had a right to bear arms, but we’ve also always had gun control. Even in the Wild West, Americans balanced these two and enacted laws restricting guns in order to promote public safety. Why should it be so hard to do the same today?”
Excerpts from the book.
“This book shows that we can have both an individual right to have guns for self-defense and, at the same time, laws designed to improve gun safety. The two ideas — the right to bear arms and gun control — are not mutually exclusive propositions. In fact, America has always had both. …Gun control is as much a part of the history of guns in America as the Second Amendment”. {Page ix.}
“Gun rights and gun control are not only compatible; they have lived together since the birth of America. …Unlike the unreasonable right to bear arms promoted by extremists in the gun debate, a reasonable right to bear arms has always been available to Americans – one that balances gun rights with gun control. Although the precise equilibrium has always been in flux, changing in response to the times, the story of guns in America is about regulation and right. We don’t have to choose between fully automatic machine guns and water pistols”. {Page 12.}
More about the Wild West
A long line of research going back to Robert R. Dykstra’s (prof history, SUNY Albany) book The Cattle Towns
Richard Shenkman’s (founder and editor of History News Network) Legends, Lies & Cherished Myths of American History
The bottom line, from Richard White’s (prof history, Stanford) book “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own”: A New History of the American West
These rates in towns consisting largely of young men cannot be meaningfully compared to those of modern cities — which have populations more diversified by age and gender.
The bottom line: about gun violence in America today
“What Researchers Learned About Gun Violence Before Congress Killed Funding” by Joaquin Sapien at ProPublica, Feb 2013 — “We spoke with the scientist who led the government’s research on guns.”
“One of the critical studies that we supported was looking at the question of whether having a firearm in your home protects you or puts you at increased risk. This was a very important question because people who want to sell more guns say that having a gun in your home is the way to protect your family. What the research showed was not only did having a firearm in your home not protect you, but it hugely increased the risk that someone in your family would die from a firearm homicide. It increased the risk almost 300%, almost three times as high.
“It also showed that the risk that someone in your home would commit suicide went up. It went up five-fold if you had a gun in the home. These are huge, huge risks, and to just put that in perspective, we look at a risk that someone might get a heart attack or that they might get a certain type of cancer, and if that risk might be 20% greater, that may be enough to ban a certain drug or a certain product.
“But in this case, we’re talking about a risk not 20%, not 100%, not 200%, but almost 300% or 500%. These are huge, huge risks. …
“We were finding that most homicides occur between people who know each other, people who are acquaintances or might be doing business together or might be living together. They’re not stranger-on-stranger shootings. They’re not mostly home intrusions. We also found that there were a lot of firearm suicides, and in fact most firearm deaths are suicides. There were a lot of young people who were impulsive who were using guns to commit suicide.”
Some comments from Twitter
The GOP insists that the Vegas shooter’s gun arsenal is “a right,” but medical treatment for his 500+ survivors is merely “a privilege.”
— Desirina Boskovich (@thedesirina) October 2, 2017
If your response to calls for gun control is “Should we get rid of cars too?” the answer is, for you, yes. You should not have a gun or car.
— rob delaney (@robdelaney) December 14, 2012
When a 64 year old white man kills 58 and wounds 500 in fifteen minutes from 1200 feet with a knife, I will absolutely call for knife control. Until then, you’ve made the world’s shittiest point.
— Timothy Simons (@timothycsimons) October 2, 2017
What I’ve learned through the decades:
– After a shooting is “not the time”
– Between shootings also “not the time”https://t.co/wD0XTELCgZ https://t.co/pRgepKvkk8— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) October 2, 2017
remember when australia had one mass shooting incident then banned guns and like…didnt have one again? an interesting thought….
— chloe (@contrachloe) October 2, 2017
Conclusions
NYT Editorial: “477 Days. 521 Mass Shootings. Zero Action From Congress.”
Draw your own conclusions. Then act on them. See how much you can do before the next mass shooting.
For More Information
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about faux history, about gun violence and regulation, and especially these…
- Guns do not make us safer. Why is this not obvious?
- Myth-busting about gun use in the Wild West.
- Do guns make us more safe, or less? Let’s look at the research.
- What are the odds of violence from the Right in America?
- The number of children killed by guns in America makes us exceptional, not better.
- Debunking the myth: “An armed society is a polite society.”
Books rich with insights about this uniquely American problem.
Gun Guys: A Road Trip
Living with Guns: A Liberal’s Case for the Second Amendment
