Fecteau: Guns are the Problem

Fecteau: Guns are the Problem

This past 4th of July weekend in Chicago was particularly bloody.  

In approximately eight hours, gun violence took the lives of eight people, including a 7-year-old named Amari Brown, and wounded 55 others.  This is just another in a long list of examples, including Newtown, and Charleston, that shows why we need drastic change in our gun policies. 

Gun rights advocates seem astute at blaming everything from lack of mental healthcare to pervasive poverty for gun violence.  Some even justify gun ownership for self-defense.  Strangely, it appears like it is everything, but the gun.  

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Mental health is an easy scapegoat for gun violence.  However, the United States has similar rates of psychologically disturbed people to other developed countries, and mental health is something that is reasonable funded. We could always improve, but merely pointing to mental health as the prime cause of many of these mass shootings is misleading. 

Poverty plays a role. American poverty rate is one of the highest in the industrialized world, and has one of the weakest social safety nets. Yet, because guns are so prevalent and gun laws so negligent, the cost for illicit firearms is radically reduced, making them more inexpensive to people living in poverty.  

Self-defense holds little water.  According to the Washington Post, for every criminal killed with a gun in self-defense, around 34 innocent people die.  After Newtown, Mother Jones examined 62 mass shootings, and not one was stopped by a civilian with a firearm.

While we shouldn’t demonize all gun owners, the common denominator in mass shootings is right in front of our eyes: a firearm. Americans have the right to bear arms, and that right shouldn’t be infringed.  However, to fail to see the adverse impact of gun violence on our community is simply inexcusable.

The statistics are grim. According to USA Today, in the United States, gun violence takes the lives of 88 people each day and mass shootings occur nearly at the rate of one every two weeks.   According to the United Nations, American gun violence far outpaces other similar countries.  On average, an American citizen is 20 times more likely to die by gun violence than any other industrialized country.

Firearms are indeed prevalent. While estimates vary, the United States has almost 310 million civilian firearms, the highest in the world, virtually one per person.  

After President Barack Obama’s election in 2008, and reelection 2012, gun sales climbed through the roof. On average, from 2007 to 2015, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System increased 7% adjusted annually. In other words, more people were seeking to purchase firearms with each passing year.  

In 2013, after Newtown, gun manufacturers had a particularly good year. The largest US gun manufacturer, Sturm Ruger, reported earnings of 52% and a sales increase of 32%, one of its best years ever.

Firearm ownership has been going down, but more guns are being sold. According to a 2014 General Social Survey, only 32% of Americans owns a gun or lives with someone that owns a gun.  That is down from highs in the late 1970s and early 1980s of nearly half the population. While fewer people are purchasing weapons, a minority of Americans are stockpiling them, making guns more accessible.  

The gun lobby peddles paranoia as a sales tactic. They let their supporters know the government could seize their weapons at any minute, and only the right to bear arms can keep the federal government at bay.  This sends gun rights advocates into a frenzy, gun sales go through the roof, and the stock price skyrockets.

For the supporters of sensible gun control policies, reality is bitter.  President Barack Obama has done nothing to rein in gun violence. In fact, some could argue this has been his greatest failure.  Yet, tell that to those buying guns in such great numbers. 

With the prevalence of firearms, our laws remain willfully inadequate.  In the aftermath of Newtown, the federal government failed to pass any substantive legislation. In addition, sadly, a majority of states failed to rein in gun violence.  The New York Times reports that states enacted 39 laws that tightened gun restrictions while 70 laws were enacted to loosen gun restrictions.  

With more guns in fewer hands, guns become harder to track with our antiquated system. According to federal law, the government cannot create a central repository of firearms sales, making tracing, and locating the source of firearms used in violent crimes especially cumbersome for law enforcement. 

If a licensed gun dealer loses his license because of an impropriety, he can merely sell guns as a private citizen circumventing any background checks or record mandate as required by law for licensed dealers. 

As Americans, we need to look at the cold, hard truth.  Guns are the common denominator with all mass shootings. Because guns are so accessible, a mentally deranged or violent person can easily obtain one until we enact reasonable and sensible gun control polices.

With such insufficient federal laws, places like Chicago become collateral damage. A dangerous combination of poverty, gangs, and guns creates the perfect storm for violence as we’ve seen this past weekend. While there are a number of factors, without a gun or with limited access to guns, killing would be much more difficult especially in such mass. 

The guns used in violent crimes in Chicago don't appear out of thin air.  Between 2001 and 2012, the Chicago Police Department traced approximately 50,000 recovered guns, and found half came from sister counties in Illinois with loose gun laws.  The other half came from southern states such as Mississippi, the same states that just recently loosened gun restrictions.

We need to demand action. Gun violence needs to stop. If you have a history of mental illness or violence, quite simply, I don’t want you near a firearm.  That shouldn’t be a controversial statement, but strangely, it is. 

Gun ownership plays an important part of our society, but failing to read the writing on the wall will only cost more American lives. Until that time comes, the violence like we’ve seen in Chicago this past weekend will continue to haunt us, and we will continue to ask why. 

We already know the answer: guns. 

Matt Fecteau ([email protected]), of Pawtucket, lost to U.S. Rep. David Cicilline in last year’s Democratic primary. He is a former White House national security intern and Iraq war veteran.