Follow the numbers

Sandy Hook shooting happened 5 years ago today, launching months-long push in Congress for new gun restrictions. Here's how the US public views some common proposals. https://t.co/jBEdXkvgOq pic.twitter.com/B07OqUG9D5

— John Gramlich (@johngramlich) December 14, 2017

I have, over the years, come to see the Second Amendment as a far more integral part of our sophisticated constitutional checks and balances than I allowed when I was younger. America, owing to its high degree of diversity, has an outsized problem with violence compared to other OECD countries who are ethnically and culturally much more homogenous. The inherent violence in some sub-communities of the US is undoubtedly exacerbated by the ready availability of weapons.

I think it is a fair question to ask: How do we sustain the civil rights of the Second Amendment while ameliorating the deaths caused by guns?

Our challenge is that, as eager as some are to get rid of the Second Amendment, or at least control guns more closely, virtually none of the proposed solutions would address the instances we are most upset about.

In this tweet, there is an effort to link the heart-rending tragedy of Sandy Hook five years ago with the idea that we should have better gun control. Excusing the heartlessness of exploiting a tragedy for an ideological/political end, you are still left with the question as to what would better gun control look like?

In this case Gramlich harnesses the anniversary of the tragedy at Sandy Hook, with Pew results regarding proposed gun control strategies. The implication is that had we implemented any or all of the suggested forms of gun control, the mass murder would have been avoided.

But when you look at the proposed gun control measures, something is striking.

Preventing people with mental illnesses from purchasing guns.

Requiring background checks for private sales and at gun shows.

Barring gun purchases by people on no-fly or watch lists.

Creating a federal government database for tracking all gun purchases.

Banning assault-style weapons.

Banning high-capacity magazines that hold more than 10 rounds.

Even if all of these were already in place as law, it would not have prevented the tragedy. Connecticut already had extremely tight gun regulations, including most those on the Pew list. Federal law also precludes gun sales to those with mental illness. The salient fact is that the guns used were legally purchased through regulated channels by the mother of the shooter. None of these regulations prevented the shooter from stealing the guns.

Gramlich is suggesting that a tragedy is sufficient justification to pass legislation which would have made no difference to the occurrence of the tragedy. That is outrageous, cynical, and strategically self-defeating.

Exploiting a tragedy in order to pass ideological legislation coarsens the debate and ultimately precludes progress. Why would any gun owner wish to even consider a discussion when the cynical exploitation is so transparent.

But . . . what would meaningful regulation look like? There is no clear answer but data suggests we ought to be looking in different directions. Among the 10-15,000 killed by guns each year (omitting suicides), only some 200-300 are with long guns, rifles, and assault-style weapons. Any evidence-based control of guns would end with long guns, not start with them. Handguns are the over-whelming source of weapon deaths.

Mass shootings (4 dead or ore) are also a tiny percentage of the 15,000 weapons deaths each year.

The focus needs to be on deaths from hand guns and on single deaths rather than mass shootings.

Regrettably, those two issues are immensely complex, involving some combination of social dysfunction, mental illness, substance dependency, social isolation, etc. None of them are solved by controlling anything, they have to be tackled through pro-active, constructive interventions which are expensive, controversial, and typically have somewhat limited effectiveness.

I think we turn to gun control as a salve to the conscience. We want to do something but the real root causes are so inordinately complex that we have few patent answers that would make things better. Instead of gritting our teeth and solving those hard problems, we instead go through the shadow play of controlling weapons when we should instead be healing people.

My suspicion is that the solution(s) lie with more integrated and comprehensive strategies around 1) mental illness (which would potentially reduce the 20,000 deaths from suicide each year), 2) substance dependency (65,000 overdose deaths each year), and 3) social and behavioral dysfunction. As long as we keep pursuing legislative solutions that won't make a difference and arguing irrelevant ideological points, we postpone getting serious about real action that would be beneficial. So every gun death is a double tragedy - the tragedy of the death, and the multiplied tragedy by talking about things that don't matter, and refusing to address issues that might make things better.

Sooner or later we have to focus on mental health, substance dependency and social norms. The longer we distract ourselves with shadow play, the more people die who could have been saved.