Letter 2 America for June 10, 2014

Dear America,

This past Sunday at around noon, two police officers were shot to death in a pizzeria in Las Vegas.  The murderers were a couple who billed themselves as the beginning of a revolution, for which they chose a "Don't Tread on Me" flag and a Nazi flag as their insignia, leaving both on the scene either draped over one of the bodies or near them.  It appears from internet material recovered after the murders that the couple were just unbalanced rather than indoctrinates of some social theory or cult, and as I interpret what has been reported thus far, the wife was the motivator between the two, and in the end, she shot her husband several times as the police closed in on them in a Walmart store to which they had repaired for the battle, before shooting herself.  That fact combined with a video in which the husband tearfully regrets having to end like this seem to indicate a domineering wife controlling a smitten and impressionable husband.  But all that is just the bizarre trappings of another multiple murder--they murdered a patron at the Walmart as well--based on the notion that those in authority, the police in particularly apparently, were oppressors and the enemies of liberty.  Vindicating liberty was their justification for murder, and there will certainly be those who empathize with them, many of them advocates of absolute adherence to the second amendment, which guarantees the right to keep and bear arms.  But the irony of this whole thing isn't in the killing of police officers.  Hatred of the police isn't that unheard of as to make the circumstances of these killings incomprehensible.  But the victim shot to death in the store after those murders is the ultimate irony.  He was carrying a concealed weapon, and when he tried to use it to be a hero by confronting the husband, the wife shot him in the chest and killed him in an instant.  It would seem that the two murderers and the civilian victim they killed in the course of their "revolution" were kindred spirits.  It appears that the Don't Tread on Me mantra was not just one that they adhered to, but one that their last victim adhered to as well.

In a study from 1998, guns kept in homes by individuals in Memphis, Seattle and Galveston were more likely be involved in accidental shootings, criminal assaults or suicides than in self-defense.  In another study by Dr. Charles C. Branas, et al. in the American Journal of Public Health in 2009, a person in possession of a gun at the time of an attack is almost four and a half times more likely to be shot than someone who is unarmed. In other studies, a person who has a gun at home is more than twice as likely to be shot with it as he is to shoot an intruder.  And of course, there is the misfortune produced by George Zimmerman's ownership of a gun, and there are reports nearly every week of guns being misused and innocent victims being injured or killed.  Thus, though this death of an innocent by-stander in Las Vegas is only anecdote rather than statistical support for those conclusions reached in responsible scientifically conducted studies just mentioned, and more, it serves as an object lesson regarding the effectiveness of ordinary people intending to defend themselves or others with a loaded gun.  In Las Vegas, such an effort served only to add one to the number killed in the incident, and that outcome is not unusual among the outcomes in general of such events.  But as a case in point to support gun control efforts, or even the banning of concealed weapons or guns in general, it is likely to be ignored by those who single mindedly advocate for unlimited and unconstrained gun ownership.  None-the-less, the obvious fact--and this case of a man attempting to do something heroic but being unprepared to do so just serves to reify this contention--is that in the total scheme of things, those who are willing and able to pull the trigger are more often criminals than innocents trying to defend themselves or others.  If you combine with this contention the statistics on the effect of gun ownership on national violence and resulting deaths and injuries, it is abundantly clear that our chosen philosophy on gun ownership has not made us a safer people, but rather has led to the United States being by far the most vulnerable to gun violence, and thus far less safe than citizens of other countries in which gun ownership by private persons is illegal.

So, this week will be interesting in that the NRA may respond to the observations that will surely be made by others about this victim of gun violence who died to no avail of a gunshot wound.  But whether the NRA tries to place this event in some kind of defensible light or not, the topic of private individuals defending themselves with firearms merits discussion by all of us. The paradox of the shooting death of a gun owner who was quite possibly an advocate of the universal right to keep and bear arms...maybe even an NRA member...should not be forgotten any time soon.  Self-defense has been the primary justification for gun ownership cited by the NRA and others who see no reason to restrict gun ownership, but this incident is a stark demonstration of the erroneous assumption that having a gun means knowing how, and being able, to use it in desperate circumstances.  It may not merit the kind of attention precipitated by the Newtown shootings of small children, but it certainly merits some consideration.

Your friend,

Mike