Audrey Pietrucha
Guns and spoons
If I go to the freezer
every night and scoop up a large bowl of chocolate marshmallow ice cream, after
a while I will start to gain weight. Whose fault is that – mine or the spoon’s?
Clearly the fault is my
own since a spoon is an inanimate object with no will of its own. It is merely a
tool used by humans in their quest to feed themselves. If I took all the spoons
out my drawer but really wanted some ice cream I could contrive to use
something else with which to scoop it. A fork might not be as efficient but
could still get the job done. To paraphrase a trite but true phrase, spoons don’t
fatten people, people fatten people.
Yet after last month’s tragic
shooting in Newtown, Connecticut most of the national discussion has centered
on tools. Realistically, we cannot remove all the tools that are used to murder
people. A look at the history of mass murder (defined as four or more people
killed) shows people who want to kill others will find the way to do so.
Grant Duwe, author of Mass Murder in the United States: A History,
says mass murders are neither unique to America nor the modern era. Two
terms that mean to go on a killing spree, amok and berserk, have been around
for centuries, he said. Throughout this time mass murders have been
accomplished with a variety of weapons: guns, of course, but also swords, axes,
knives, arson and explosives.
The first school shooting
in America occurred in the summer of 1764 when four Lenape American Indians
shot a teacher and 10 students dead in Greencastle, Pennsylvania. More than a
century passed until another school shooting occurred. Since then, the United
States has experienced two waves of mass shootings. The first occurred in the
1920s and 30s with 1929 having the highest recorded mass murder rate in
history. This wave was characterized by family killings and felony-related
massacres (think Al Capone, gangsters and prohibition).
The 40s and 50s were a
tranquil period with regards to mass public shootings in America. Ironically,
this was also a period when rifle clubs and guns themselves were in almost
every high school. It was common for students to hunt in the morning and leave their
guns hanging in cars and trucks parked in school lots all day long. Competitive
shooters brought rifles into school and left them in their lockers or with a
homeroom teacher. My research did not uncover one mass shooting at the hands of
a rifle club member.
The second wave of mass
shootings stretched from the mid-sixties to the early 1990s and began with the infamous
University of Texas incident in which a student climbed a 27-story tower and
shot and killed 14 people and wounded 31. It wasn’t until the 1990s, though,
that mass public shootings really started to tick upward. There were more than
40 mass public shootings in that that decade but the years 2000 to 2009 saw a
drop as the number fell below 30. This past year, however, we witnessed seven
mass public shootings. Suddenly it is starting to seem like these awful events
are far too common.
Yet what gun laws have
changed over those years that have made weapons more accessible? If anything,
gun laws have become stricter over the past few decades yet those with murder
on their minds and in their hearts find access to weapons, either by legal or
illegal means.
This brings us to the one
constant in these horrific crimes – people. Mentally unstable and disturbed
individuals have always existed and their illness sometimes (though actually
very seldom) reveals itself in murderous behavior. The tools they use vary from
crime to crime and all the laws in the world seem unable to prevent someone who
really wants to kill from doing so. Think about it – is someone intent on breaking God’s or nature’s law against taking
life really going to be concerned about breaking man-made laws about which
tools he cannot use?
It is especially
frustrating to watch lawmakers in Vermont, many of whom don’t seem to know a
magazine from a clip or an automatic from a semi-automatic weapon, jump on the
anti-gun bandwagon. Vermont does not have a gun problem and many would say this
is precisely because our gun laws are so liberal; there is respect for firearms
here. According to FBI statistics Vermont has one of the lowest rates of
criminal firearms usage in the nation and our murder rate involving guns is an
extremely low 0.75, making us 44th out of 50 states. Robberies and
assaults involving guns also rank very low here. So why do lawmakers and city
councils feel it necessary to fix what obviously isn’t broken?
Worse, emotionally-driven
laws punish responsible citizens and gun owners but do little to inhibit those
who disregard laws. They also make it more difficult for law-abiding citizens
to protect themselves. Incidents of lives being saved by gun are many but
receive little attention from the media or the politicians. Just like spoons, guns
can be used for good or evil.
As with any situation involving
human beings, circumstances surrounding shooting incidents are complex. We can
never predict and prevent the many factors that lead to someone taking
murderous actions. We might feel better as a society when we put a bandage on
the collective emotional wound these incidents open but we rarely put in place
measures that actually prevent more. People have been finding ways to kill each
other for centuries. Unfortunately, laws won’t change that.
Audrey Pietrucha is a member of the executive board of
Vermonters for Liberty. She can be reached at vermontliberty@gmail.com.
