In the wake of the movie-theater shooting in Colorado, many pundits were quick to declare that it was too soon to use the tragedy for political gain in our country’s ongoing debate about gun control. The same pundits usually then went on to fiercely debate gun issues, but personally, I never agreed with the original injunction. Times like these--how sad that we have so many--are precisely when we need to have the debate if we are ever going to cut down on gun-related deaths.
It has been surreal the last few days to watch conservatives raise reason after reason why tighter gun controls are unnecessary. Former Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce’s comments struck me as the wildest:
“All I did was lament that so many people should be left disarmed and vulnerable by anti-gun rules that try to create a sense of safety by posting a sign that says "No Guns", when the only real effect is to disarm everyone who could have saved lives . . . Had they been prepared . . . and been able to fire on their attacker, lives could have been saved.”
According to Pearce, more guns is the solution to gun deaths. And apparently many in Colorado feel the same way. Petitions for gun permits have spiked since the shooting. We will soon have a more heavily armed populace so more people can continue shooting each other.
The rest of the affluent world looks at us with disbelief. In more civilized nations around the world, guns are illegal and--guess what?--no one gets shot. Here in America, people are dying all around us and the most we can work up is a lukewarm debate over the rules for buying an assault rifle.
For eight years, I lived in Japan, where guns are for the most part illegal, and I do not remember a single shooting incident. Japan does indeed have its crazies, but they do not get their hands on firearms. They grab a kitchen knife and plunge into a crowd of people, stabbing a few people before someone wrestles them to the ground. Gruesome enough, but the damage is limited compared to what we see in the U.S.
Deciding to see if my memories paint an accurate picture of the gun violence in Japan, I looked up some statistics on the internet--after all, somebody, seedy members of the yakuza, for example, must get their hands on guns and use them. Depending on source and year, statistics differ, but the U.S. is always way at the top of gun-related deaths and injuries, while Japan is near the bottom. The tightest comparison I could find without spending all day working through the details comes from PolitiFact, which has said there were 10,224 homicides by firearm in the U.S. in 2009, compared to 7 in Japan. Similar comparisons can be made with other industrialized nations with strict gun laws.
As in Japan, handgun and fully automatic firearms possession by citizens should be illegal in the U.S. Possession of rifles for hunting and sports should only be possible with the strictest regulations, also as in Japan. Disarming a population as armed as ours--as uncivilized and barbaric as ours is in this respect--would indeed prove difficult, but people without guns do not kill other people. Over time, fewer guns would mean many fewer deaths.
That’s something I would like to see, whether saying so is political or not.
