Firearms and Razor Blades

 I have again spent a great deal of time reading and thinking about gun violence. The recent mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder added to the pile of such events that have become too common in the past three decades. Even during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. during 2020, mass shootings continued and in fact increased. Although mass shootings account for only 1 to 2% of all firearm-related deaths, they garner media and political attention out of proportion because they illustrate that everyday acts such as going to the supermarket to buy a loaf of bread or going to school to be educated or going to the movies to relax can turn into violence, bloodshed, and death. We see the political dimensions, especially in the Senate, where the free flow of millions of NRA $$$ (almost all to Republicans) has long blocked useful efforts to address the gun problem in this country. Thus we have a nation of 330 million people with 393 million guns in civilian hands. Please do not try to tell me we don’t have a gun problem.

Worse, for years the study of gun violence as a public health emergency was blocked by the Dickey Amendment. This law was a rider to another bill introduced by Republican Jay Dickey, an Arkansas Congressman, in 1996. Interestingly, Dickey came to repudiate his 1996 position, and by the time he died, he was working with the CDC researcher on gun violence whose firing came about as a result of his rider. While research continued, funding came from a variety of sources other than the federal government. That, fortunately, has been reversed. As with all problems, robust and well-collected data will be essential to finally begin to get a grip on gun violence. We also must remember that the vast majority of gun deaths (40,000+ annually in the U.S.) do not involve mass shooting events: 60% are suicides and deaths from guns in violent crime, accidental and unintentional shootings, and law enforcement shootings make up the bulk of the remainder. 

I will confess that I really do not have answers. We must gather data and devise realistic policy. Unless the Second Amendment is repealed (it never will be), we will have Americans who believe that their right to own a gun supersedes the rights of non-gun owners to be free of the terror of being shot. I owned a rifle at one point in my life (a .22) but gave it to the Norfolk Police Department quite willingly many years ago. When I was in the Army Reserves and the Navy, I became an expert pistol and rifle shot (M-16, the military cousin of the AR-15). I took the Combat Casualty Care Course, taught that course many times, and served in the Persian Gulf War. I saw what weapons such as the M16 could do to flesh and bone. It is not pretty. Heather Sher, a Miami radiologist, wrote eloquently of what she saw when victims of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were brought to the trauma center where she works. The difference between bullet wounds from a low-velocity bullet and a high-velocity bullet is astounding. She writes about the survivability of handgun wounds versus the wounds from a high-velocity round from an AR15 or an M16. She notes that an AR15 shooter does not have to be accurate to kill, since the bullet cavitates tissue and reduces whatever it hits to jello. Society would be far better off when such weapons are no longer on the streets.

This brings me to my final point. A gun is like a safety razor. Without blades, a safety razor is useless. Perhaps the military-grade ammunition (the round fired from an AR15 is the same as a round fired from an M16) should become the focus for control. Maybe a background check on buyers of the ammunition, the same as for the weapon? Limits on the amount of ammunition purchased at any one time? How about taxing all ammunition on an increasing scale? Each round of .22 ammunition has an added 2 cents tax. Each round of 9 mm pistol ammunition an added 5 cents? Each round of high-velocity ammunition designed for the AR15 is taxed an added 25 cents. Shooters who are wedded to their guns will then at least bear some of the cost that it adds to American society as a whole. Not a complete solution, but worth exploring. Soldiers on the battlefield need the lethality high-velocity ammunition provides. Not so in civilian life. The only purpose I can see for weapons that fire such ammunition is hunting other Homo sapiens.