The mass shootings in Virginia and Colorado again call attention to the nation’s gun problem, but how deeply guns are embedded in everyday life can be seen from other random news reports:
– When NBA player Taurean Prince of the Minnesota Timberwolves was pulled over in suburban Dallas for an expired registration, he informed the officer he had two handguns in the car.
– Security guards at a bonfire party held at an Enfield, North Carolina, horse ranch confiscated 27 guns that people tried to smuggle in. “These weapons were found in the bottom of coolers, these weapons were found in boots, these weapons were even found in hats,” the host said.
– A report on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) noted that so far this year TSA has confiscated more than 4,600 guns, about 87 percent of them loaded. It’s on pace to pass last year’s record of 6,000 guns confiscated.
Second Amendment zealots say that people, not guns, kill people. But when a nation has more guns than people – 393 million guns and 326 million people – the prevalence of guns is going to lead to the demise of people through intentional shootings, accidents or suicides. The toll is more than 110 people every day, including five deaths per day in North Carolina.
How it got this way is a complicated story about muskets, militias, the National Rifle Association and members of Congress who value campaign contributions over their constituents’ lives.
How to make it less this way is equally complicated. But as the U.S. endures another wave of mass shootings, there are signs that the majority of Americans who want stronger gun controls may yet be heard. A bipartisan group called the 97 Percent – an allusion to the 97 percent of Americans who favor universal background checks for gun purchases – wants to reduce the carnage by enlisting gun owners in the effort.
The group sponsored a recent conference focused on how gun control advocates might appeal to Republican lawmakers and gun owners who are willing to consider ways to reduce gun violence.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, who this month mourned a mass shooting that killed five in Raleigh, opened the conference with a speech about seeking consensus on reducing gun violence. He said that traffic fatalities have been reduced by sensible measures such as seat belts, air bags and better vehicle designs.The same could be done with guns.
“The government didn’t take the cars away from responsible drivers to help that problem and we won’t take away guns from responsible owners,” Cooper said. “We just want to make it safer. And all of us want to feel safe in our houses, our schools, our churches and in our communities. That’s common ground.”
Participants in the conference said the progress against gun violence should start with steps that most gun owners would support:
– Add convictions for violent misdemeanors such as assault, stalking and violent threats to convictions that bar gun ownership and possession.
– Pass red flag laws that would allow courts to order the removal of guns from people considered a danger to themselves or others.
– Require a permit to purchase a gun (only 11 states do) and make federal and state background checks part of the gun permitting process.
Keeping guns out of the hands of violent people is a start, but those laws won’t prevent road rage shootings, domestic violence shootings, gun suicides, toddlers shooting themselves and the river of guns that careless gun owners lose to thieves.
To reduce gun violence, challenge the popular idea of gun ownership. It’s not an expression of freedom. Nor is it in the overwhelming percentage of cases about self-defense.
An NBA player doesn’t need two handguns at the ready. No one needs to hide a gun in a cooler on the way into a party or pack a loaded one in their carry-on luggage.
Those who have a real need for a gun should be trained in how to use it and penalized if they lose it. Those who pack guns just because they can aren’t making anyone safer, including themselves.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Ned Barnett is associate opinion editor for The News & Observer.
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