100 days after Sandy Hook and guns still protect you (apparently)

John McGowan

Even modest gun law reform in the USA is faltering. Despite there still being plenty of outrage around, and national support for change, not enough members of Congress in areas committed  to gun rights see the benefits of voting against the will of their constituents.

Looking less and less likely.
Image: Arthur Smart (Talk)

The pro and anti arguments are lined up very much in the way I described in January. President Obama, Michael Bloomberg, and the more progressive commentariat are leading the charge for increased restrictions with the idea that a large number of firearms in circulation is ultimately bad for public safety. This is compounded, they argue, by some of these weapons being automatic, high capacity guns, sold without thorough background checks on buyers. The opposing position, articulated by the National Rifle Association, values freedom, training people to use firearms and, crucially, a need for personal protection, if necessary by lethal force, in a world where criminals may be armed.

Do guns protect you?

John McGowan

Since the Newtown school shootings it’s hard to remember such an outpouring of antipathy towards guns in the United States. After Columbine maybe, but I’ve never heard a right-of-centre US politician be as forthright as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg after the killings at Sandy Hook:

“And it happens again and again… We kill people in schools. We kill them in hospitals. We kill them in religious organizations. We kill them when they’re young. We kill them when they’re old. And we've just got to stop this.”

It’s beginning to look like President Obama will produce a more concrete response than tears, and the fight for restrictions to gun ownership laws is likely to be one of the defining political battles of this coming year in America. 

It’s not clear that there is a straightforward link between outlawing gun ownership and a fall in gun-related fatalities. Changed laws in Australia have provoked impassioned debate over what the effects have been and why. What is clear is that firearms availability (legal or otherwise) is associated with high rates of death by shooting (see a useful summary here). The lesson from the Australian example is that legislation is not the only priority. If people still want guns, then gun-related death rates may remain very high, even in a situation where restrictions on availability are in place.  A more productive strategy is to change the law and seek to develop a different culture around firearms. Changing one may help to change the other and vice versa. In the case of America, to achieve both of these aims it would help to understand the attachment of many US residents to guns.  From the perspective of someone who lives in a society with highly restricted gun ownership this can be absolutely mystifying.  Why does the US love-affair with deadly weapons continue? After wading through coverage of the Newtown shootings I’d propose two main reasons.