Fewer Guns = Fewer Deaths

Dear Leading Ladies,

This week’s attack in Uvalde, Texas was the 199th mass shooting of 2022. That averages 10 such attacks a week, according to Gun Violence Archive, an independent data organization. The Archive defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, excluding the shooter. In Uvalde, 19 children and two adults were killed, the deadliest incident so far this year. It should be noted that other groups, such as Everytown for Gun Safety, define a mass shooting as any incident where four or more are shot and killed, excluding the shooter.

According to the Archive, the rate of mass shootings at this time in 2021 was about the same as this year, with a total of 693 by the end of the year. In 2020, however, it was somewhat lower, with 611 for the year. And in 2019, 417, according to NPR.

Each time we learn of a mass shooting, we are appalled and saddened by the needless loss of innocent lives. The images on television and social media fuel our horror at these terrible, senseless acts. And well they should.

Mass shootings are only 1% of gun killings

But the focus on mass shootings belies some important truths about guns, deaths, and killings in our country. While there are more mass shootings in the U.S. than in any other country, they only accounted for 1% of the homicides in the U.S in 2020 – a few hundred out of the 45,222 total gun deaths (19,384 gun murders and 24,292 gun suicides).

When we think about mass shootings, our image is of public incidents in schools or malls or places of worship. In fact, more than 60% of mass shootings occur in private homes involving families and friends or acquaintances, while only 30% happen in public spaces. Moreover, more than three in four children killed in mass shootings die in an incident connected to domestic violence. And, to put it in perspective, so far in 2022, upwards of 640 children under 18 have been shot and killed, 24 of them in school shootings. Seventeen thousand people overall have died by gunfire this year. We need to be appalled and outraged every day, not just when we hear of a public mass shooting.

Most shooters buy their guns legally

So what does this tell us?

For one thing, it indicates that we may be viewing the problem of gun violence with a lens that obscures the wider picture and lacks the focus necessary to find a solution.

In terms of mass shootings in public places, for example, as David Frum wrote last week in The Atlantic, focusing on the hate motivating the perpetrators is not useful. Hate is not unique to the United States, he said. Whether the killer is a jihadist, a white supremacist, an animal rights activist, or a left-wing extremist, “The crucial variable in mass shootings is not ideas but weapons.” There’s a reason our country has the most of this type of mass shootings, Frum believes, and it’s not because we are more heterogeneous or diverse – or hateful. “We cannot control ideas or speech and should not attempt to do so even if we could,” he writes. “But we could reduce access to the weaponry that converts ideology into atrocity. At least, other advanced countries find themselves able to do so. Almost every country on Earth has citizens filled with vitriol, but no comparably advanced country has a gun-violence epidemic quite like America’s.”

Both the suspect in the Buffalo mass shooting last week and the one in Uvalde used assault weapons, legally available in many states. The Buffalo shooter walked into a gun store, passed a blink-of-the-eye background check, and walked out, gun in hand, just days after the results of a psychological evaluation had failed to trigger the red flag law that bars the mentally ill from purchasing firearms. The Uvalde shooter, who just turned 18, purchased his two assault weapons, legally and easily.

Access is the common factor for all crimes that involve guns. Most mass shooters – and shooters of all kinds – obtain their guns legally because of inadequate background check laws. As Glenn Thrush wrote in The New York Times, “That a majority of these criminals have made their gateway purchases through legal means reflects the profound inadequacy of local, state and federal statutes to detect or deter mass shooters, say law enforcement officials, researchers and the families of people they killed.”

120.5 firearms per 100 residents

The ratio of firearms per resident in the U.S. is 120.5 to 100, up from 88 per 100 in 2011, and far surpassing that of other countries around the world, as reported recently in the BBC. The data also shows that the vast majority of murders, 79%, were carried out with guns. Particularly troubling in mass shootings is the prevalence of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines which allow shooters to kill more people more quickly.

Frum’s analysis becomes even more unsettling when coupled with the latest report from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which states that the number of firearms manufactured in the U.S. annually has tripled since 2000 and risen exponentially in the past three years, going from 3.9 million in 2000 to 11.3 million in 2020. The manufacturers are responding to a rise in customer demand in tandem with the loosening of gun restrictions by the Supreme Court, Congress and Republican-controlled state legislatures.

According to the New York Times, “The boom in gun production appears to have been partly driven by the expiration of the assault weapons ban in 2004.” Another article in the New York Times cited two notable changes in gun sales and ownership: the outselling of Glock-style semi-automatic handguns over rifles, and the enormous increase of homemade, untraceable “ghost guns.” Add to this the fact that about three out of 10 firearms available for sale in the U.S. come from abroad, according to a Bloomberg News analysis. “Imports totaled 5.1 million weapons, or 31 percent of all guns made for the American market in 2016, the last year for which complete government statistics are available.” And lest you think a huge hunk of the guns manufactured in this country end up in other countries, 3.3 percent were exported in 2016 and 6 percent in 2017, according to ATF data.

400 million guns manufactured in the U.S.

Presently, there are about 400 million guns in the U.S., most manufactured by Smith and Wesson with Sturm, Ruger and Company a close second. Smith and Wesson, long headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts, moved to Tennessee last year when it looked like they would be banned from manufacturing their AR-15-style rifles in the Bay State (where they are already illegal to sell or own).

President Biden, after both the Buffalo and Uvalde shootings, said he would redouble his efforts to enact gun control legislation, but admitted it would be difficult without a shift in support from legislators. And so, once again, we see the importance of the midterm elections and sending men and women to Washington who recognize the crucial importance of gun control laws.

Join National Gun Violence Awareness Day

Friday, June 3 is National Gun Violence Awareness Day, and June 3–5 is Wear Orange Weekend. The founders of the weekend chose orange because it is the color that hunters wear to protect themselves in the woods. There are many ways to participate in Wear Orange Weekend including by attending an event in your area.

While we should all be appalled and sickened by the tragedy in Buffalo and Uvalde and other places where innocent people are targeted and attacked, we need to remember that many more people are dying every day on our streets and in our homes, usually by gunfire.

The carnage must end. The guns must go. We cannot let the horror of mass shootings deflect our attention from the many tens of thousands of other killings by gunshot – more than half of them suicides – that occur in our country each year and could be prevented if we had sensible and effective gun control laws. Of course, gun control laws alone are not enough. We still have inequities and poverty that lead to desperation and violence. We have hopeless people who don’t feel that life is worth living. Those issues demand attention and systemic change. But gun control saves lives. The statistics prove it.

Want to know more? Check out Giffords Law Center, Everytown for Gun Safety, and Moms Demand Action.

No guns, just roses.

Therese
Judy
Mary
Leading Ladies Executive Team
Leadingladiesvote.org
ladies@leadingladiesvote.org