I know this is an unpopular opinion in Scioto County – a place recently declared a “Second Amendment Sanctuary” by Republican county commissioners – but when you truly believe that America must take measures to stop gun violence, you must speak out and encourage change. I strongly believe we must follow President Joe Biden's lead and take immediate action against the violence perpetrated with guns. It is time to address this issue in a full-out effort to save innocent lives.
As President Biden eulogized the victims of the mass shooting at a Boulder, Colorado, supermarket at the White House on March 23, he said …
"I don't need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common-sense steps that will save the lives in the future, and to urge my colleagues in the House and Senate to act.
“We can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again. I got that done when I was a senator. It passed. It was the law for the longest time. And it brought down these mass killings. We should do it again."
Biden urged Congress to swiftly pass gun control laws and may take action on his own to stop mass violence. Spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters Biden is “considering a range” of executive actions to try to stop gun violence. Such actions do not require the approval of Congress.
Gun violence has recently reared its ugly head once again. On September 22, a gunman killed 10 in a Colorado supermarket, just six days after eight people were shot and killed at Atlanta-area day spas. The two shootings put renewed pressure on Biden to act on the promise he had made during his presidential campaign to enact gun safety measures.
(“Trevor Hunnicutt and Susan Cornwell. “Biden considers executive actions on guns, calls on Congress to pass weapons ban.” Reuters. March 23, 2021.)
Who Supports Action?
Eighty-five percent of Americans report being concerned over gun violence in the United States and 65% of parents are worried about sending their child to school because of gun violence. These concerns blur partisan lines: 95% of Democrats and 80% of Republicans are worried about gun violence and 73% of Democrats and 59% of Republicans worry about sending their children to school.
(Annaleise Azevedo Lohr, Senior Account Manager. “Reuters/Ipsos Data: American Perceptions on Gun Control.” Ipsos Public Affairs. February 08, 2019.)
Nearly 70% of Americans support adding "strong or moderate" federal gun restrictions, and ideas such as background checks and databases to track ownership have even greater public support, according to the 2019 Reuters poll.
Policies such as raising the legal age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 (Democrats 82%, Republicans 63%), tracking gun sales through a federal data base (Democrats 90%, Republicans 73%), expanding background checks to include sales at gun shows and between private individuals (Democrats 92%, Republicans 78%), banning high-capacity ammunition clips (Democrats 84%, Republicans 58%), banning military-style assault weapons (Democrats 86%, Republicans 56%), and banning semi-automatic weapons (Democrats 79%, Republicans 49%) receive majority or near majority support from both parties.
(Annaleise Azevedo Lohr, Senior Account Manager. “Reuters/Ipsos Data: American Perceptions on Gun Control.” Ipsos Public Affairs. February 08, 2019.)
Who Stands In the Way of Reform?
As former Think Progress reporter Igor Volsky has repeatedly pointed out, the NRA consistently contributes money to the Republican party and Republican congresspeople, who then turn around and support NRA positions. The conclusion is obvious; Republicans are listening to contributors, not to their voters. They block gun control legislation because they've effectively been bribed.
The truth is gun ownership and Republican identity have become inseparable. The most passionate Republican voters see guns as a central part of who they are. They speak of “their Second Amendment” and “their untouchable rights” as if no other opinion on reform is “American.” They resist sensible efforts to curb gun violence as steps on a slippery slope to take away their guns.
And when the NRA's money doesn't necessarily sway legislators, its messaging expresses and solidifies conservative partisan fervor – and often racially fueled paranoia – around guns.
For example, the NRA has often referenced black criminal superpredators. This culminated in a rabid 2015 anti-Obama ad in which NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre ranted about "third-world carnage" in the president's hometown of Chicago, suggesting the black president was soft on black "criminal gang-bangers" and was deliberately targeting upstanding white gun owners.
Racial fear? The NRA suggests that American citizens need guns to protect themselves against the evil non-white criminals streaming across the border. "[T]errorized residents throw their deadbolts, draw their blinds and pray not to have their homes invaded or their kids kidnapped," LaPierre declared in 2010 in support of a draconian Arizona anti-immigrant law. (Needless to say, immigrants are not in fact more likely to commit crimes than citizens are.)
Speaking of white fragility, University of Illinois at Chicago scholars Alexandra Filindra and Noah Kaplan concluded in a 2015 study that more negative attitudes towards minorities (“racial resentment”) are a predictor of opposition to gun control among white Americans.
Guns have also become imbued with a religious meaning for evangelical Christians. As researchers Andrew Whitehead, Samuel Perry and Landon Schnabel explained following another shooting in Odessa, Texas, earlier in August, white evangelicals tend to see gun violence as a sign of growing American godlessness and corruption. Gun ownership is a way to protect themselves and their families from this threat.
(Noah Berlatsky. “Trump and Republicans don't hate gun control because of the NRA. They just love guns.” NBC News. September 24, 2019.)
Michael W. Austin, a professor of philosophy at Eastern Kentucky University and author of God and Guns in America, said the conservative Christian proclivity for firearms as a form of personal protection developed over time.
“I think that there is a unique mix in the United States of faith, patriotism, militarism, self-sufficiency, family and sometimes regional traditions that have led many to think that gun ownership is an essential right, as something that Christians should believe to be central,” Austin said.
According to Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne: How Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, the idea that a Christian can be a “good guy with a gun” is well-established in many white evangelical communities.
“For white evangelicals, this image of a strong masculine protector was always a white racial ideal,” she said. “In the 1960s and 1970s, conservative evangelicals were strong proponents of ‘law and order’ politics, and this affinity drew them into the Republican Party.”
(Jack Jenkins. “Does God want Christians to be a ‘good guy with a gun’?” AP News. September 16, 2020.)
Addressing the Problem
Once more the nation bleeds from senseless gun violence. Once more the call for certain restrictions becomes part of the national dialogue. And, once more those who resist any change say, “Guns don't kill people, people do.” The endless circle of rights versus change repeats itself as innocent people continue to die.
Enough.
The common denominator in the perpetuation of this never-ending violence is the gun. No one is calling for the elimination of firearms for sport, for protection, and for common-sense ownership. The weapon used in violent acts is the focus. Assault weapons and high capacity magazines and background checks and loopholes – the nation has to come to terms with its continuation of a wild west mentality in the increasingly divisive modern world.
The NRA, Republicans, and white evangelicals represent significant resistance to opening a needed dialogue for reform and restriction. I know gun violence is evil. I also know fighting to save lives from mass shootings is good trouble as John Lewis might say. The fear of the gun lobby to even consider change is dangerous resistance. I want to count myself among those who know the time is now to prevent endless bloodshed.
No comments:
Post a Comment