“May all sentient beings be free from needless suffering” – Buddhist prayer from the Four Measurables
Today’s major national news stories, in print, on TV, in magazines, and on the net, focus on Gabby Petito, Covid vaccine mandate, US infrastructure, Texas abortion laws, and Brittany Spears. Gun violence gets cited from time to time, so infrequent that it’s easy to forget. Focus on the shooters themselves and what we can do to stop them is missing. Some will say shooter focus is radically unfair to the victims. But without understanding shooters, gun killing will continue.
The Toledo Blade does a yeoman’s job of gun death reporting. The Blade reported on Sept. 29 of this year that there have been 53 gun homicides in Toledo. A quick look at the nation’s leading organizations that study gun violence is essential if we want to end the brutality. Those are the Gun Violence Archive, the Violence Project and the U.S. government and the FBI. That list help us answer question of who killed, how, and why.
This year, as of 9/30, the reality of gun violence is both shocking and, more importantly, hard to understand. Here are the latest numbers for the US in the first nine months of this year: 15,400 deaths, 30,800 injuries, 530 mass shootings, 233 children killed, 820 children injured , 910 teenagers killed, 2,553 teenagers injured, 959 defensive use incidents, 1,556 accidental shootings and 433 murder-suicides.
The research on mass shooters may be more valid than what is said about lone gun killers. There have been 167 mass shootings after the U. of Texas tower sniper killed fifteen and injured more in 1966. By studying a large group of offenders, researchers, especially psychologists and psychiatrists, can make fairly sound generalizations. Here are some:
Shooters often have traumatic childhoods that grow into mental health problems, easy access to guns, are males, often motivated by racial, religious or misogynist hatred, have not and cannot find a solid place in our society, and nearly 70% of shooters, both mass and one on one, are suicidal. Shooter victims are either random or focused on specific places like work, schools, and the military. Entrenched inequality too often moves persons of color to kill. Reports that come from killings like those at Columbine invite copycat crimes. Covid has surely is still increasing stress,, insecurity, joblessness, for more than twenty million persons.
Intervention is essential. We need to know as much about shooters as we do about suicide victims. For bullying in schools, the last two decades have seen schools learn ways to head it off. Here are some important suggestions about gun violence deterrent: Severely limit gun availability and persist in taking away guns from dangerous persons. Background checks online, at gun shows, in person sales and licensed dealers must be passed by Congress. The 2019 Quinnipiac U. poll found that 90% of Ohioans favor universal checks.
With the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the FBI provides an important check so that gun sellers can learn if the gun buyer has a criminal record and thus should be prevented from gun purchase. Launched in 1998, “more than 300 milliion checks have been done, leading to more than 1.5 million denials.” Still, state and federal agencies must do more to improve the process and ensure more thorough checks.
Tom Klein
Bowling Green
