Is it the Guns?
The Progressive narrative on most incidents of mass murder centers on the instruments used by the perpetrator(s), that usually being the guns (but sometimes it’s the SUV). It’s certainly true that people intent on mass murder most often use guns to enable their evil plans.
But, the focus of this series of posts is on what has changed since the 1980s that caused school mass murder too precipitously increase in number. If it’s something about gun ownership that’s the primary cause then we’d expect to find supporting evidence.
Looking at the Statista data in this post’s header doesn’t provide much in the way of support. Yes, between 1972 and 2021 the percentage of households owning at least one gun has varied between 37% and 47%. But the year to year variability is high with no discernible trend. In fact, by this data fewer households own guns in 2021 (42%) than did in 1972 (43%).
We can look at recent Gallup data to check consistency with Statista.
The Gallup data is consistent with that found in Statista. However, Gallup also tracks personal (as opposed to household) gun ownership. There is also no clear trend in this data, with 2020 personal gun ownership percentage (32%) around the average level for 2007 through 2020.
However, there is a gun metric that has increased significantly over the decades, that being the number of guns per-capita. Note that in between 1989 and 2014 the number of guns per-capita increased from approximately 0.85 to 1.15 (note that the firearm metric in the figure is number of guns per ten people, so we must divide by ten to calculate number per capita). One therefore might be able to blame an increase in mass shootings on the per-capita increase in guns (but an actual causal link would need to be credibly established).
But there’s a problem. Note that the figure also plots the murder rate over the same time period. It may surprise Progressives to see that the murder rate fell sharply as per-capita gun ownership increased. Once again, this negative correlation between these two data sets doesn’t necessarily imply any sort of causation.
However, if Progressives are willing to blame increased mass murder on increased per-capita gun ownership then they must also explain why the murder rate fell. While this feat isn’t impossible, it certainly complicates the belief in a simplistic causal relationship between guns and mass murder.
Perhaps credible links can be established. If they have I haven’t seen papers or articles that do so. What I’ve primarily found is an unsupported assumption that something about guns must be behind the increase in violence we see all around us.
That “something” is far too often nothing more than a rhetorical device as in describing the most popular semi-automatic rifle sold in the United States (i.e., the AR-15) as a “weapon of war.” Given its popularity it’s no surprise that mass shooters who us a rifle will use the AR-15. But, were the AR-15, or all “assault rifles” banned then:
- There would still be tens of millions of them available to be illegally bought or stolen
- Humans intent on mass murder will find a substitute tool by which to carry out their evil compulsion.
In any case, it may surprise the emotionally wrought on this issue that rifles (of all types) are only used in 3% of all murders, as reported by Pew Research.
Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders.
I also find moral outrage being substituted for the hard work of grappling with what is surely a complex set of issues that has led to this tragic outcome. It’s also deeply destructive to accuse law-abiding, compassionate people with whom you disagree of being responsible for the acts of deranged, wicked people such as mass shooters. That may earn “likes” and “virtue” in our superficial, narcissistic culture. But it’s not going to convince people who insist on looking at the big picture and who demand actual credible information behind policy proposals; or those who are unwilling to abandon their Second Amendment rights due to emotional duress.
Finally, our emotion driven anti-gun cadre may eventually discover that “turnabout is fair play.” For example, the vast majority of deaths caused by “gun violence” (i.e., a human being deciding to shoot a person with a gun) occur in our large cities. Those cities generally have gun control laws that are far more numerous and stringent than in less urban areas. And yet we discover that those laws intentionally aren’t being enforced. How would the anti-gun cadre feel if their opponents loudly and continuously accused them of responsibility for murder because of this undeniable fact? They would hate it, and the debate would be raised to yet higher level of social destruction.
I know that it’s very difficult to come down from a position of assumed moral superiority and respectfully debate with people whom you have called morally inferior. But that is what must occur if we are ever to find actual solutions to school mass murder that have a hope of being both effective and supported by the general population.
The Reformed Sojourner 