24 March 2021 — 2215 mst
More people will be shot dead because the U.S. lacks
the courage and wisdom to control guns — and always will
Only a few hours after he legally purchased a 9mm handgun on 16 March, 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long shot dead eight Atlanta residents, six of them women. Long survived, was arrested, and has been charged with murder.
The same day, Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, also 21, purchased, somewhere in Colorado, a Ruger AR-556. Monday, he used it to kill 10 persons in a Boulder, CO, supermarket. Allissa, wounded in the shootout, is jailed, charged with 10 counts of murder.
Why these killers killed remains unknown, although isolated bits of information, especially about Long, are beginning to emerge. The paucity of information on motive has not prevented speculation. Indeed, the paucity invites speculation because human minds are hardwired to connect dots as quickly as possible — it’s a survival strategy — even when there are not enough dots to paint a full and true picture of what happened.
I prefer not to speculate on the motives of the murderers, but to wait for more information.
There is, however, no need to wait for more information on whether our country has too many firearms or whether firearms are too easy to obtain. The answers have been known for decades: the United States has too many firearms in the hands of private citizens.
Semiautomatic weapons are especially dangerous because of their rapid rates of fire. Semiautomatic long guns fire high velocity bullets that outrange police officers armed with handguns. But in close quarters, such as a massage parlor, a semiautomatic handgun can be fired just as fast as an assault rifle and is just as lethal.
No citizen really needs a semiautomatic weapon. Legitimate needs for a firearm can be met fully with revolvers, bolt action rifles, and pump or slide action shotguns. Indeed, a can of bear spray is an effective, nonlethal, defense weapon.
President Biden is calling for a ban on assault weapons such as the AR-15. He’s right: no one needs these semiautomatic paramilitary weapons. But the votes to get a ban through Congress are not there, not even if the filibuster is abolished. Tens of millions of Americans are convinced they need semiautomatic firearms to protect themselves and their families, and they constantly remind their representative in Congress of their beliefs. Joe Machin won’t support an assault weapons ban. Neither will Jon Tester. Both hope they never have to vote on it.
Even commonsense policies such a universal background checks and a national registry of firearms generate outcries of fascism and governmental overreach. Americans are willing to register and license automobiles and marriages, but they’re not ready to register and license firearms. And they never will be ready to confiscate all semiautomatic weapons and melt them down to license plates.
Consequently, shootings and mass shootings will continue. There’s no way to stop it. Politicians will go through the motions of demanding gun control and accountability. Gun control advocates will use the horror of fresh murders to keep the issue in the spotlight for a few more weeks. Much righteousness will be mustered. But policy requiring legislative action will remain unchanged.
There will be a lull before the next mass murders, a lull during which we can, but may not, address issues that can be solved. Then another crazy man with a semiautomatic weapon he never should have been able to obtain will come out of nowhere to kill a cluster of people, and the grieving and the calls for gun control will wax and wan again.