Guns, Legislation, Security and Solutions
By: John
M. Del Vecchio
I am from Newtown.
I am a Viet Nam Vet.
My degree is in psychology; I have been
a journalist, a race relations specialist, and a historical novelist.
I am a small businessman. I’ve worked construction,
and in both residential and commercial real estate finance.
I am a husband, a father, a grandfather.
I am an American.
I am a patriot.
Self-images are is complex, and
balancing one’s identity in the face of tragedy is challenging. This is as true
for nations as it is for individuals.
The contentious issue raging in our
country over gun rights is not close to being over. It divides not just political
parties, but families, friends, colleagues, and our own thoughts. The matter is
urgent; the ramifications of our actions may last for centuries.
The Most
Urgent Question
What can we do, and what should we do, to
ensure the security of our children? Not just our children… all citizens. What
comprehensive legislation might be passed to increase security; what program
initiated? Will new laws, programs or initiatives make Americans more, or less,
secure? What complications, what unintended consequences, might these
enactments produce?
Fallacious statements and falsification
of argument fly from all sides. Calls for complete confiscation, and replies of
“From my cold dead hands,” are no more productive than other knee-jerk
reactions from left or right self-serving pundits and politicians.
I do not know where this debate may take
us, but for me, I stand on the side of life, on the side of security for our
children, our homes, ourselves and our futures. We likely agree upon these ideals;
we may not agree on the ways and means which will best achieve them.
Tragedy
in Our Town
I live two miles from Sandy Hook
Elementary. On December 14, 2012, like everyone in Newtown and so many
nationwide, I felt as if my heart had been ripped from my chest and stomped.
Twenty-year-old Adam Lanza had returned to his elementary school. According to a
recent release from the state police, he took revenge for bullying he allegedly
endured within those walls more than a decade earlier; took wicked, vile
revenge upon twenty beautiful, innocent first graders plus six adults before
killing himself. Again, according to official releases, this disturbed
individual had planned and practiced his assault for months, perhaps for over a
year, shooting quickly with his computer controller at monsters on video screens,
and with an air pistol at images in his mind as they huddled in fear against
his basement wall. The results for the families, the town, the state and the
nation were devastating agony, gut-wrenching sorrow, and mind-numbing despair.
How? How could this happen? How… in Newtown? Quiet Newtown?
What can we do, and what should we do,
to ensure this never happens again? To ensure that the deaths from gun violence
are minimized? Will banning guns, ammo or the size of magazines help; or will
these acts be counter-productive? Have other nations attempted any of the
various proposed policies? If so, what conclusions may we draw from their
experiences? Banning and restricting by nature are negative acts. Are there
more positive and effective ways to approach the problem?
On
War and Arms
I am a Viet Nam veteran. I spent much of
1970 and 1971 with the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile). Our role
was to provide security for the civilian population in the densely inhabited
lowlands by engaging a heavily armed, infiltrating force in the uninhabited
mountainous jungles below the DMZ and along the Laotian border. For me, the
murders in Newtown evoked thoughts of the war, of terror and genocide, of the
massacre at My Lai, of innocents butchered beyond our minds’ ability to
comprehend. It evoked news coverage and historical records of these events.
For more than a quarter century I studied
the war, and analyzed the political, social and military causes and effects of
terror, massacres and genocide. A Viet
Nam Era poster reads—WHAT IF THEY GAVE A WAR AND NO ONE SHOWED UP? Alter the
question: What if they gave a war and only one side showed up? That happens. In
war, one side showing up is a prescription for disaster. The holocaust in Cambodian—far
worse than the war—is an example. Contributing, perhaps dominating, factors in
the tragedies included a skewed information environment, distorted public
beliefs, and counter-productive political actions.
I mentioned My Lai. It was an American
war crime: no excuse, no justification. However, this atrocity was used by “anti-war”
elements to paint the American war effort as evil, and all American troops as
baby-killers—a blanket indictment which was false, offensive and absurd. Media
coverage of that incident masked enemy atrocities a thousand times worse.
Some media coverage today seems to wish
to portray all legal gun owners as potential Adam Lanzas. Is there truth or
rationale to these charges, or do they mask more serious concerns? Is there a
correlation between the degree of legal gun ownership and violent crime? Do more guns mean more death, and fewer guns
mean fewer deaths? We’ll delve into that below. Allow me to back up.
Little known facts about Viet Nam may be
exemplary. In January of 1959 the
Politburo of the Communist Party of The Democratic Republic of Viet Nam (North
Viet Nam), in secret session, declared war on the South. During that month-long
meeting three logistic routes from the North into the South were authorized. These
were known as 559, 759, and 959 for the month and year of their inception.
Trail 959 went west from Hanoi into Laos, then south into Cambodia; 759 was a
series of sea lanes and landing areas, including the circumnavigation of the Ca
Mau peninsula to land men and materiel at the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville; and
559 became the infamous Ho Chi Minh Trail.
The first waves of communist fighters
were political terrorists. By 1960 they were assassinating between 50 and 100
South Viet Namese hamlet, district or province officials, including school
teachers, each month. The terror grew to 100 assassinations and approximately
800 kidnappings per month by 1962. Terrorists terrorize! That was the stated policy
of the communist ‘Elimination Of Tyrants’ campaign. The 1962 numbers would be
the equivalent of terrorists killing or kidnapping 250,000 people in 2013 American.
250,000! This was before the war “heated up.”
At this time South Viet Namese civilians
were essentially unarmed, and were dependent upon nascent military forces (regional,
provisional and national) for their security. (US forces were minimal—900 in 1960,
12,000 at the end of 1962). Over the next six years of increasing communist
infiltration and matching US escalation, the civilian population remained
largely vulnerable to terror attacks. Then, in the wake of Hanoi’s 1968 Tet Offensive,
the weaponry of Southern military forces was upgraded and their older arms were
passed down to a growing People’s Self-Defense Force (PSDF). The PSDF consisted
of those too old or too young or too disabled to serve in regular military
units. This was the home guard, a militia at hamlet-level without mobility or
the capacity to conduct offensive operations, but capable of home/hamlet
defense. The civilian population, now with approximately 400,000 WW II rifles
and carbines, was finally armed.
Over the next three years, while US
forces were reduced by 58%, communist terror attacks (assassinations,
abductions and bombings) on villages and hamlets dropped 30%, small-unit
attacks dropped 41%, and battalion-size attacks dropped 98%! At the same time, rice
production increased by nearly 10%, war related civilian injuries dropped 55%,
and enemy defections increased to the highest levels of the war. The South Viet
Namese citizenry had become an effective force in protecting themselves and
their property from an organized terror campaign.
Could it possibly be relevant to the gun
control issue facing America today? Errors
and abuses were made in the pursuit of freedom in Southeast Asia. By 1968
America was no longer focused on the pursuit and defense of freedom, but only
on the errors and abuses. Recall My Lai: from 1969 to 1972, 473 nightly TV news
stories focused on that incident, yet not a single story was aired about the
6000 communist assassinations of government personnel in 1970 alone.
Although
many errors and abuses were addressed; although all American ground forces were
withdrawn by early-1972; although the armed southern population was carrying
the bulk of their own local defense; America’s focus remained on “the American
atrocity.” This political momentum lead to the abandonment of the people of
Southeast Asia as can be inferred by economic support. The US budget for
Southeast Asia, adjusted for inflation, fell over 95% from 1969 to 1974.
Weapons and ammo in the South became relatively scarce. In comparison, the
final communist offensive which toppled the Saigon government employed 500
Soviet tanks, 400 long-range artillery pieces and over 18,000 military trucks
moving an army of 400,000 troops. This offensive was supported by a 400%
increase in aid and materiel by China and the Soviet Union.
U.S. abandonment of the South Viet Namese
people, and their resulting lack of weapons and ammunition, lead directly to
70,000 executions in the first 90 days of communist control of the South; to
the deaths of millions in Cambodia, to a million Boat People fleeing South Viet
Nam with many of those dying at sea; to more than a million being incarcerated
in gulag re-education camps; and to the communist ethnic cleansing of Laos.
Was Southeast Asia an isolated case? Did
skewing of the story distort public beliefs and enable millions of deaths? And
does an unarmed civilian population increase atrocity and murder?
More Guns,
More Deaths…
The deterrence of crime created by a
legally armed citizenry is difficult to measure. We can, however, extrapolate
from other societies which have been fully or partially disarmed; and we can
project the ramifications of various actions.
In the study, Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A
Review of International And Some Domestic Evidence, by Don B. Kates and
Gary Mauser, which appeared in The
Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (Vol. 30; Jan 2007) the authors
explored the maxim, “more guns mean more deaths and… fewer guns, therefore,
mean fewer deaths.” This paper is a review of dozens of studies which compare
gun ownership to murder and suicide rates in a score of European countries, the
U.S. and Canada. Some of these nations have a long history of banning guns,
others a shorter history, and some varying degrees of legal ownership. The
authors found (all emphasis is mine):
That the “endlessly
repeated” assertions that “…guns are uniquely available in the United States… (and)
the United States has by far the highest murder rate…” to be false.
If the U.S. does not have
“by far the highest murder rate,” how did this assertion become part of our
common national narrative? The authors noted a Cold War disinformation campaign
begun in 1965 “and possibly earlier” which spread “…the false assertion that
the United States has the industrialized world’s highest murder rate…” The motivation seems to have been to disguise
murder rates within the USSR.
Since well before (’65), the Soviet Union possessed
extremely stringent gun controls that were effectuated by a police state
apparatus providing stringent enforcement. So successful was that regime that
few Russian civilians now (2007) have firearms and very few murders involve
them. Yet, manifest success in keeping its people disarmed did not prevent
the Soviet Union from having far and away the highest murder rate in the developed
world. In the 1960s and early 1970s, the gun‐less Soviet Union’s murder
rates paralleled or generally exceeded those of gun‐ridden
America. While American rates stabilized and then steeply declined… Russian
murder increased so drastically that by the early 1990s the Russian rate was three
times higher than that of the United States. Between 1998‐2004… the
Russian murder rates were nearly four times higher than American rates.
Similar murder rates also characterize the Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania...
(these) homicide results suggest that where guns are scarce other weapons are
substituted in killings.
More points from the review:
Gun ownership in America, Norway, Finland, Germany, France and Denmark, is high.
“These countries, however, have murder rates as low or lower than many
developed nations in which gun ownership is much rarer.”
The
authors examined hundreds of studies by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and
the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and found neither organization able to
“…identify any gun control that had reduced violent crime, suicide, or gun
accidents.”
Perhaps
the best data for projecting results of programs comes from England.
Handguns
are banned but the Kingdom has millions of illegal firearms. Criminals have no
trouble finding them and (have) exhibit(ed) a new willingness to use them… In
the decade after 1957 (first ban), the use of guns in serious crime increased a hundredfold… In the
late 1990s, England moved from stringent controls to a complete ban of all
handguns and many types of long guns. Hundreds of thousands of guns were
confiscated from those owners law‐abiding enough to turn them in to
authorities. …by the year 2000 violent crime had so increased that England and Wales had Europe’s highest
violent crime rate, far surpassing even the United States.
Contrast
the above with their finding: “…despite constant and substantially increasing
gun ownership, the United States saw progressive and dramatic reductions in
criminal violence in the 1990s.”
In
other publications we find anecdotal indications that in England, prior to gun confiscation, approximately
80% of all home robberies occurred while residents were absent. That figure is
similar to current estimate in the U.S. After the English confiscation the
figure there flipped. Today, nearly 80% of home robberies in England occur with
the unarmed—and essentially defenseless—residents present.
Forty
of America’s 50 states allow qualified citizens to carry concealed handguns,
and some 3.5 million do. In one paper reviewed by Kates and Mauser, economists
John Lott and David Mustard “conclude that adoption of (concealed handgun
permits) has deterred criminals from confrontation crime, and caused murder and
violent crime to fall faster in states that adopted this policy…” They further
expressed that “… the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the more guns
equal more death…” argument “… especially since they argue public policy ought
to be based on that mantra.”
In another study, Less Guns, More Violence: Evidence from
Disarmament in Uganda by Laura Ralston of MIT, Job Market Paper, Nov 2012, the author’s motivation was “to
understand how guns influence violent conflict and to understand the
effectiveness of… (the) disarmament campaign in (a) highly volatile
region…” What she discovered was that “within Uganda the deterrent effect of guns outweighs
their impact as a tool of aggression.”
If
the national or ambient cultural story is skewed from reality will proposed
legislation based upon that bias be counter-productive? As with Viet Nam, will a
skewed information environment lead to horrific, unintended consequences?
The
“Bad Boy” Syndrome: Trust, Story, Self-Image, Behavior
An ancient Greek adage, Ethos anthropou daimon, translates as a
man’s story is his fate. The story we tell ourselves of our selves builds our
self-image. Behavior tends to be
consistent with self-image. Story controls behavior. This is true of
individuals and of nations.
If asked, “Who are you?” you may answer
with your name, but if the question is pursued you’ll explain that you are a
reader or a runner, a businessman or a patriot. Each of these identities is built
upon a self-image; and behavior tends to be consistent with those images. Runners
run. Readers read. Self-image and behavior are complex—more so when we consider
cultural or national self-image, and macro behavior, yet in simplified form we
can use the formula—internalized story creates self-image; behavior is
consistent with self-image; story controls behavior. This is why a skewed
information environment is detrimental to rational personal or policy
decisions.
Who or what creates the story we
internalize as individuals or as a nation? Tyrants and politicians put great
emphasis on this—be it Mao’s ‘new communist man,’ Pol Pot’s purposeful campaign
to destroy all cultural memory and return to ‘Year Zero,’ or a American spin
doctors manipulating our knowledge of gun ownership.
Proposed gun control legislation sends
overt and subtle messages. These statutes tell us who we are, what we are like.
When authority does not trust legal citizens, what story is being projected?
What self-images are being formed, challenged or altered? This should be
criteria of review for all mandates, policies and programs. The less authority
trusts citizens, and restricting legal citizens of rights is a form of
distrust, the more those citizens will believe they are untrustworthy, and the
more their behavior will match the new self-image. The action produces a “bad
boy” syndrome similar to a continuously scolded child who internalizes the
self-image of being bad and endlessly acts out. Thus, restricting gun
ownership, apart from the constitutional dilemma, is counter-productive.
Is there a more positive way to approach
the problem of gun violence and killings?
Solutions
To Lessen Gun Deaths and To Make Our Children and Our Society More Secure
Go after illegal guns. This should be obvious
yet reports from major cities lead us to believe this is not always the case. Most
gun violence is committed by weapons in the hands of organized crime, drug
cartels or street gangs. More children die in Chicago every two weeks from
thugs with illegal weapons than died in the Newtown massacre. Laws do not need
to be enacted, they exist. Begin aggressive campaigns, exert maximum law
enforcement efforts, and remove illegal guns. Not removing this threat increase
everyone’s vulnerability. Disarming the legal and responsible citizenry of a
nation enables criminal and violent elements.
People are afraid of guns. The fear is
broad and deep. Some people become tense and upset just seeing a weapon. This
fear must be addressed. It makes little difference that guns are inanimate
objects, or that less lethal weapons are used in the commission of most murders.
It is this fear which motivates many sincere supporters of ‘gun control.’ Their
ideals and desires are not misguided, but their knowledge and experience base
with firearms is lacking. This imbalance is exacerbated by media and political
slant. The resulting internalization and self-image cause unreasonable actions.
Reconsider politically correct mental
health initiatives. Society is vulnerable to the criminally insane. David Kopel
opined in the Wall Street Journal only days after the tragedy here, “People who
are serious about preventing the next Newtown should embrace much greater
funding for mental health, strong laws for civil commitment of the violently
mentally ill—and stop kidding themselves that pretend gun-free zones will stop
killers.”
Expand licensing classes. Every sane and
legal citizen should be eligible to own and carry a firearm—pistol or long gun.
Every gun owner should be fully trained in the discipline and art of owning,
caring for, and handling a weapon. I recently took Connecticut’s prescribed
pistol permit class, and found the course to be inadequate. It does not train
one how to shoot, and teaches only the rudiments of how to handle the
responsibility of a powerful weapon. Training should include enough practice so
owners are at least minimal proficiency in handling their weapon. You would not
expect a 16-year old to drive a powerful sports car or a duel-wheeled pick-up
with half a day of classroom instruction and 5 minutes of practice! Offering firearms training in high school, a
la driver’s education, might also alleviate irrational fears.
Conclusion
An evil man walks into a
school and murders 26 innocent people. Two men bomb a public event killing
three and wounding 200. As a nation we are overcome with shattering pain and horror.
We want to do something. Our ambient
cultural story contains the mantra: More guns mean more violence; fewer guns
mean less violence. But this is wrong.
There is an undeniable deterrent affect
which comes from a legally armed citizenry. Disarming them and taking away their
rights and abilities to defend themselves, enables criminals and terrorists. People
become more vulnerable and are more likely to fall victim to violent crime.
Ignorance of likely ramifications of
proposed legislation is forgivable for the public, but it is unforgivable in
leaders. Pundits and politician who know the figures and still promote gun
control are either demonstrating a willful disregard for the truth, a hidden
and self-serving agenda, a neurotic fear—or all three. Reactive legislation
makes our children more likely to be victims.
Killings and bombings are abuses. They are no more
justifications for abandoning the 2nd (and the 4th) Amendment than a
driver killing someone with a car is justification to outlaw motorized
transportation. We must correct abuses
and punish abusers, but abandonment of deterrence only enables future increases
in the rates of violent crime and murder. To seek security and to purposefully increase
vulnerability is a form of psychotic insanity.
If we wish to protect our children from
future “Newtowns,” we should encourage expanded legal, responsible and capable
gun ownership.
Do it for the children.
# #
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The
Viet Nam Trilogy by John M. Del Vecchio
Bio dat: Del Vecchio is a NY Times bestselling author. His
novels include The 13th Valley, Carry Me Home, For
The Sake of All Living Things, and Darkness Falls; other writings: The
Importance of Story. He is a 32-year resident of Newtown, Connecticut.