RURAL RUMINATIONS
REDUCING GUN VIOLENCE
APRIL 16, 2023
BY HAVILAND SMITH
in 2018, The United States was ranked second in the world in the total number of gun deaths.
The United States is ranked second in the world in terms of national levels of mental health issues.
Are we at a point where an attack on mental health issues could acceptably slow our violent gun death problems?
Under NRA guidance and leadership, the US gun lobby has clearly decided that they will fix on mental health as the sole national element to be attacked in any attempt to solve our issue of violent gun deaths. If they are successful in selling this concept, the pressures that exist on the control of guns themselves will be marginalized. If you are really interested in professional evaluations of any relationship between the two, just GOOGLE “mental health and gun violence”. You will see there is little professional data linking the two.
Most Americans simply want the carnage to stop.
If you look open-mindedly at the roots of our violent gun deaths, some reasonable conclusions can be reached. There is no doubt that mental health issues play a role in our violent gun deaths. However, mental health issues exist around the globe. If that is the primary causal factor in violent gun deaths, why are other countries ranked high on the list not plagued with concomitant violent gun deaths? It’s pretty simple, they have functioning gun control laws.
Some proposed changes in gun laws are probably potentially helpful – age limits on possession, control of military style automatic weapons, background checks, safe firearm storage, and red flag laws to name a few. However, if the goal is to sharply limit violent gun deaths, other proposals such as permitless open carry and concealed carry laws are not helpful.
It is a painful but obvious fact that if you really want to reduce violent gun deaths, you simply have to consider the instrument of death – the weapon itself and the add-ons that increase its lethality.
What unhappily sets the United States apart from most of the rest of the world is the fact that we have more guns per capita than any other country; we permit the private ownership of portable automatic military weapons and, to top that off, with legal multiple shot magazines. And to what end? To any true sportsman, these are not hunting weapons. What real hunter needs a weapon that will fire multiple shots in seconds to kill a deer? - and which will probably make some if not most of the venison inedible?
Under the guidance of the NRA, the gun lobby is doing anything and everything to avoid movement in the direction of limiting the types and numbers of guns and additions to those guns like giant magazines and silencers which make them more efficient killers.
What is the motivation here? Is it fear of a hostile neighbor? Fear of political violence, fear of the other political Party? A real cynic recently opined that the reason the gun lobby is fighting so fiercely against any sort of actual control of guns, particularly military style automatic weapons, is that it wants to have those weapons in “reliable hands” for the coming revolution!
Any country most surely would benefit from increased involvement in mental health issues. Americans are appropriately receptive to that sort of program, and it would make us far better off, but almost certainly not in the realm of violent gun deaths
Focusing on mental health as the sole cause of and potential solution to our problems with violent gun deaths brings with it serious issues. It stands a very good chance of diverting any hope this country might have for better control of those types of lethal firearms that are the basic cause of our increasing problem with violent gun deaths.
Haviland Smith is a lifelong hunter and gun owner, a Life Member of the NRA for over 50 years and served on the Board of Vermont Fish and Wildlife.