Armed and Dangerous

The shooting of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has renewed the debate over guns in America and the need for stricter gun control. Jared Lee Loughner, the suspect in the Tucson shooting, had tried to enlist in the military but was barred, he was asked to leave school, and former classmates of his said he appeared to be "very disturbed." But he still got his hands on a gun.

Gun control has been an issue President Obama has tried to skirt, as he's been preoccupied with so many other issues. Ironically, right-wing demonstrators have shown up at presidential events with guns, paranoiacs have insisted Obama's ready to confiscate their guns, and Obama happily signed a credit card regulation bill to which Oklahoma Republican senator Tom Coburn - just as happily - added an irrelevant amendment to allow carrying firearms in our national parks. Obama may have to tackle the issue head-on and face the fact that we need tougher gun regulations, even though he's done less to initiate curbs on firearms than any President in recent memory.

I'm not optimistic about the regulation of guns in America in the future. Guns are as American as apple pie and stock car racing. And even if we controlled guns, it wouldn't necessarily make America a less violent place. Canada has a gun for every one of its citizens the same as we do, if we can believe Michael Moore, but its firearm homicide rate is much lower. Moore concluded that Americans may be more fearful of each other than Canadians are of each other - and Americans certainly fear their government. The violent rhetoric coming from the American right in the past two years makes me wonder if Jared Lee Loughner could have found a way to discharge his own paranoia without a gun. I doubt there were any weapons at the town hall meeting on the health care bill that I attended in September 2009, but the debate was anything but civil or reasonable. I was a little scared to be there.

Which begs the obvious question: If health care reform could generate such violent, hateful, and incendiary rhetoric, what kind of rhetoric would gun control generate?

The biggest reason I don't see any change in gun laws is twofold. First, violent crime rates tend to be higher in cities than in rural and suburban areas, where more people live and are largely unaffected by gun violence. I can think of only one shooting in my own suburban community in all the time I've lived here - a carjacking. Second, we've had several high-profile shootings in America in the past fifty years. If the shooting of Presidents and pop stars can't get people to wise up about guns and violence, how could a shooting of a U.S. House member do so?

Except - and this is the bit of hope in this Pandora's box - a change in our gun laws and a discussion about violence may yet be possible because of the circumstances surrounding this incident. After all, the attack on Gabrielle Giffords and others in that shopping center most likely wouldn't have happened - and several others would still be alive - if we didn't have the violent rhetoric to inspire the shooting and the easy access to guns to make it possible. Maybe people will think about that for awhile.