Opinion: frequent mass shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon, but they're only part of the country's violent gun culture
The United States has a distinctive gun culture. There are about 400 million guns in the US, 120 guns for every 100 persons, and about a third of all the guns in the world are in the hands of Americans. It comes as no surprise then that the US leads the world in rates of gun death.
In 2020, over 45,000 Americans died from gun-related injuries. Mass shootings dominate the news, including recent shootings in Buffalo (10 fatalities) and this week's massacre in Texas (21 fatalities, 19 of these elementary school children). By contrast, Japan, with a population about a third the size of the US, sees about 10 gun-related deaths each year.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, RTÉ Washington Correspondent Sean Whelan reports from Ulvade in Texas following a school shooting in which 19 children and two teachers were killed
Such frequent mass shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon, but they are only the tip of the iceberg. On an average day, about 120 Americans will die as a results of gun related injuries, about half by suicide, 10% by accidents and the rest by homicide. A week from today, nearly 1,000 Americans will have died as the result of firearms. The media focusses on spectacular mass shootings with military-grade weapons, but most of these deaths will be tied to cheap handguns (the so-called Saturday night specials).
60 to 80% of Americans support various types of gun control, ranging from background checks to restrictions on the sale of assault rifles or high-capacity magazines. However, the US Congress has been unable to pass meaningful gun control legislation for decades. Several factors are at play here, ranging from the successful lobbying efforts of the National Rifle Association to the partisan divide on gun legislation (Republicans are significantly more likely to oppose gun legislation than Democrats).
But there is also a deeper explanation which has to do with the early history of the United States, specifically the period when the constitution and the first 10 amendments of the constitution (the Bill of Rights) were written. It is important to remember that there were states before there was a United States, and states were wary of giving up their privileges and rights to form a Union, a crucial factor in the American civil war.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, California State Senator Anthony Portatino discusses gun control legislation in his state following the latest mass shooting in a US school
States that are more permissive about guns are likely to strongly resist federal efforts to restrict firearms. The leaders of the Unites States during its formative period were also deeply suspicious of democracy. They saw it as the rule of the mob, and put several structures in place to keep the mob in its place, one of the most important being the US Senate.
The legislative branch of the American government is divided into the House of Representatives, where representation is roughly proportional to population, and the Senate, where each state has two senators. In many ways, the Senate was designed to put the brakes on democracy and senators were chosen by state legislatures rather than the public until 1913. The Senate is deeply undemocratic, in the sense that each state has the same number of senators. Thus, Wyoming (population around 576,000) has the same representation in the Senate as California (approximate population of 39 million).
If more than 40 of the 100 senators oppose a bill, they can filibuster and block it from ever coming up for a vote. This gives lightly populated states outsized power so, because gun ownership and opposition to gun control run stronger in rural states, a relatively small proportion of the population can block the will of a solid majority who want more gun control. Until recently, federal law forbade even doing research on the causes of gun violence or the methods of prevention, and there is still strong resistance to doing something as innocuous as funding research on ways to reduce gun violence.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
From RTÉ Radio1's Liveline, listeners discuss the mass shooting in Texas, child safety in schools and gun control in the US
The most pernicious factor in American politics that feeds gun violence is that candidates for the major parties are usually chosen in primary elections, and turnout for these primaries is abysmally low. Primary elections attract voters are passionate about a narrow set of issues, and pro-gun voters are definitely passionate.
Guns represent an unfortunate part of the identify of many Americans, and efforts to place even the mildest controls on guns are received as a threat to that identity. As a result, laws that would seem impossibly permissive in most countries are routinely passed in many American states. For example, Texas law allows virtually anyone to openly carry a gun, with no requirements that they be trained to safely operate them or that they are mentally sound to be carrying firearms.
Americans are usually optimistic, but it can be hard to be optimistic about the avalanche of gun deaths in America. However, history does point to one strategy for reducing gun violence and that is reframing the debate as a public health issue.
It is reasonable to believe that a public health campaign to convince people to get guns out of their lives can make a difference
One of the main rationales for gun ownership is the belief that they contribute to safety, but this belief is ill-founded. Having a gun or being around guns greatly increases the risk of death by homicide. Having a gun in the house greatly increases the risk of suicide. The likelihood that guns will be used to protect your family or to stop a crime is miniscule; if you have a gun, the persons most likely to be shot with that gun are you and the members of your family.
Most gun owners have no idea of how much more dangerous their life is if guns are around. Public health campaigns are expensive and time-consuming, but there are plenty of examples of the success of these campaigns. When I was growing up in the US, most people smoked and virtually nobody wore seat belts, but both of these unhealthy trends were reversed over time.
It is reasonable to believe that a sustained public health campaign focused on convincing people to get guns out of their lives can eventually make a difference. No country should tolerate 45,000 gun deaths per year and perhaps the day will come when the US will wake up and do something about the terrible toll guns take on Americans.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
