With new legislation in New York, and the President making his own recommendations for the nation, the debate about gun control has reached a point that it will most likely not just fade away as it usually does after a tragedy. I find myself concerned because in my opinion, the debate is not at all centered on actual issues. Both sides are playing the blame game. The gun control advocates blame “high capacity” clips and the lack of background checks, while the NRA tries to blame video games and other media for making people violent. The news media only makes the problem worse by allowing the loudest and dumbest of both sides to have all the air time. But no one seems to be asking the most important question. Why is there so much gun violence in the United States?

The reason that it is an important question is because there an estimated 270 million+ guns in the United States (1). Even with broad gun control legislation enacted today, it would take many years to really make guns hard to get a hold of. There is also the fact that many of the things that the President wants to ban like clips with capacity for more than 10 rounds and “Assault Weapons” (2) already exist in the wild and the government would have to force the owners to surrender those things or wait for the owners to die and make it illegal to transfer the banned items. The government forcing surrender is not feasible with the President’s current political capital, so I have to conclude that for the foreseeable future, the banned items will continue to exist in the wild.

So what causes gun violence? Advocates on both sides agree that the large majority of gun owners are responsible and not a danger to those around them. What we have left after we subtract the majority of gun owners are the gun owners who commit crimes with their guns.

So far, the main focus has been the issue of allowing individuals with mental health problems to access guns. This is more than likely because Adam Lanza, the shooter in the Newton massacre, had a history of mental health issues. Part of the Presidents 23 point Executive Action plan addresses clarifying to health care providers what Medicaid must cover, which is great (3). The downside is that the same plan also makes a call to clarify to health care providers that they can ask about gun access, and also clarifies that they can report threats. The NY Safe Act of 2013 goes even farther and mandates that mental health care workers must report anyone who they feel is a threat to themselves or others (4). The big issue that mandatory reporting will cause is that individuals who are suicidal will no longer be able to talk about their thoughts with their health care workers, it destroys the safe space aspect.

I have two main questions. The first is would better background checks have stopped Adam Lanza? He did not buy the guns he used in the crime, and he would have probably failed the background check, but his mother would not have. The real failure in his case seems to be the infrastructure to support his mental condition. My second question is how many gun deaths are committed by those who would be flagged in any kind of background check? So where do the rest come from?

I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that a large portion of the rest come from gang and drug violence. It is sad to me that the narrative has not included this aspect of American life. A lot of these deaths go by one or two at a time every night during the news, just statistics. These deaths don’t seem to concern most people most of the time. In my hometown of Kansas City, people lamented the 26 who died at Newton, but don’t seem so concerned with 108 people who were murdered in Kansas City in 2012.

So why are we not talking about what causes a large amount of murders? Nowhere in the narrative has either side raised the point that while drugs are illegal, they will be extremely lucrative. The incentive is there for dealers to carve out territory and then defend it against other dealers who want it. This leads to a lot of the violence. The guns are bought with drug money, and used to defend drug territory. I think common sense that a dealer who is moving a large amount of weight is probably more worried about other competitors killing him than he is about getting trouble for a “high capacity” clip.

Here are my recommendations.

Don’t make reporting mandatory. Allow reporting in narrow circumstances where the violence from the patient seems imminent. Don’t have background checks for ammunition. The red tape that would ensue is going to be a nightmare, and any sensible person is going to buy as much ammunition as they can at once to avoid having to go through a background check over and over again. That means that when a gun is stolen, the thief will probably be able to nab a large amount of ammunition at once. As for other gun crimes, I promise that the people who smuggle kilos and kilos of cocaine across the southern border will be able to get ammunition to the United States as well. Don’t ban “Assault Weapons”. The AWB is really just a scary looking weapon ban. There is no proof that getting rid of them will fix anything. In New York, the state that has just restricted access to guns like the AR-15, there were 445 murders committed with a firearm. Of those, 5 were committed with a rifle (5). Do fund research on gun violence and its causes. Do publish the results in an easy to read report Don’t let legislators lead any kind of task force. Let academics, who don’t have a pony in the race, work on an academic study of gun violence. Don’t focus on violent video games or movies unless the study can prove actual causation. Millions of youth play video games without going on a real shooting spree, so it makes sense that a young male shooter would have been exposed to Call of Duty or Counter Strike. It is just a scape goat because it is easy to blame and there is broad support in blaming it. Do have background checks at gun shows. Background checks at least make it harder for those who have committed violent crimes to get guns. It won’t stop them, but at least they then have to through illegal routes to get them. Why should we have a double standard that gun stores have to have background checks when a person who would fail that check can just go to a gun show and get one check free. Do increase funding for mental health care. Better study how guns protect people. Very little is mentioned about how often guns are used in defense. There is also an intangible benefit. We will never know how many crimes or robberies have been prevented because the would-be assailant does not know if the home owner has a gun or has a concealed carry license.

The most important thing is that we don’t scapegoat. I believe that the reason mental health and video games are being scape goated right now is because if we want to have an honest conversation about gun violence in the United States, we would have to talk about the failed war on drugs. That is something both parties can agree that they do not want to talk about.

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