The population of the United States of America in 1937 was approximately 130 million people. That year 37,461 people died in car crashes, for a per capita rate of 29.3. 1937 was the deadliest year in history for American drivers. By comparison, the population of the US in 2016 was approximately 328 million people and 37,819 people were killed in car crashes for a per capita rate of 11.5. As an empathetic and caring people, Americans have put forth a great deal of effort to making cars safer and this effort has in fact paid off in spades.
Ford was the first auto manufacturer in the US to offer the option of seat belts in 1955 and in 1968 the first seat belt law was passed. It was a Federal law requiring that seat belts be installed at each seating position in all cars manufactured in the US. The list of required safety features is long indeed: rear view mirrors, windshield wiper, headlights, turn signals, collapsible steering wheels, air bags and on and on and on.
All of these safety features add to the cost of the car, but we have decided as a society that we are willing to pay that additional cost in order to reduce the likelihood that our loved ones, our neighbors, or we ourselves will be killed in an automobile accident. We know that people are going to die in cars, we will never be able to completely eliminate these tragedies altogether, but the benefits that personal transportation provide to us outweigh the costs and we can sleep secure in the knowledge that we are continually striving to improve survivability and that these efforts are in fact paying huge dividends.
Civilizations throughout history have made these types of cost-benefit analysis on a variety of issues and in modern America we call them “Politics”. In the past we have had this type of discussion around the issue of guns. The extremists on the left have called for the elimination of guns altogether. The extremists on the right, lead by the National Rifle Association, have called for no restrictions whatsoever on private gun ownership. Neither of these positions seems reasonable.
But in our present condition, the extreme far right has decidedly won this argument. Any restriction, condition or regulation which applies to private gun ownership is viewed as a step toward the government beginning the process of confiscating all privately held guns in the country. Whether or not the government could do this, even if it wanted to is beside the point. Unlike regulations and restrictions on the manufacture and use of automobiles, guns have something that virtually no other product in this country has; guns have their own constitutional amendment, which elevates them to an almost sacred status. Not only is there an amendment, it is the second amendment and I have even heard the argument that this very fact shows us the vital importance that the wise and esteemed Founding Fathers placed on this particular God-Given right.
The school shooting in Parkland Florida on February 14 was the 18th school shooting thus far this year. February 14 was the 45th day of the year, giving us a school shooting every 2.5 days this year. At this rate we should expect about 145 school shootings in 2018. It’s a high price, indeed!
As a country we have made our decision about this. We need now to own up to it, to declare it to the world and move on, all of us, left and right, liberal and conservative, atheist and God-fearing.
Children slaughtered in schools is simply the price we pay for unfettered access to guns and to protect the second amendment.
We have clearly and loudly proclaimed this to be our true and proper principle as modern Americans. It is who we have decided to be as a nation.
Time after time when odious individuals perpetrate these awful events, we shake our heads in disbelief, offer our condolences, briefly lament the lack of mental health services and proclaim with the courage of our convictions that the answer must be, has to be, more guns, for only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun.
Our so-called leaders in Washington have totally abdicated their duty and out of fear have allowed the National Rifle Association to dictate our country’s gun policies. Nothing done after Columbine, nothing done after Sandy Hook, nothing done after any of these school shootings in America, because our current crop of “leaders” won’t stand up to an organization that itself claims a membership of only 5 million. Not exactly an overwhelming majority of Americans, but smart enough to vote and large enough to swing elections in their favor.
There is already one striking difference arising out of the Valentine’s Day Massacre in Parkland. The student-survivors are speaking out and speaking out with a loud, clear and well-reasoned voice. They have forcefully rejected the stupid notion that “now is not the time.” As kids and young people tend to do, they cut through the haze and go directly to the heart of the matter, and do so in no uncertain terms.
Emma Gonzales an 18-year-old senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School spoke on Saturday. I hope you heard her heartfelt words; we all need to. Here is an excerpt.
“The people in the government who were voted into power are lying to us. And us kids seem to be the only ones who notice and our parents to call BS. Companies trying to make caricatures of the teenagers these days, saying that all we are self-involved and trend-obsessed and they hush us into submission when our message doesn’t reach the ears of the nation, we are prepared to call BS. Politicians who sit in their gilded House and Senate seats funded by the NRA telling us nothing could have been done to prevent this, we call BS. They say tougher guns laws do not decrease gun violence. We call BS. They say a good guy with a gun stops a bad guy with a gun. We call BS. They say guns are just tools like knives and are as dangerous as cars. We call BS. They say no laws could have prevented the hundreds of senseless tragedies that have occurred. We call BS. That us kids don’t know what we’re talking about, that we’re too young to understand how the government works. We call BS.”…
…”If you agree, register to vote. Contact your local congresspeople. Give them a piece of your mind. Throw them out.”
It’s that last sentence. “Throw them out.” Well said, Emma!
I refuse to believe that our Founding Fathers were willing to sacrifice the country’s children in order that you could have as many of any type of gun you want. I wonder if they would have rethought their position if they believed that America would come to a place 230 years hence when any guns laws were considered so threatening that we would be willing to allow guns to be turned on children in schools rather than have any discussion about regulating them. I refuse to believe that about the men that invented America.
This is not what they wanted or could possibly have envisioned. When we refuse to even have a discussion about gun safety, when we shift the discussion to mental health, when we proclaim more guns as the answer, we are not honoring our Founding Fathers or the principles they fought so hard to incorporate into our governing document. We are, in fact, betraying all that they stood for, all they fought for and we are failing to do our duty as stewards of the legacy they provided.
If we had not put forth the effort and continue to make the effort to make cars safer, we would be seeing over 110,000 deaths per year. But we do make the effort.
If the current leaders of the country are so paralyzed by their fear of the NRA we must find folks who are not, we must do what Emma so eloquently pleads for us to do, register to vote and throw them out. We must recognize that right now the price we are paying is too high.
How many more children are we willing to sacrifice before the alter of the second amendment?