 |
|
||||||
Talkshow queen Rosie O'Donnell has a solution to the recent rash of school shootings. "If you own a gun, I think you should go to prison," she said the day after the murders at Littleton, Colorado. For viewers who didn't get the point, Rosie slammed it home again last week, turning her rage on actor Tom Selleck.
Selleck was invited on O'Donnell's show presumably to promote his latest movie, the romantic comedy "The Love Letter." Instead O'Donnell relentlessly attacked him because of his membership in the National Rifle Association and a recent ad he made for the 128-year-old gun owners' group. Ever the gentleman, Selleck tried repeatedly to placate his irate host even as she interrupted him again and again.
O'Donnell later apologized for her bad behavior, but the damage was done. Her gaffe was made worse by a touch of hypocrisy — she is a spokesperson for the retailer K-Mart, whose many household products include firearms.
This demonization of a decent man springs from an understandable human urge. People want to do something — anything — to stop this nightmarish cycle of school shootings. But O'Donnell's attack on Selleck is a small-screen metaphor for the current mood of those who have never trusted regular Americans with guns. That mood is not one of detached reflection. It is the mindless loathing of a lynch mob.
Who are these "regular Americans"? Between 60 and 80 million American men and women own guns, depending on how you figure it. They include the night-shift nurse who refuses to be a victim in the parking lot of her inner-city hospital. They include the hunter who teaches his son to respect the humbling power of guns.
These 60 to 80 million people manage to get through each day without gunning down a schoolyard full of children. And they are being subjected to a nonstop barrage of bigotry intended to convince the world of one thing — they share the guilt for the murders in Littleton and its predecessors.
American gun owners are being successfully shamed for being who they are. Of course, the idea that these tens of millions of average Americans are somehow to blame for Littleton is as insane as the gunmen themselves were. But emotion trumps reason and fear rules over facts.
Here are some facts to consider before clamoring for more gun laws:
- Average Americans use guns to defend themselves against criminals at least 1 million times every year. This conservative figure is based on more than a dozen scientific studies by researchers on both sides of the gun control issue.
- 31 states now have laws allowing qualified citizens to carry concealed firearms for self-defense. Those states have enjoyed decreased levels of violent crime. People with concealed carry permits have a lower rate of crime than the general population. Mass public shootings fall dramatically in states that pass concealed-carry laws.
- Homicides have been on the wane overall for nearly 20 years. Accidental firearm deaths have been steadily decreasing for more than 60 years. This heartening trend began decades before anti-gun activists started lobbying for laws mandating trigger locks on handguns.
None of these facts can counter the raw emotion that recently drove the Senate to pass a trigger-lock bill. No one really believes that forcing gun makers to ship trigger locks with new handguns will stop such horrors as the Littleton murders. The proposed law's intended effect is further blunted by a 1997 agreement of most gun makers to voluntarily include trigger locks with each new handgun.
The trigger-lock bill is what watchful gun owners have always feared — one more step toward a total ban on guns. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., agreed in a Los Angeles Times interview that the Senate's trigger lock bill is a good first step. Hinting at the opportunities offered by Littleton, Lofgren said, "There are other sensible things that need to be done but they might take longer than next week."
And so it goes. Because the social pathology exemplified by Littleton is a generational child-rearing problem and not an equipment safety problem, it is very likely that we will see more school shootings. These will be followed by still more "sensible" laws passed in anger. Each new seemingly innocuous gun control law will provide a new way for gun owners to become criminals.
American gun owners will continue to bear the wrath of those who cannot or will not see the injustice of blaming the many for the misdeeds of the few. If the mob attacked such an all-around nice guy as Tom Selleck, it can come after any of us. That is, unless Mr. and Mrs. America, all 60 or 80 million of them, tell their tormentors "Put away the rope, we've had enough."
