Archive: Opinions

At the last Lansing Town Board working meeting Supervisor Kathy Miller said that shootings only seem to happen in America.  She said when she travels she talks to people and they say shootings are not so much an issue in Europe.  But they certainly are here in the US.  As I was scanning headlines this morning there was news of at least a half dozen shootings around the country.  Looking at world statistics, the United States is certainly not alone in mass shootings, but, as in many other things, we are a world leader.

As we track Star readership statistics, articles we have published on the New York State SAFE Act have been getting singular attention.  When I first heard of the SAFE Act I thought it was a politically motivated knee-jerk reaction to a terrible disaster.  I thought some of the motivation behind it was genuine, while most reflected a governor's musings about what pictures he wants to hang on the walls of the White House one day.  I have never been a fan of governments reacting after the fact.  It has always seemed to me that proactive, well thought out legislation could save those lives lost in whatever events happen to spur  ill-conceived, reactive law making.

15 of the worst mass shootings between 1966 and 2012 took place in the United States.  Newtown was the fourth worst, with 27 dead.  The very worst was in Oslo, Norway in 2011 when 77 people were killed, followed by Port Arthur, Australia when 35 people were killed in 1966, and then Blacksburg, Virginia with 32 killed in 2007.  There were 16 mass shootings in the U.S. including Newtown in 2012.  89 people were killed (including some of the shooters) and 98 were wounded.  So you could say we have a problem.

The argument that guns don't kill people, people kill people is generally right, though more of the people who kill people probably kill them because guns are available to them.  The Newtown killer wouldn't have gone to that school to strangle his victims to death.  Access to guns was part of his motivation to go forward with his plan.

One of the key reasons that people kill people is that it's sexy.  Look at television, novels, movies, video games.  The opening sequences to every James Bond movie.  Angelina Jolie movies like Laura Croft Tomb Raider or Mr. & Mrs. Smith.  Just about every police or mystery show on TV has been about shootings, and shootings are a regular part of the plots.  All those folks on NCIS that are shot dead by attractive, sympathetic law enforcers.  If the Hollywood world were the real world we'd probably all be dead.

When you die in a video game it doesn't really hurt and you get more lives.  Most kids (and adults) understand it is just a game and real life doesn't work that way, but it does encourage a way of thinking about consequences that probably isn't healthy.  When it comes to acting out, we're not worried about most kids anyway.  We're worried about the ones who buy it and decide to do it in the real world.

It also seems that guts and gore have made fantasy shootings sexier these days.  When the Lone Ranger shot his gun at a baddy in the 1950s you heard a noise and maybe saw a little smoke.  The baddy fell down and closed his eyes.  No blood, but the dramatic point was made.  In those days we didn't have the number of real shootings we have today.

I know plenty of gun people and not-gun people, all of whom I would say are good, responsible people.  I suppose that is why I sympathize with arguments on both sides.  The problem is that there are no good solutions to our gun problem.  But there probably are some good compromises that would certainly be arrived at and implemented if our governments take serious time to figure them out devoid of politics, lobbying and power brokering.  Why don't they do that?

It is not too late to do that to thoughtfully fix the SAFE Act, but someone has to sit down and do it.  Now that it's law, the sooner, the better.

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