Newtown shooting – Memphis Flyer

Two fantasies propel the debate over gun control. The first, which has long been the mantra of gun-rights advocates, is that the best way to prevent mass shootings and stop criminals is for more people to carry guns. The theory being that we need more armed “good guys” to intervene when the bad guys start shooting. This hasn’t worked yet, certainly not in the case of the recurrent plague of mass shootings. And most Americans aren’t comfortable with the idea of everyone walking around with guns in Walgreens.

The other fantasy, which we hear from gun-control advocates after each mass shooting, is that we can immediately fix the problem by banning the sale of high-capacity magazines and “assault rifles,” such as the AR-15. This is similar to the fantasy promulgated by the Republicans a few years back that we could fix the immigration problem by deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants.

There are at least 3 million privately owned AR-15s, the civilian version of the military’s M-16, in the U.S. And since the Newtown shooting, they are flying off the shelves of gun retailers, as gun-lovers anticipate they will soon be banned. There are an additional 300 million guns in private hands in the U.S. Banning AR-15 sales and beginning a buy-back program may help in the long run, but those guns will be with us for some time.

Guns kill more than 30,000 people in the U.S. every year; 10,000 of those deaths are homicides. Two categories of gun homicides get the headlines: The first is criminal activity — people using guns to kill in the course of robbing, dealing drugs, drive-by shootings, and fighting cops — as happened in the incident in Memphis last week that took the life of Officer Martoiya Lang.

The second category is mass shootings, where someone starts killing people with no apparent goal other than to kill. We’ve had an increasing number of these in recent years. They are horrific and appalling, because so many innocent people die in such a random, unexpected fashion. By necessity, these shooters almost always use high-round-capacity, rapid-fire guns. By any measure, they are mentally ill.

Surely, even the staunchest gun-rights advocate would agree that we need to do our utmost to keep guns from violent criminals and the mentally ill. From that point of agreement, action needs to be taken. The public is sick of this plague on the land. It’s time to let go of the fantasies and get real about guns, crime, and mental health issues.

Bruce VanWyngarden

brucev@memphisflyer.com

This past Friday morning, I sent my children off to school with an extra hug and kiss, telling them good-bye, as they were about to embark on a two-week Christmas road trip with their father. They’ve made the trek to Michigan and back multiple times, but each journey tests my nerves. Twenty-five hours is a long time to have them at the mercy of wintry roads and holiday drivers. In a typical year, a part of my heart is sealed in a panic room until they return. By Friday afternoon, however, I had to just put the entire thing in lock-down.

One of the most terrifying realizations parents make is how much of our children’s safety is completely out of our control. It’s a truth we try to swaddle in waffled cotton and tighten down in five-point harnesses, but the reality is that we are all one fallen oak limb, one slippery intersection, one frayed wire away from potential disaster. But unless we’re willing to live in a solar-powered underground allergen-free bomb shelter, there isn’t much that can be done to eliminate every risk. We have to do our best and then send them out into the world. And hope for the best. Every day we hope.

Last Friday’s school shooting in Newtown struck so many parents so deeply in part, I think, because it represented the very worst, the bottom of the dread barrel that we don’t dare to scrape. It was a violation of the contract we make with humanity every day, a main point of which is: I’ll place this small, helpless, innocent being in the care of my community because doing so will someday serve us all. All it takes is one person’s aberrance from that contract to destroy our faith in it, at least for a time.

I’m no expert on human behavior, but one of the basics I learned in Intro to Psychology is that it’s a natural desire to dehumanize those among us whose behavior is too abhorrent to comprehend. Ever since then, I’ve avoided using the term “monster” to describe criminals, no matter how unnatural their behavior may seem. I’ve tried to remember that, somewhere in their deepest reaches, they are still people, albeit people gone terribly wrong, and by seeing them as such, we’re better able to minimize future risk.

But over the last few days, with talk of every possible factor that could go into creating a person capable of the unimaginable horror experienced in Newtown, CT, I gave up. There’s no reason, I thought. He’s a monster. That’s all.

I’ve spent nearly 10 years telling my children that monsters aren’t real, that their imaginations shouldn’t get the best of them, that the real world is a pretty decent place. And even though I know, logically, that all those things are still true, the reminder of the random cruelty and unfairness humans are able to unleash on each other is deeply disturbing.

It’s worth having the conversations and asking the questions about what causes tragedies like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary, and hopefully they’ll result in a safer, healthier society, but I think it’s misguided to believe that we can legislate or medicate or even culturally revolutionize our way out of danger. The monster is chaos, and it can’t be destroyed.

And yet, we face it. We make breakfast and pack lunches. We help with homework and oversee piano practice. We live our lives. Because no matter what unknown forces may be out there trying to take what’s most precious from us, we have to give our children the lives they deserve. And that means accepting some risk, having some hope, and keeping the monster under our own beds.