Beating Guns

by Shane Claiborne

  Exhibit 16

  There are more safety regulations on toy guns than real ones. The Consumer Protection Act of 1972 prohibits the Consumer Protection Commission from examining the quality or safety of any gun or any piece of ammunition. In late 2005, the US Congress and President George W. Bush passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce Act, which denies victims of gun violence the right to sue the manufacturers, distributors, or dealers for negligent, reckless, or irresponsible conduct. No other industry in America enjoys such blanket immunity and protection.

  You can hardly miss the irony. If you shoot your friend’s eye out with a Nerf gun, you can sue Nerf. But you can’t if it’s a Winchester rifle or an AR-15. You can sue a toy gun manufacturer but not the company that makes assault rifles or a gun shop that sells a gun to a drunk man who walks out and kills someone. Unprecedented immunity. It’s one more reason that guns that don’t even have safety controls are legal in our homes and on our streets. Teddy bears, dolls, and toy guns must pass four sets of strict regulations before they can be sold. Not so with guns.

  Exhibit 17

  In an attempt to make guns more attractive to women, and especially young women, gun dealers have started making Hello Kitty assault rifles and bubble-gum-pink pistols. Two kids in North Carolina, ages three and seven, found one of them, and the three-year-old was killed as they played with it. And of course the manufacturers are immune from any liability, even though they intentionally created weapons that would attract children.

  Exhibit 18

  In some states, concealed carry permits are issued to people who are legally blind.

  In many states, an eighteen-year-old can own a handgun. You can have a gun, and even join the military, before you are old enough to drink a beer. Young people between the ages of eighteen and twenty have the highest rates of killing. Still, in the states where the legal age to own a gun is twenty-one, the gun lobby has filed lawsuits to force them to lower the age to eighteen. For the record, we’re not advocating for dropping the drinking age. It’s just interesting what we trust our teenagers with—guns but not alcohol.

  Exhibit 19

  In most states, a person can buy and own a gun without knowing how to use it, and there are no requirements that gun owners be trained in the safe operation of guns. Imagine letting someone drive a car off the lot without ever having driven one.

  Exhibit 20

  Folks on the no-fly list can still buy weapons. In a study from 2004 to 2010, individuals on the terrorist watch list were involved in firearm and explosives background checks 1,228 times. Of those attempts, 1,119 were approved, and 109 were denied. That means roughly 91 percent of attempts made by people we know are potentially dangerous were permitted. Over a thousand people on the no-fly list have bought weapons and explosives. You can’t fly on an airplane because you might be dangerous, but you can still buy weapons.13

  Exhibit 21

  Hundreds of couples toting AR-15 rifles packed a church in Pennsylvania one Wednesday to have their marriages blessed and their weapons celebrated as “rods of iron” that could have saved lives in a recent Florida school shooting. Women dressed in white and men in dark suits gripped the guns, which they had been urged to bring unloaded to the Sanctuary Church in the rural Pocono Mountains, about one hundred miles north of Philadelphia. Many celebrants wore crowns—some made of bullets—while church officials dressed in flowing pink and white garments to go with their armaments.14

  [© Eduard Munoz / Reuters Pictures]

  Exhibit 22

  It’s hard to explain a gun show, especially to those of you who don’t live in the United States. Imagine a giant open-air market with guns everywhere. And you don’t even need a permit to buy one. It’s like a rummage sale or, as one friend said, “a Tupperware party with weapons.” One of the gun shows advertised: “1000 tables . . . the size of 2 football fields . . . 1.5 miles of guns, knives and accessories.”

  I (Shane) just went to one of these gun shows that boasted of one thousand tables. Before you even entered the convention center, you passed by folks selling guns outside. One of them told me all I needed was $400 cash—no ID, no paperwork—and the gun was mine. You can buy a gun as easy as you can a cup of coffee. My wife wanted to find a .410 rifle like the one she had as a kid but didn’t have any luck. The irony was that while table after table was filled with assault weapons, it was almost impossible to find a .410. We found a handgun that shot one hundred rounds per minute, and then came upon a grenade launcher. I couldn’t stop myself and had to ask a few questions. Sure enough, I could buy it on the spot—even the grenades to go with it. The lady behind the counter told me all I needed was two things—an ID and $6,000 in cash. She even added, “The most important thing is the cash.”

  The ATF regards gun shows as the second-leading source of crime guns in the country, second only to corrupt gun dealers. There are more than five thousand gun shows each year. It is the easiest way for felons, criminals, terrorists, abusive husbands, youth, and mentally ill folks to get weapons, cheap and quick, with no questions asked.

  Exhibit 23

  Many gun purchases are what is often called a “straw purchase”: one person buys guns for someone else who is prohibited from purchasing. A lot of the time the “straw purchaser” is a woman buying guns for a man who can’t. Video footage of such a purchase looks a lot like an adult buying a minor alcohol. Often both people go into the gun shop. One person will point out the guns he wants, or hand the buyer a list, and then leave the store as the guns are purchased. Sometimes you can even see them get in the car together or exchange money and guns outside the shop. It’s nearly impossible to miss, and gun-shop owners can spot a straw purchase a mile away. Some gun shops have made a killing—literally—off of these sales, which is why they are so hesitant to stop them.

  We’re reluctant to try to “legislate morality” and would prefer that gun-shop owners voluntarily refuse to sell to straw purchasers, which they can surely do just as a liquor store owner can refuse to sell to someone buying alcohol for a minor. We should always prefer for folks to do right because they want to, not because they have to by law. Nevertheless, some simple procedures can nearly end straw purchases of guns, similar to how we have ended sales of alcohol to minors. A lot of the responsibility lies on the gun-shop owners, just as it does with liquor stores or bars. And we always know there are some irresponsible businesses that are going to make illegal sales because they can—and because they make money from those sales.

  A few bad gun shops are responsible for a vast majority of the guns used in crimes. Ninety percent of crime guns can be traced to 5 percent of the gun shops in this country.15 A handful of the worst gun shops in the country are responsible for a majority of the guns used in crimes. That’s important to remember. And absurd.

  Exhibit 24

  Not only can you find plans and parts online to build your own unregistered firearm, but now you can find the blueprints to print a gun on a 3-D printer. These 3-D guns are made out of ABS plastic, the same material as LEGO pieces. Guns like “The Liberator” are known as “downloadable guns” because you can literally find everything you need to print your own gun on the internet. Because they are made almost entirely from plastic, they can easily pass through metal detectors and make their way into schools, courthouses, or airplanes. Law enforcement officials refer to them as “ghost guns” since they have no serial number and are untraceable. ATF agents decided to test out the blueprint and found that the gun fired with the accuracy of a commercial handgun. There have already been one million downloads. This definitely belongs on the absurd list.16

  How did we get to this point?

  six

  Mythbusting

  Fifty percent of all statistics are wrong.

  —Fake fact

  WHEN IT COMES TO distilling the information about guns, it’s important to note that there are limited resources available for researching and studying gun violence. One of the most seditious strategies of the mil
itant gun lobby is to cut all funding for research. Much of the research we draw on has been privately funded, sometimes even by the researchers themselves, who passionately want to reduce gun violence and are convinced that the more people know, the more we can reduce gun violence. The NRA often accuses research findings of being “political opinion masquerading as medical science” and has pushed to cut millions of dollars in research money. Even the funds that are available for research purposes have a direct order from Congress, prompted by the NRA: none of the funds made available for research into injury prevention and control can be used “to advocate or promote gun control.” It’s kind of like saying we want to research the causes of cancer but want to make sure no one discourages folks from smoking or makes the tobacco companies look bad.1

  This has all but stopped any funding and projects, and remains one of the top priorities of the NRA. They do not want any research that could cast doubt on the claim that guns save lives. This is nothing new—other self-interested corporations and lobby groups have done the same thing. Remember how hard tobacco companies worked to block research or information that showed that tobacco use leads to cancer? They worked viciously around the clock to keep us all in the dark. But the truth shall set us free! Aren’t we glad that so much research has been done to make cars safer? Don’t we want to find out how we can keep fewer people from dying of opioids? Gun violence is also a public health crisis. And we need to study it to understand it.

  One of the major changes many of us could push for is more resources toward research and data collection. Research and information, studies and data, help us solve a public health crisis—whether that crisis is guns or opioids or cancer. We can’t solve what we don’t understand.

  Having said that, here are some things we do know, and they are vitally important to remember as we look for common ground and try to save lives in the years to come.

  Myth No. 1: The Slippery Slope

  The slippery slope myth is one hundred years old. It gained popularity after the NRA and others led the way in restricting tommy guns and other “gangster weapons” in 1924. While the NRA and nearly all major players in the gun-rights community were much in favor of limiting these dangerous weapons, gun advocates began talking about all guns as a bundle of sticks, the bundle being strong only when held together but weak when the pieces are separated out. It’s the idea that if we allow “them” to take any guns, they will take all the guns. The idea that “any gun means all guns” was not without controversy, even in the gun community, where many sport shooters, hunters, and other reasonable gun owners did not want to see machine guns and war weapons on our streets. But paranoia and fear won that battle, at least in the gun-rights world at the time. It has dominated much of the gun debate as a cliché talking point, primarily among extremists, who even have T-shirts and bumper stickers with an assault rifle that says, “Come and take it.” The idea that “they” are coming for our guns is still prevalent, but it is losing steam, as most gun owners don’t buy into it, which is why so many would like to see restrictions on assault rifles and high-capacity cartridges. The implied “them” is “the government,” but hopefully in a semi-functional democracy like ours, “we” are “them.” We can set the limits on our own government. It’s done all the time with tobacco, alcohol, and now marijuana and other drugs. We can do the same with guns. Banning semiautomatic weapons or high-capacity magazines that allow guns to shoot one hundred rounds per minute does not lead to taking away hunting rifles or even a handgun purchased for self-defense.

  Myth No. 2: Stranger Danger

  Random acts of violence, assault, and burglary do happen, but they are by far the exception rather than the norm. When it comes to gun violence, the odds of getting killed by someone you know are massively higher than being killed by a stranger.2 One fact that is proved true over and over is that the person who is most likely to kill you already has a key to your house.

  Most of America’s murders and assaults are not committed by strangers or criminals; they are committed by family members, friends, and acquaintances who, in acts of passion, take up a gun.

  But we can change the way the game is played. You are more likely than not to know your intruder, which only strengthens the argument to use nonviolence in these situations—and perhaps the familiarity you have with the person could open the way for nonviolence as you try to de-escalate or distract them from their violent intentions. (We will work on those skills in a few chapters.)

  Myth No. 3: Guns Keep Us Safe

  Often the very instrument that was purchased to protect us ends up taking our life or the life of someone we love. There are fewer than 1,600 verified instances of defensive gun use each year in the US. Compare that to the 118,000 people in any given year who are shot or shoot themselves.3 For every gun used in self-defense, six more are used to commit a crime.4 At least one study has shown that guns kept in the home are twelve times more likely to be involved in the death or injury of a member of the household than they are to stop an intruder.5 Studies of victims who have survived crimes like assaults or burglaries show that they used guns less than 1 percent of the time.6 More often, they used mace, used a phone (to film or call police), yelled, or ran away. Mace is shown to be just as effective as a gun in stopping a perpetrator. And in cases of sexual assault, having a gun can even be counterproductive.7

  One study of hundreds of sexual assaults showed that almost none of the victims who survived used a gun. Using a gun in defense of sexual assault did not change the outcome when compared to not using a gun: of those who used a gun, around 4 percent were still physically injured in the assault, and that was about the same percentage of those without guns.8 Almost two-thirds of the US population live without guns, and there is no evidence that they are more at risk of being robbed, assaulted, or killed than those with guns. Those with guns certainly have much higher rates of being victims of gun violence, murder, or suicide. Having a gun in the home increases the likelihood not only that someone will be shot accidentally but also that someone will die from suicide or murder.9 This is even more evident when it comes to domestic violence. A gun in the house is twenty-two times more likely to result in a death in one’s household or to be stolen and used in a violent crime than it is to be used against an intruder.10 Over half of all murders of women in the US are by their current or former intimate partner, and guns are the weapon of choice.11 If there is a gun in the home, abused women are five times more likely to become victims of domestic homicide.12 A man’s access to firearms, even one the woman may have purchased for herself, increases a woman’s risk of being killed.

  Myth No. 4: The Answer to a Bad Guy with a Gun Is a Good Guy with a Gun

  Some folks claim that guns are constantly used for self-defense. We’re going to spend some time on this myth because this is a popular one. Hang with us. Those who make this argument usually cite the research of a guy named Gary Kleck, whose study is the poster child for gun enthusiasts because it concluded that there are around 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year.13 Gun advocates often use his study to say that guns are used 6,850 times per day—once every thirteen seconds—for defense.14 A Google search shows that it has been cited over one million times. But hold on . . .

  According to a Harvard University study, people defended themselves with a gun in only 0.9 percent of crimes from 2007 to 2011.15 So how did Mr. Kleck convince people of such an inflated number?

  Kleck’s study has been debunked by multiple impartial experts for several reasons. First, it was not a professional, scientific inquiry. More than half of the “instances” cannot be verified at all, and even those that can are problematic because his research team did not define what constitutes a “use” for self-defense. Shooting in the air or even saying “I have a gun” qualified as defensive uses. The vagueness of his research has been compared to having a “Beware of Dog” sign and saying that your dog kept robbers away. What is clear is that most of the ways people defined “using a gun for defense
” did not mean actually shooting an intruder or even pulling out a gun.

  Memorial to the Lost

  MUSIC FESTIVAL, LAS VEGAS (OCTOBER 1, 2017)

  On October 1, 2017, fifty-eight people were killed and 851 others were injured in Las Vegas during a music festival, when a lone gunman fired more than 1,100 rounds from his hotel room. It all happened in ten minutes. He had twenty-four guns in the room with him; fourteen of them were AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles. Many of them were fitted with bump stocks that can shoot ninety rounds in ten seconds. These are the victims who lost their lives.

  Hannah Lassette Ahlers, 34 Charleston Hartfield, 34 Melissa V. Ramirez, 26

  Heather Lorraine Alvarado, 35 Christopher Hazencomb, 44 Jordyn N. Rivera, 21

  Dorene Anderson, 49 Jennifer Topaz Irvine, 42 Quinton Robbins, 20

  Carrie Rae Barnette, 34 Teresa Nicol Kimura, 38 Cameron Robinson, 28

  Jack Reginald Beaton, 54 Jessica Klymchuk, 34 Tara Ann Roe, 34

  Stephen Richard Berger, 44 Carly Anne Kreibaum, 34 Lisa Romero-Muniz, 48

  Candice Ryan Bowers, 40 Rhonda M. LeRocque, 42 Christopher Louis Roybal, 28

  Denise Burditus, 50 Victor L. Link, 55 Brett Schwanbeck, 61

  Sandra Casey, 34 Jordan McIldoon, 24 Bailey Schweitzer, 20

  Andrea Lee Anna Castilla, 28 Kelsey Breanne Meadows, 28 Laura Anne Shipp, 50

  Denise Cohen, 58 Calla-Marie Medig, 28 Erick Silva, 21

  Austin William Davis, 29 James Melton, 29 Susan Smith, 53

  Thomas Day Jr., 54 Patricia Mestas, 67 Brennan Lee Stewart, 30

  Christiana Duarte, 22 Austin Cooper Meyer, 24 Derrick Dean Taylor, 56

  Stacee Ann Etcheber, 50 Adrian Allan Murfitt, 35 Neysa C. Tonks, 46