This was originally written on 2nd October 2017 following the Las Vegas shooting where Stephen Paddock murdered 58 people and injured 851 more. The latest mass shooting (a phrase that will become out of date, almost before the ink is dry) at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. This is also the 17th school shooting in the USA in the first 45 days of 2018. I have not made any changes to the essay below (because this is tragically the same psychosis), but have added Venn Diagrams to visualize the issue of mental health and guns. Mental health is not the issue here. It is people with homicidal tendencies (many of whom will indeed have mental problems) having easy access to guns. We should not stigmatise a growing number of people with mental health problems. We should reduce access to guns.
If ever one needed proof of the broken state of US politics, the failure to deal with this perpetual gun crisis is it.
After 16 children and 1 teacher were killed in the Dunblane massacre on 13th March 1996, the UK acted.
After 35 people were killed in the PortArthur massacre on 28th April 1996, Australia acted.
It’s what any responsible legislature would do.
So far in 2017, US deaths from shootings totals a staggering 11,652 (I think not including the latest mass shooting in Las Vegas, and with 3 months still to run in 2017 – see gunsviolencearchive – and note this excludes suicides).
The totals for the previous 3 years 2014, 2015 and 2016 are 12,571; 13,500; and 15,079.
The number of those injured comes in at about two times those killed (but note that the ratio for the latest Las Vegas shooting is closer to 10, with the latest Associated Press report at the time of writing, giving 58 people dead and 515 injured).
One cannot imagine the huge number of those scarred by these deaths and injuries – survivors, close families, friends, colleagues, classmates, first-responders, relatives at home and abroad. Who indeed has not been impacted by these shootings, in the US and even abroad?
I write as someone with many relatives and friends in America, and having owed my living to great American companies for much of my career. But I am also someone whose family has been touched by this never-ending obsession that America has with guns.
And still Congress and Presidents seem incapable of standing up to the gun lobby and acting.
The US, far from acting, loosens further the access to guns or controls on them.
This is a national psychosis, and an AWOL legislature.
In both the UK and Australian examples, it was actually conservative administrations that brought in the necessary legislation, so the idea that only ‘liberals’ are interested in reducing the number and severity of shootings, by introducing gun control, is simply wrong. This should not be a party political issue.
In the US some will argue against gun control, saying that a determined criminal or madman can always get hold of a gun. This is a logical fallacy, trying to make the best be the enemy of the good. Just because an action is not guaranteed to be 100% perfect, is no reason for not taking an action that could be effective, and the case of the UK and Australia, very effective. Do we fail to deliver chemotherapy to treat cancer patients because it is not guaranteed to prevent every patient from dying; to be 100% perfect? Of course not. But this is just one of the many specious arguments used by the gun lobby in the USA to defend the indefensible.
But at its root there is, of course, a deeply polarised political system in the USA. The inability to confront the guns crisis, is the same grid-locked polarisation that is preventing the US dealing with healthcare, or the justice system, or endemic racism, or indeed, climate change.
How will America – a country that has given so much to the world – overcome this debilitating polarization in the body politic?
America needs a Mandela – a visionary leader able to bring people together to have a rationale, evidence based conversation – but none is in sight.
It’s enough to make one weep.
The 3 branches of the US Government ought to be ashamed, but expect more platitudinous ‘thoughts and prayers’ … the alternative to them doing their job.
Trump is now praying for the day when evil is banished, for god’s sake! An easy but totally ineffective substitute for actually doing anything practical to stem the carnage, and protect US citizens.
Some pictures added 16th February 2018 to illustrate the problem facing the USA …
EssaysConcerning 
I think it’s telling that your post mentioned not one word of condolence to the families of the massacre. Is it really a good idea to be so wrapped up in anger over politics that one forgets to be a human being?
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I empathize strongly with them, having had a loss in my own near family many years ago. That is why I wrote:
One cannot imagine the huge number of those scarred by these deaths and injuries – survivors, close families, friends, colleagues, classmates, first-responders, relatives at home and abroad. Who indeed has not been impacted by these shootings, in the US and even abroad?
I write as someone with many relatives and friends in America, and having owed my living to great American companies for much of my career. But I am also someone whose family has been touched by this never-ending obsession that America has with guns.
If you prefer a more formulaic response, that is fine. I choose to express my sadness differently.
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Reblogged this on Rachel and commented:
This is a great post from Richard Erskine about the lack of gun control in the US. I was thinking of writing something myself but I don’t think I can say it any better. There’s a very simple solution to this ongoing problem and it’s called gun control. As Richard points out other countries have successfully implemented gun control in the past and to great effect. In Australia in 1996 a gunman shot 35 people in Port Arthur. Immediately afterwards the then Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard (a conservative PM) initiated a gun buy-back scheme where gun owners could relinquish their guns in return for money. Australia has not had a gun massacre since.
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