Every year the dictionary adds words that have been incorporated into the mainstream vernacular. Some of the words added this year include self-coup, latine, rage farming, petfluencer, nearlywed and hellscape. While the purpose of this blog is not to define the new dictionary words for 2023, hellscape is defined as, “a very unpleasant or frightening place or situation.” I think this is most appropriate for this topic. We are in a very frightening time and segments of our population face very frightening situations.
One term that has been bantered about for several years is gun violence. My sense of things is that gun violence is a term that was originally coined in the media. It has since taken on a life of its own. Gun violence is used every day in both local and national print media and used in both local and national electronic media including television, radio, and social media pages. You can see the term gun violence in articles published by the American Psychological Association, the National Institute of Justice, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and innumerable other web sites. But what exactly is gun violence? All the articles I have read that had gun violence as the topic did not define what gun violence means in the context of the article. The crux of the articles I read when I searched gun violence was some sort of injury, up to and including death, had occurred and a gun was involved.
A gun is an inanimate object. Inanimate, by Webster’s definition, is “lacking the qualities of living things.” An inanimate object takes an outside force to operate. Like any other inanimate object, a gun cannot act on its own. Just like a jet plane cannot fly itself, a gun cannot fire itself. While some planes are equipped with autopilot and some automobiles are equipped with autonomous driving systems, guns have not achieved this level of artificial intelligence. A gun does not come out of a police officer’s holster by itself. A gun cannot open a gun safe, load itself, and randomly shoot. A gun cannot take itself to the range and practice. For a gun to operate, it takes the action of a HUMAN BEING! A police officer must draw the gun and press the trigger. A human being must put the gun in the car and drive it to the range. A human must open a gun safe, remove the gun, load the gun, and manipulate the trigger to make the gun fire. Guns cannot do any of these things by themselves. They are inanimate!
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported in 2021 that approximately 43,000 people died in vehicle accidents. This was a 10.5% increase over 2020. Fatalities in multi-vehicle crashes were up 16%, fatalities on urban roads were up 16%, fatalities among drivers sixty-five and older were up 14%, and fatalities in crashes involving at least one large truck were up 13%. How often do you see a local news segment begin with a fatal vehicle crash? Why is there no political outrage over the number of deaths on the roadways of this country? Why have there not been discussions banning motor vehicles? Why has there not been a movement to increase public transportation in this country to take vehicles off the road? Why are vehicle accidents not the vehicle’s fault? Why do you not hear the term vehicle violence? It is simple, vehicle violence is not politically advantageous. The first legislator to come out publicly to debate vehicle violence and advocate banning certain types of vehicle traffic in lieu of public transportation would be laughed out of either the House or the Senate. The reason this has not happened is because there is no political advantage.
The National Center for Health Statistics reported the number of drug overdose deaths in 2022 was approximately 110,000. The National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics reported the federal budget for drug control in 2020 was $35 billion. President Richard Nixon declared a “war on drugs” 1971, stating that drug abuse was “public enemy number one.” We are still fighting that war today and it is infinitely worse. Why has this problem not been successfully addressed? No political advantage.
Some of the statistics that will be discussed here may seem to conflict. To clarify some of these perceptions, we probably should define four terms: homicide, murder, manslaughter, and suicide. Black’s Law Dictionary defines a homicide as, “the killing of one human being by the act, procurement, or omission of another.” In other words, when one human being kills another human being. This definition does not differentiate between the legal taking of a life and the unlawful taking of a life. Murder is defined as, “the unlawful taking of the life of another with malice aforethought.” In simple terms, an individual unlawfully kills another individual with intent. Manslaughter is defined as, “the unlawful killing of another without malice, either expressed or implied.” An example would be on New Year’s Eve an individual is celebrating by firing a gun into the air. A round strikes and kills the victim. There was no intent to kill the victim. A suicide is defined as, “self-destruction; the deliberate termination of one’s existence.” Statista reported in 2021, 6,012 murders were perpetrated in the United States using a handgun. Statista further reported in 2021, 4,740 murders were perpetrated using an unspecified firearm. This data suggests that in 2021, 10,752 murders in the United States were perpetrated using firearms. The Small Arms Survey (SAS) reported in 2021 Americans owned 393 million guns of some type. These are privately owned firearms, not firearms owned by the military or any governmental entity. As of this writing (11/2023), census.gov reports that the population of the United States is 335 million. This is approximately 1.2 firearms for every man, woman, and child in these United States. If guns were the perpetrators of murders, the guns would have exterminated the population of the United States. There are more firearms in the United States then there are people! So, guns are clearly NOT the issue. If guns killed people, why do we send soldiers to fight wars? We would just send guns!!!
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