Another mass shooting in a public setting where young people come to learn. It was the horrific picture of American violence, as American as apple pie.
New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof stuns us with statistics. This country tolerates 33, 000 deaths from firearms annually (60 percent suicides), 92 gun deaths per day. Since 1970, more of us (1.45 million) died from guns than died in all U.S. wars since the Revolutionary War (1.4 million). “More preschoolers are shot dead each year (82 in 2013) than police officers are in the line of duty (27 in 2013),” Kristof reported. I also read that the recent shooting in Oregon was the 45th school shooting in the U.S. in the first 274 days of 2015.
Kristof pleads for an evidence-based public health approach to dealing with mass shootings, which makes sense. He writes, “We’re angry, but we also need to be smart and, frankly, liberal efforts, like the assault weapons ban, were poorly designed and saved few lives while brazen talk about banning guns sparked a backlash that empowered the National Rifle Association.” The gun lobby has blocked not only sensible legislation to protect our children, but also research on making guns safer.
The public health model has worked in the past. Yes, as the gun lobby asserts, cars kill people, too. But to lower the death rate from automobile accidents we mandate driver’s licenses and punish those who speed or drive under the influence of alcohol. Cars are not banned, but through regulation, research and industry modifications they have been made safer (seatbelts, air bags, padded dashboards, safety glass and collapsible steering columns) reducing car deaths 95 percent.
Parents should never have to worry about a mass shooting in a child’s school, an accidental shooting in their own home or the home of a playmate, or suicide of a family member. Is there anything parents themselves can do while waiting for a public health solution to this epidemic?
Yes, there is. First of all, parents must protect their children from accidental death in their own home by securing all guns. My husband had multiple guns always secured in a gun safe, the ammunition was locked in another steel box, and the keys to both were on his keychain. He never walked into the house with a loaded gun.
Guns are prevalent in U.S. homes. It is estimated that there are 270 million guns in civilian hands and that about 32 percent of U.S. households have at least one gun, fewer households than in the 1970’s because hunting is less popular, but gun households usually have multiple weapons.
Pediatricians should always ask if there is a gun in the home and if it is locked up. Sadly, in 2014, Florida passed a law making it illegal for doctors to do so (the so-called Docs vs. Glocks bill). You keep a loaded gun under the pillow to protect yourself and your family? For every time a gun was used in the home for self-defense or an otherwise justified shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal shootings or homicides and 11 attempted or completed suicides. Do guns really protect your family?
Parents have another task. It may be awkward, but if one out of three houses on your block has guns, don’t you want to know how those guns are stored before you let your child play there? Find a nice way to ask. I suggest you ask if guns are locked up rather than, “Do you have a gun?” Because a bunch of blog entries I found while researching this column told people how to lie when asked about guns in the house. My favorite: “Gun? What’s a gun? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Nope … not me.”
Finally, mental illness is real, occurs in children, and can be fatal to your child or others. Another New York Times columnist, Timothy Egan, points out that, given the problem we have with crackpot politicians and the lobbying of the NRA, our gun culture is not going to change anytime soon. “Don’t look for solutions from the political system, which can’t even produce a background check measure supported by 90 percent of citizens. We should look, instead, to the mothers of America. The politics have to be replaced by the personal.”
I agree. Parents: Go online and learn a bit about signs of depression and psychosis in children. Get help for a child who shows symptoms. Know what such a child is doing online. Find other ways to bond with that child besides buying and shooting guns. We don’t give matches and gas to a toddler, do we? We have to recognize that a quiet person or child who prefers being alone over being with others may need help.
Let’s not give up on the political. Pay attention to the gun politics of those you vote for. I don’t want to take guns away from hunters. But I do want to keep guns out of the hands of children and the mentally ill. And I want to temper our gun culture so no politician running for high office will ever again dare to say, “I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away.”
