by Roger Canaff
For decades and maybe longer, gun rights enthusiasts have
sought to end the gun control argument with the following statement: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill
people.”
This is technically true.
It is also meaningless.
Of course, guns don’t kill.
And pencils don’t make spelling errors. So what?
Not a single assassin of a United States president has
accomplished altering history by being a terrific knife wielder. James Earl Ray
did not end the blessed life of Martin Luther King with a slingshot. John
Lennon was not felled by a punch. James Brady would not have gone from a
dynamic, affable new press secretary to a man still struggling with a
disability had his attacker approached the side entrance of the Washington
Hilton in 1981 with a baseball bat.
It’s also true that guns don’t have mystical powers over the
human mind, seducing to reality their own use. Again, so what? It is undeniably true- and frankly common
sense- that killing is more likely to happen when a loaded gun is within easy
reach of a person familiar with its use. Police officers take their lives in
greater numbers, it is believed by experts, at least in part because of the
ready presence of guns. We in the anti-violence world know well that access to
firearms increases the risk of intimate partner murder around five fold.
No, this isn’t because guns in these homes suddenly come
alive like brooms in a Disney movie, begging to be used.
It’s because the handgun is an object as perfectly designed
for killing other humans as a chess board is for chess. The opposable thumb and
its meaty base folds securely around the grip. The index finger- the one we
control with far greater dexterity than any other- slides against the trigger
like a key in a lock. Propelling death at hundreds of feet per second is now a
squeeze away. For millennia, killing was by necessity a contact sport. Beating,
strangling, stabbing and other forms of inter-personal violence required a
victim, in most cases, no further than arm’s length away. Guns changed all of
that. Now death could be dealt from a distance, both physically and-
inexorably- emotionally.
But handguns reduced it to little more than the dexterity
and strength required to snap one’s fingers.
George Zimmerman, the apparent shooter of Trayvon Martin,
carried a snub-nose 9mm pistol, very simple in operation and something my
Virginia friends growing up would have called a “belly gun.” Five pounds of
pressure are required to fire the thing and rip apart human tissue like
hamburger. To maim. To paralyze. To kill.
To alter not one life, but dozens and who knows how many more in the web
that contains us all. If Trayvon Martin was to cure a disease, build an empire,
or simply live happily and productively in the glow of his family’s love, we’ll
never know. A compact, death-black device with a five pound trigger wiped that
out like sunset does the day.
In Zimmerman’s shooting hand, I have no doubt it rested like
a calming infant’s rattle.
Whether Zimmerman was remotely justified in using it is,
apparently, still unknown. Was the child
he killed truly an aggressor, or was it just the combination of the hoodie and
the young man’s skin that prompted Zimmerman in some hateful, idiotic flash to
provoke a confrontation and then create the “need” to kill? Zimmerman’s own ethnic background seems to be
relevant to some, complicated apparently by his being not black but not quite
white either. Personally I find the juxtaposition of skin color in this case to
be gasoline on an already raging fire. But the reality of how Trayvon’s skin
color likely did lead to his death is impossible to ignore. I cannot blame the
millions out there who refuse to do so.
But for me, and for now, the misery of this situation comes
down mostly to the demonic presence of a handgun in the hands of a pathetic
rogue or worse. Zimmerman is by all appearances a character police officers
know too well- the community watch vigilante with the itchy trigger finger.
Maybe that’s why, for all the gun enthusiasts still defending it, Florida law
enforcement officials find the “stand your ground” law pointless bravado
waiting to become far, far worse.
Money in the hand of a fool simply disappears. A gun in the
same hand changes everything.
Roger Canaff: Anti-Violence Advocate, Child Protection Specialist, Legal Expert Blog: WCSV (Women, Children, Sex, Violence: Outcry, Analysis, Discussion) www.rogercanaff.com
Hey Roger... I like your "right on the money" style commentary! A weapon is a weapon..is a weapon meant to inflict pain, injury and or kill others. Even my state of the art titanium crutches that I sometimes use for balance, definitely qualify as a weapon.
ReplyDeleteMy father was shot down at 47 years of age, 31 years ago today...with 5 bullets aimed at vital organs. The mass killer knew what he was doing!
You make an interesting point re the retrofit of a gun to the hand. Why not make them...along with electronic devices uncomfortable and too bulky to carry around? It would save lives..... Do you recall the look and feel of those first portable phones in the 1980's? Laughable now....
My one and only potential disagreement with your commentary - I would guess that James Brady would still have significant traumatic brain injury had he been beaten with a wooden or metal baseball bat.
Thanks!
Donna
"Ladyjustice"