Lately, Oklahoma
passed a law allowing open carry of firearms by anyone who could qualify
for a conceal carry license, just in case you feel so paranoid about being shot
that you must wear your gun on the outside of your jacket “for
all the honest world to feel” as you walk into a Tulsa McDonald’s for your
Big Mac.
"I am about the right to bear arms and constitutional freedoms," [Sheriff] Walton said. "I however have great concern for this law and the position it puts law enforcement in."
The law could create more enforcement calls, create unnecessary distractions and interfere with public safety.
Walton also points to the loss of tactical advantage for individuals that currently carry a concealed weapon.
"There is a lot of 'what if' that surrounds the law and it will take some time to see how this plays out," Walton said.
Oklahoma isn’t alone.
Many states are moving this way as pro-gun extremist lobbies,
particularly the NRA, urge them to do so, despite the fact that surveys
show a majority of citizens oppose it.
Even in Tulsa, the opinion
was evenly split. Good enough for
the NRA and their legislative lackeys.
By and large, law enforcement organizations in those states are strongly
against it. Apparently the NRA thinks it
knows more about what is necessary to control crime.
27 states now allow
open carry in some form. 12 of those
don’t even require the same scrutiny of a conceal carry license. 17 others allow it under certain circumstances
or passively allow it. Only 6 actively
oppose it in all circumstances outside of hunters and law enforcement.
Bolstered by these numbers, gun extremists continue to hold rallies
to legalize unregulated open carry, like this
recent one in Michigan featuring camo-clad gun fetishists with their
assault rifles strapped to their backs as if they were headed off to
Afghanistan.
Rallies like these remind me of scenes in some third-world
countries, like Somalia or Yemen, where assault weapon-wielding men brandish
their guns without fear of reprisal. So
I made the following poster:
But is this really a fair comparison? Even I had doubts. After all, Somalia has been in a decades-long
civil war, with famine and drought, and is infamous for its hostage-taking pirates. Yemen isn’t much better. It, too, has been in a civil war, is a hub
for Al-Qaeda, is the poorest
Arabian country, has suicide
attacks, and has a large swath of its territory chaotically ruled by local
warlords instead of a national government (remember “Blackhawk Down”?). So I researched some numbers.
Here’s my shocking finding:
You are more likely
to be murdered with a gun in the United States than to be murdered by any means in Somalia and Yemen.
Yes, that’s right. Let
me restate it: Gun violence is more likely to be your cause
of death here in the streets and homes of America than any form of homicide in either of these god-forsaken, war-torn,
chaotic third-world countries (and I’m only talking about homicides here,
not including accidental shootings, suicides, law enforcement, or defensive
shootings).
Let’s look at the numbers, shall we? The most recent year in which I could find
data for all three countries was 2004 (the last year I could find for Somalia).
In Somalia in
2004 (from a World Bank study, from THIS link), there
was a civilian homicide rate of 3.30 /
100K for ALL methods.
In Yemen in 2004,
there was a civilian homicide rate of 2.85
/ 100K for ALL methods. (also found from
the same World Bank study, from THIS link; the most
recent year cited, 2008, had a rate of 4.00 / 100K).
In 2004, the United
States had homicide rate of 3.97
/ 100K for FIREARMS ALONE (according to CDC WISQARS data)
(to compare with the most recent Yemen data, 2008 gun homicides in the U.S.
also had a rate of 4.00 / 100K).
(For those interested in the rate for all forms of homicide in the U.S., in 2004 it was 5.88 / 100K, and
in 2008 it was 5.86 / 100K.)
It’s important to note that these shooting rates also mirror
the rates of gun ownership (again, data is from www.gunpolicy.org):
Rate of private gun ownership out of 179 countries: America is 1st. Yemen is 10th. Somalia is 58th.
Private guns in America:
88.8 / 100 people
Private guns in Yemen:
54.8 / 100 people
Private guns in Somalia:
9.1 / 100 people
Every American should stand up and pay attention. We are quick to condemn nations like Somalia
and Yemen for their wanton violence and lawlessness (and they should be condemned for it), and yet
these numbers show that we are dying in higher numbers right here in our
streets and homes, from gunfire or any other method. The NRA’s answer is to flood the streets with
as many guns as possible, and to flaunt those guns openly with open carry laws
and rallies. But gun ownership
numbers show that we already have a far, far higher rate of gun ownership in
the U.S. By the NRA’s flawed logic, we
should be the safest nation on Earth.
Instead, we are one of the deadliest.
We, of course, should fight gun violence in any form and in
any nation, but let’s concentrate on where it’s worst – right here at our own
door -- and create a new trajectory for our community against gun violence.
