Veteran's Day, But No Armistice On Our Streets

Today is Veteran's Day in the United States -- a day when we stop to consider the sacrifices of our military veterans, and most especially those who served in war, live or dead. 

I have family in the military (one currently in the Army, another in the Army National Guard), both of whom served as MPs in Baghdad.  I have a friend who is a veteran of Afghanistan and the Balkan war, and is still a recruiter in the Army.  And I have a number of family members, living and dead, who served our country, including in battle.  I take their service very seriously.  They fought and risked their lives to serve the interests of our country and allow us the luxury of the lives that we live today. 

Veteran's Day coincides with Armistice Day (also known as Remembrance Day) which marks the signing of the armistice that ended World War I, and end of one of modern history's worst nightmares.  May we never experience another like it.

"In Flanders Fields" -- A poem written in 1915 by Colonel John McCrae in honor of his friend who had fallen early that year in The Second Battle of Ypres:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
   That mark our place; and in the sky
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
   Loved and were loved, and now we lie
         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.

And yet, the killing continues in the streets and homes of America, in the form of never-ending gun violence.  53,402 American servicemen died in WWI.  But here in America, that many citizens die from gun violence every 20 months.

Last Memorial Day, I posted a blog post where I showed that more citizens die every year in America than American soldiers who died in any year of  any war since WWII.  Go to that link and see the shocking statistics.

Yes, WWI was a nightmare on foreign battlefields, but we are living with a nightmare right now on our streets.

The people I know and love, live and dead, who served in foreign wars, did what they did in order to preserve peace at home.  But we don't have peace at home.  Instead we have 100,000 shootings a year, a gun culture that allows 40% of gun sales to go without a background check, and streets in some areas so violent that people don't let their kids play outside.  There can be no armistice without sensible reform.  There are no poppies where our children are gunned down.

It's time to change our culture of violence.  It's time to demand a plan to reduce the shootings.  It's time to make a new trajectory for our communities away from gun violence.

Rene King Thompson: A Sense Of Deja Vu About the U.N. Small Arms Treaty And The NRA

Today we have a guest blogger...  Rene King Thompson.  Ms. Thompson is one of the original 10 founding moms of the Million Mom March and works passionately to reduce gun violence as well as teen suicide.  As you read her thoughts, please also consider the current U.N. Small Arms Treaty talks and the NRA's close ties to gun manufacturers, who both profit from the international arms trade and donate tens of millions of dollars to the NRA.

Below is from Ms. Thompson:


When I hear Wayne LaPierre’s ranting that a UN treaty concerning the regulation of small arms imports and exports would strip Americans of their Second Amendment rights, I feel a sense of déjà vu.  I feel this because 11 years ago, when I was a member of the first Million Mom March NGO to attend the United Nations, I heard the same BS.


Mary-Leigh Blek, Vicky Keller and I had the honor of representing the March in July 2001 at the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects and it was an extraordinarily educational experience and a fantastic chance to network with others internationally.  For someone like me, who had come to the issue after the Columbine and Jewish Community Center shootings, I had tended to concentrate on what occurred here in the U.S.  This was a chance to understand the issue and the problems globally.


I learned of the problems with gun running and the circulation of illegal guns from one war zone to the next, from one criminal cartel to the next.  I learned about the ties between gun running and the use of kidnapped children being used as child soldiers, drug trafficking, blood gems, and human trafficking.  I came to recognize that this problem wasn’t just our problem. It was a global problem in which our country played both a positive and negative part.


For those who have never had the chance to listen to, let alone participate in a UN conference, it was awe inspiring.  Men and women from every corner of the world coming together respectfully to work to solve an issue, it was magnificent.  While acknowledging state’s (countries) sovereignty and laws, it made several rational recommendations which would help deal with the problems including:


Suggesting to member countries that do not have laws concerning production, importation and exportation of small arms that they enact such laws;


Suggested to member countries that do not have laws concerning illegal stockpiling of firearms that they create such laws, so that small arms cannot move into illegal hands;


Identify and take action against those individuals and organizations who are illegally stockpiling and gun running within individual countries;


Request that licensed manufacturers apply reliable markings on their firearms so that nations can track firearms that are moving into illegal hands;


Insuring that all confiscated or seized small arms are destroyed, so that they cannot be deviated into criminal hands.


Reasonable, rational strategies made so as to deal with crime, terrorism and war.  Efforts made to make it harder for illegal arms dealers to supply weapons to criminal gangs and terrorists and for small arms to move from one war to the next.


And all you heard from the NRA was “No.  It will strip away our Second Amendment freedoms.”  They couldn’t quite understand that (a) none of the suggestions would remove a single legal firearm from a single legal gun owner (b) it didn’t in any way effect legal gun ownership, production or export and (c) the problems being discussed were bigger than just our country.


I watched and listened to several more experienced activists attempt to explain to the NRA NGO members that sovereign countries requesting that gun manufacturers and gun import/exporters working within their countries to register had no effect whatsoever on the U.S. because the U.S. had its’ own laws in place.  They explained the problems and the needs caused by the problems and the solutions that would have a positive effect to resolve said problems.


It didn’t matter to the NRA.  To paraphrase the Marx Brothers, “Whatever you say, we’re against it.” No solution which allowed firearms to be identified, regulated or destroyed was going to be approved by the NRA.  The victims didn’t matter.  The terrorism didn’t matter.  The crime syndicates didn’t matter.  More than once I heard members of their group use the term ‘collateral damage’ after hearing about human beings who had died or had been wounded.  They were more emotionally distressed by the thought of the confiscated firearms being destroyed than they were by the human beings whose lives were destroyed.  They were more incensed that illegal arms dealers might lose business than they were about the terrorist acts committed by those who bought the firearms.  It was apparent to all at the conference that their priorities were not the same as the rest of those in attendance.


And so, here we are, 11 years later and as we continue to work to solve the problem, we note that the NRA and their ilk still fight for the rights of gun runners, arms dealers and those who make money off of the suffering that war, crime and terrorism inevitably bring, all the while claiming that they want to make people free.  Luckily, even the most conservative groups are now starting to question the NRA’s rants since their leaders have made some outrageous claims such as supporting those who have acted treasonously against this country in the past and the NRA’s writing and supporting legislation which would have placed guns back in the hands of convicted felons.  


It would seem that as the rest of us work to take the weapons out of the hands of criminals and terrorists, we were right to let the NRA just keep speaking, as, left to their own devices, they shot themselves, without any assistance, in the foot.




ADDENDUM (added by Baldr):  A related article from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/opinion/a-treaty-on-conventional-arms.html?_r=2&smid=tw-share

From the NYT Opinion piece: 

The United States is the world’s main arms exporter, and President Obama deserves credit for reversing American policy in 2009 and agreeing to back an arms trade treaty. Now he must lead the way in ensuring that the final document is robust enough to make a difference. Predictably, the administration is under pressure from the gun lobby even though it has vowed that it will not approve any treaty that impinges on Second Amendment rights. 

Only 52 of the world’s 192 governments have laws regulating arms brokers, and fewer than half of those penalize violators. The United States and a few others have good national controls, and there are 26 United Nations, regional and multilateral arms embargoes in place.

ADDENDUM (7/15/12):  Amnesty International USA also denies the NRA's distortions:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/news-item/amnesty-international-usa-rejects-national-rifle-association-distortions-about-arms-trade-treaty

You Are More Likely To Be Shot To Death In The U.S. Than In War-Torn Somalia and Yemen

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.

Shocking: How Do War Deaths Compare To U.S. Shooting Deaths?

Today is Memorial day.  Today we remember our fallen soldiers -- those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to further our nation's interests.  According to an article at CNN, around 600,000 soldiers have died in service to our country since Memorial Day (and its predecessor, Decoration Day) was first observed back in 1868. 

I've had quite a few relatives, living and deceased, who have served, or are serving, in the military. Today is also a time to think about the sacrifices made by those who did not die in battle.  My maternal grandfather was a sailor in WWII, in the Pacific, and returned home safely, passing away as an old man.  The giant flag presented at his memorial service is, today, covering my bay window.  My niece's husband is an Army MP serving abroad.  He's barely spent any time with his new daughter, born in September.  So many first moments missed!  Today I honor him, too.  His wife, my niece, was in Iraq with him as an MP, and is now home with their three young daughters.  My father, stepfather, and numerous great uncles all served in conflict, too, and have passed away.  Luckily, none of my relatives died in battle.

But let us remember, that although we rightly show concern for those who are dying (or surviving) in distant wars, we should also note that far, far more people are dying from gunfire here on our own soil.  People don't like to think about it that way.  They don't want to believe that our nation is warring against gun violence here.  But at 100,000 shootings a year in the U.S., we can't afford to cover our eyes and pretend that all is right.

This weekend I read a post over at the Common Gunsense blog.  There the author, Japete, quoted a disturbing statistic, which was reposted from a page from Legal Community Against Violence: 

Because I write a blog about gun violence prevention, I want to talk about America gun deaths as they compare to deaths of Americans because of war. More people have lost their lives to bullets on the streets and in the homes of American communities than American military members serving since the Viet Nam war:

Between 1955 and 1975, the Vietnam War killed over 58,000 American soldiers – less than the number of civilians killed with guns in the U.S. in an average two-year period.4

In the first seven years of the U.S.-Iraq War, over 4,400 American soldiers were killed. Almost as many civilians are killed with guns in the U.S., however, every seven weeks.5

Those alarming statistics got me to thinking.  How do our yearly fatal shooting numbers compare to other wars?  So I took a closer look at the numbers. 

I list my sources for these statistics at the end of this post.  I compared fatal and non-fatal shootings in the U.S. to battle-caused fatalities and injury statistics of American military from each war (only battle-caused, since those do not count deaths due to non-combat accidents or sicknesses, for instance).

According to CDC statistics of the most recent yearly statistics available, 31,593 people died from lethal shootings in America in 2008 (2,633 per month).  66,769 were injured (5,564 per month).

Then I calculated:  How long would it take for annual shootings in the U.S. to match the total number of deaths or injuries from our modern wars?  Here's the result (click to enlarge):

Yes,  it only takes 15 days for lethal shootings in America to match the total number of servicemen killed in the Afghanistan war.  Only 2 months to match the number killed in Iraq.  A miniscule 2 days to match the Persian Gulf War.  And as for Viet Nam, our most controversial and bloody post-WWII war, it only takes 18 months.

You have to go all the way back to WWII to see numbers that seem somehow more reasonable, and that was a world-wide war requiring the majority of our able-bodied young men to serve, many dying.

But let me point out that this is an unfair test.  Those numbers represent yearly shootings in the U.S. against all combat deaths across ALL years for each war.

It is more fair to compare average yearly U.S. shootings against the average yearly shootings for each war.

Here is what I found (click to enlarge):

Compare the first and second blue columns.  Even if you lump together ALL post-WWII wars, the number killed in battle per year in all those wars combined is only HALF the number shot and killed in America each year.  Half!! 

I've used an "average number of battle deaths per year" value to compare against.  For you gun guys who would argue that I should instead compare against each year of each battle, consider this:  even in the most bloody year of the Vietnam war, 1968, we saw 16,592 soldiers killed.  That's only about half the number of people fatally shot in the U.S. each year.

Japete at Common Gunsense pointed out a meaningful Doonesbury cartoon strip, which pretty much says it all:

I found this interesting article from PolitiFact checking the accuracy of a Doonesbury cartoon strip which noted that in the nine years since the 9-11 attacks 270,000 Americans have died from bullets not having to do with war. From the article:

"What are we like as a people?" Slackmeyer muses to himself in his studio. "Nine years, ago we were attacked -- 3,000 people died. In response, we started two long, bloody wars and built a vast homeland-security apparatus -- all at a cost of trillions! Now consider this. During those same nine years, 270,000 Americans were killed by gunfire at home. Our response? We weakened our gun laws."

Make no bones about it:  The number and rate of shootings here in America shows that we are at war, a war more deadly than any other war we've fought since WWII.  But the enemy isn't across a trench or hiding in a cave.  The enemy is our lax gun laws, allowing with surprising ease the ability of guns to get into the hands of those who shouldn't have them.  The battlefield is anywhere guns are present:  our towns, our streets, our homes.  It's time to make a new trajectory for our nation away from gun violence.

ADDENDUM (2/15/13):  More American citizens have died since 1968 (1,384,171) than U.S. soldiers killed in ALL wars combined (1,171,177).  See the breakdown statistics HERE.

Statistics Sources:

United States shooting deaths and injuries:

http://www.bradycampaign.com/xshare/Facts/Gun_Death_and_Injury_Stat_Sheet_2008__2009_FINAL.pdf

War casualties prior to present wars:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf

Iraq War Casualties:

http://usliberals.about.com/od/homelandsecurit1/a/IraqNumbers.htm

Afghanistan War Casualties: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghanistan

Putting 9/11 And Gun-Related Deaths In Perspective

On September 11, 2001, I had gone through my morning routine and driven to work as usual.   Oddly, I didn't listen to the radio on my way to work.  It was when I got to my office and checked in with my coworkers  that I learned about the planes hitting the World Trade Center towers.  Because I'm on the west coast, I didn't find out about what had happened until after the second plane hit.  We watched in horror, along with the rest of the country, as the event unfolded, the fires grew, the jumpers jumped, and the emergency personnel scrambled to save the people in the towers.  And then the towers fell, first one, then the other, pancaking in a plume of fire and dust, a windstorm of debris and dust rushing along Wall Street like a sandstorm, and loose paper fluttering through the wind like wayward ghosts. 

No work could be done that day, and we went home early.  I sat glued to my TV all evening, flag flying outside at half mast, learning all the details and seeing the towers fall, again and again, from a hundred different camera angles across New York.  It was the biggest declaration of war ever made, and a blow to those like me who wished for peace in the world.  I knew what would be coming next, from G.W. Bush, the self-proclaimed "war president", but it surpassed even my jaded worries.

Nearly 3000 people died that day in the event.  As a direct result of the tragedy, planes ceased to fly for two days across the nation, a war was launched in Afghanistan which persists to today, another war was launched in Iraq (on false accusations of ties between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein and the supposed presence of weapons of mass destruction) which also hasn't yet fully ended, the Department of Homeland Security was created (the biggest bureaucracy ever created in the U.S.), the Patriot Act was enacted, curtailing some of America's freedoms, the TSA was created to presume every air traveler is guilty until proven innocent (with mixed results), and we still live in fear of extremists from beyond our borders (as the precautions in New York today can attest).  With all of this in mind, it is an easy argument to make that 9/11 is the one largest, single-day event ever to shape American policy, which cost the most American lives, freedoms, and gross domestic product as a result.

But while we are today mourning the loss of the 3000 who died in 9/11, I ask that you please keep another thought in mind.  The United States loses the same number of people to gun violence every 35 days or so.  That's around 31,224 people a year -- ten times the number who died in 9/11.  Another 66,768 a year are wounded but survive.  In the 10 years since 9/11, that equates to around 300,000 killed and 670,000 injured to gunfire on our streets and in our homes (compare that to the 5800 American soldiers who have died in that time in Iraq and Afghanistan wars).  Imagine, a million people shot in ten years!  But unlike the dramatic results that came after 9/11 -- the wars, the Patriot Act and other legislation, the trillions of dollars spent -- practically nothing has changed to slow the rate of civilian shootings in the U.S.  In fact, with cuts to the ATF, the lapse of the assault weapons ban, and numerous state-level legislative changes around the nation to relax gun laws, our nation has only become more dangerous.  To the NRA, these alarming numbers are collateral, insignificant compared to a warped sense of Second Amendment freedom.

For instance, those who are listed on the Terrorist Watch List are still permitted to purchase firearms.  From a press release by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence:

An earlier department report indicated that some on the Terrorist Watch List appeared to be making multiple attempts to purchase guns.  Some 1,228 purchase attempts through February 2010 were by just 650 individuals.  Nearly 70 percent of the individuals (450 of 650) were involved in multiple transactions and six were involved in 10 or more transactions.

In June, a month after the House Judiciary Committee rejected closing the terror gap in federal gun laws, one of al Qaeda’s terrorist recruiters – American-born Adam Gadahn  –  explained  how easy it is to acquire assault weapons in the United States:

"America is absolutely awash with easily obtainable firearms. You can go down to a gun show at the local convention center and come away with a fully automatic assault rifle without a background check and most likely without having to show an identification card. So what are you waiting for?" [see video in this post]

The NRA has twice fought for, and won, the right for potential terrorists on this list to continue legally purchasing guns.

America has become numb to the daily deluge of shootings on the news.  It's a slow drip-drip of American blood which, though far more deadly, hardly garners the attention of a terrorist attack.  Make no doubt about it:  America is at war, but it is fighting an enemy within:  the ease with which criminals are able to get guns.  In Oregon, for instance, and most of America, private gun sales require no background check, no ID, and no paperwork.  It's just cash and carry.  A seller has no way of knowing if the buyer is a felon, an abuser, mentally ill, has a warrant for his arrest, or is even of appropriate age.  And since the seller isn't required to check, he isn't held accountable for the sale.

Every life is precious.  Is the death of three thousand people by gun any less horrifying and terrible than by plane? 

We rightly mark the passing of those in the 9/11 tragedy today with somber remembrance and caution.  But tomorrow the flags will be folded, people will go back to work, and the evening news will return to daily reports of death by bullet.  After the passage of another 35 days, when we once again match the number dead on 9/11, what will you have done to help prevent  gun violence?


(See HERE for a good, related blog post by Dennis Henigan for the need to close the "Terror Gap").