Reading for Treasure: Guns, Again- and Again, and Again and Again

Reading for Treasure is my list of articles that are worth your attention. Click here for an introduction!

Why do I keep listing articles that deal with the problem of gun violence? Because we have yet to confront the issue fully and deal with the consequences. It is one of our greatest public health problems today. Most Americans are in favor of “common sense” gun laws, but somehow, we still lack sense of any kind when it comes to firearms. Some of these articles are a little old, but unfortunately just as timely as when they were published. What a sad statement that mass shootings are always a current event. 

Peter Bergen says we should ban assault weapons, pass and enforce red flag laws, and look at a concept he calls leakage in his CNN oped:  “Opinion: This is how we stem America’s mass shootings” 

Two pieces from The Atlantic are very much worth your attention. First, a look at the police’s inaction, at Uvalde : “Where Were The Police?” And then a wonderful portrait of how marketing and profit drive the American gun problem: “The Gun Industry Created a New Consumer. Now It’s Killing Us”

It is a sad statement to say that I got so much déjà vu reading this article from Medium that I searched to see if I had already included it in a Reading for Treasure list:  “Why is America the Only Country in the World With Regular School Shootings?”  

This article in The Grio shows us what we really didn’t need proof to believe. Gun violence hurts some of us more than others. “Allowing guns in public without permits could create increased risks for Black Americans, experts say”

This link is not an article, but a website that tracks gun violence in America. The Gun Violence Archive tracks gun deaths broken down by location, age of those killed, suicides, mass shootings, mass murders, and much more. The statistics are horrific. 

As of the publishing of this post, in 2023, there have been 

2097 gun deaths 

909 homicides

1188 suicides 

32 mass shootings

4 mass murders

56 defensive use deaths 

73 unintentional shootings

2 officer killed and 17 injured 

61 subject-suspects killed and 35 injured

41 children under 11 killed or injured

253 children under 12 to 17 killed or injured 

This must stop. We must make it stop. 

Two cases, one from Washington, D.C. reported in The Grio, and one from Newport News, Virginia from CNN. The headlines paint the picture clearly: 

“Man guns down 13-year-old boy he thought was car vandal; cops won’t release killer’s name”

“A 6-year-old shoots his teacher. Now what?”

Finally, some good news. The Daily Herald reports from my home state of Illinois which has banned assault weapons: “Pritzker signs state's new ban on high-powered weapons: The final details”

I am currently reading She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan