[Vision2020] Let’s Get M.A.D.D. About Guns

[Art Deco]

 [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

------------------------------
December 17, 2012
Let’s Get M.A.D.D. About Guns By JOE NOCERA

On May 3, 1980, a 13-year-old girl named Cari Lightner was killed by a
drunken driver. A terrible alcoholic, the man had three prior drunken
driving convictions. He had just come from a bar, on the back end of a
three-day binge.

Within weeks, Cari’s mom, Candy Lightner, co-founded
M.A.D.D.<http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20079622,00.html>,
or Mothers Against Drunk Driving. All over the country, mothers fed up with
the unwillingness of politicians to do anything about drunken driving
flocked to the organization. Within a few years, M.A.D.D. had persuaded
President Ronald Reagan to support a national drinking age of 21, and it
had pushed through state laws toughening the penalties for driving while
intoxicated. Perhaps most important, M.A.D.D. turned a dangerous behavior
that had long been socially acceptable into a taboo.

I was out of town on Friday, when the Newtown, Conn., massacre took place
and could only connect to my loved ones by phone. My fiancée wept
uncontrollably: “I can’t imagine what it would be like to drop Mackie off
at school, and never see him again,” she said, referring to our 2-year-old
son. My grown daughter also cried.

Listening to them — and seeing how powerfully affected the country has been
by this horrible slaughter of children and their teachers — I couldn’t help
thinking about M.A.D.D. Its success came about because its founders tapped
into a wellspring of anger that had been quietly building — just like the
current anger over the recent spate of mass
killings<http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/07/mass-shootings-map>.
But it also came about because mothers could give a human face to the
consequences of political inaction: their own children. How do you trump
that?

Sadly, thanks to the elementary school shootings on Friday, children are
now inexorably linked with the kind of mass killing that has become far too
common. On Sunday, at the vigil in Newtown, President Obama explicitly
cast<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/us/politics/bloomberg-urges-obama-to-take-action-on-gun-control.html>the
country’s lax gun laws as a failure to protect children. I have no
doubt his remarks were heartfelt, but they were also politically shrewd.
Rarely has the National Rifle Association been so
silent<http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/17/tech/social-media/nra-social-media-silence/index.html>.


One absurd argument some gun extremists are already making is that, instead
of tightening gun laws, we should go in the other direction, and start
packing heat. That way, you see, we can mow down the bad guy before he gets
us.

In Michigan, a bill to allow concealed weapons to be brought into public
schools, day-care centers and churches has been approved by the Legislature
and is awaiting the
signature<http://www.freep.com/article/20121217/NEWS06/121217027/Snyder-Gun-bill-to-give-extra-consideration-?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs>of
that state’s Republican governor, Rick Snyder. In the most recent
issue
of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg
argues<http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/12/what-can-we-do-to-stop-massacres/266300/>that
the country is so “saturated” with guns — some 300 million — that it’s
pointless to try to put controls on gun ownership. Besides, he says,
“people should have the ability to defend themselves.” A Texas congressman,
Louie Gohmert, said that if only the
principal<http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-34222_162-57559457-10391739/gop-rep.-more-not-fewer-guns-the-answer/>of
Sandy Hook Elementary School “had an M4 in her office,” she could have
stopped Adam Lanza, the Newtown gunman.

But the experience of other countries puts the lie to that argument. In
Australia, in 1996, a man killed 35 people in the course of an afternoon
rampage<http://www.abc.net.au/archives/80days/stories/2012/01/19/3412072.htm>.
Australia soon went from having relaxed gun laws to having tough gun laws,
including such common-sense measures as character witnesses for people who
want to own a gun, and the purchase of a safebolted to the wall or floor.
There are still plenty of hunters in Australia, but it hasn’t had a mass
killing since<http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/12/16/gun_control_after_connecticut_shooting_could_australia_s_laws_provide_a.html>.


South Africa may be an even better example. For many years, South Africa
was a country every bit as gun-soaked as America. I have a friend, Greg
Frank, a hedge fund manager in Charlottesville, Va., who lived in
Johannesburg during a time when it had become so crime-ridden that people
felt the need to own guns to protect themselves. He, too, owned a gun as a
young man: “I made the excuse that I needed it for self-protection.”

The guns didn’t make anybody safer. People who were held up while waiting
at a red light rarely had time to pull out their guns. And the fact that so
many homes had guns became an incentive for criminals, who would break in,
hold the family hostage, and then order that the safe with the guns be
opened. “Everyone knew someone who had family or friends who had
experienced gun violence,” he said.

Finally, he says, people got fed up. In 2004, the laws
changed<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/03/world/africa/03iht-guns.html>,
requiring annual relicensing, character witnesses and other measure to keep
guns out of the wrong hands. There was also an appeal to voluntarily
surrender guns.

“I took my gun to the police station,” recalls Frank. “The cop receiving it
wrote down the serial number, took my ID, and I was gone. It felt
transformational, like a huge weight off my shoulders.”

It will for us, too, when we finally get serious about stopping gun
violence.


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20121218/82eb466b/attachment.html>