Thoughts on the aftermath of Sandyhook shooting
We live in a violent culture in the midst of a rapidly
rising tide of fear, approaching paranoia. Violence is not merely condoned but
held out as virtuous. Everywhere
we look, we see television programs full of
violence, movies abounding in death and destruction, and, most especially,
violent video games.
Yet, since 1961, a wide-spread consensus has held that
vicarious
learning occurs from observing the modeling of
aggressive behavior.
Bandura's initial research involved adult models
observed by
children with observation of the subsequent behavior
in/by the children.
We appear to have massive, pervasive, and seemingly
endless prompts
and cues from within our culture to behave
aggressively.
If that were not enough, there have been too many
repetitions of the Kitty Genovese tragedy, where a young woman was fatally
attacked, yet either the attack in progress was not detected or some witnesses
failed to call the police or
both. And,
there are stories floating about that report instances where
calls to 911 were unsuccessful in obtaining
intervention or help. This
combination of factors may convince many people that
they are not safe,
that societal efforts to increase personal safety are
ineffective, perhaps
becoming more so. Some cities in the United States
have been described
as more dangerous than Afghanistan--possibly an
exaggeration but still
a sobering thought.
Fear is a powerful motivator. Also, fear gives rise to
hostility (even 'pre-emptive'
hostile behavior), to hatred, and stereotyping,
dividing one's interpersonal
environment into 'we' and 'they.' I suspect for some
people, their sense of
vulnerability and need for protection, their fear, is
THE prime motive that leads
to the purchase of a firearm. I suspect that even
where fear is not the primary nor principal motive for acquiring a firearm, it
may add an important impetus to the
decision to buy a gun.
I am fairly familiar with the 'shooting sports.' The
safety record for formal
competitions within the shooting sports is remarkably
good, even admirable.
Formal competitions within the shooting sports are
among the safest
athletic endeavors to be found, for both participants
and by-standers.
I do not know of any formal form of competition in the
recognized shooting
sports that require a magazine capacity of over ten
rounds. No formal,
generally accepted and recognized rifle competition
requires even
a ten round capacity magazine...indeed the rapid fire
phases within
rifle competition deliberately require reloading in
the midst of the
rapid fire string. I seem to recall that there are
some rapid fire phases
within handgun competition that do require a full ten
round magazine
or at any rate one round in the chamber and nine in
the magazine
permitting ten shots in all before reloading. I would
add that much of the time
such competition is with (quite expensive) match
pistols in calibre .22 Long Rifle.
Also, handgun rapid fire shooting could have the same
sort of requirement
to reload (once) in the midst of a string as does
rifle competition.
All this leads up to three conclusions: First, the
increasing prevalence of gun
ownership is only one among many symptoms of growing
serious problems
within our society, within our culture. I believe much
of the increase is
driven by very real needs to feel safe and secure in
an apparently increasingly
unsafe world. I have no ideas as to how to go about
obtaining it, but I
feel that increasing social cohesion and sense of
community, starting
by building smaller communities within neighborhoods,
is a vital part of
increasing a sense of safety and security. Second, I
can see no need for
high capacity magazines for firearms, certainly not
for anything larger or more potent that a .22 rifle being used on rats at a
local dump! Third, the
family of paramilitary-appearing firearms, often
styled 'assault-type weapons'
are generally chambered for cartridges which have been
repeatedly demonstrated as being inadequate to, even incapable of disabling a
human opponent or killing a game animal humanely. Yet, there continue to be
imported into the United States, or manufactured within the United States large
numbers
of exactly such weapons. We certainly do not need any
more imported weapons, and I suspect that we need fewer more manufactured
domestically.
Congressman Charles Schumer (with whom I have often
disagreed about some
of his proposals for gun laws) may have identified the
key to developing
a more effective set of policies regarding firearms.
Schumer suggests that those
seeking more laws start with acknowledging that there
is a Second Amendment
and that the right to keep and bear arms is an
individual right of which no law-abiding 'citizen can be deprived--certainly
not within their domicile but also not ion the proper participation formally or
informally in shooting sports. Perhaps then, we can get the participation and
cooperation of people who are familiar with firearms and the and the shooting
sports in designing legislation to protect the common safety and public welfare
and also protecting the rights to own and to use lawfully for lawful purposes
various sorts of firearms. I mention this because of now expired ban on assault
weapons, which by virtue of including bayonet lugs (I don't think I have yet
heard of a drive-by bayoneting) and flash suppressors led to the classification
of some very fine and expensive ($2,000 and up in,1994 dollars!) rifles,
designed specifically for competition, as among the banned!
As I look back on the recent angry, even vituperative
rhetoric, increasingly displayed in political dialog, I am not as optimistic as
I should like to be: We are a frightened, frustrated, fearful society, too
often operating on the 'everyone for themselves first' policy.
Dr. Cliff Dempster, New Hampshire
