Americans Are Recognizing The U.S. is Falling Behind its Peers

I have been a long time critic of the concept of American exceptionalism - something that is far more myth than reality.  In fact, when America is measured by its peers across the rest of the developed, industrialized world, it comes up short.  If America is exceptional, it is a negative way.  America has some of the highest levels of childhood poverty, a crumbling infrastructure, insane levels of gun violence, millions who lack access to quality health care, a declining life expectancy, declining opportunities for upward social mobility - a number of European nations have better options for upward mobility - and a pathetic social safety net.  As a column in the Washington Post notes, one positive aspect of the Covid - 19 pandemic is that Americans are increasingly willing to open their eyes and face the fact that America is falling behind much of the rest of the developed world. The piece also suggest part of the problem: the obstruction of the Republican Party which remains focused on benefiting the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.  Possibilities for change and improvement exist, but they begin with the need for political change.  Here are excerpts:

Americans’ belief in American exceptionalism is declining — and that could be a good thing. National narcissism has rendered us complacent, even impotent, in the face of multiple crises.

On our biggest societal problems, the United States seems to have given up. Not because we can’t do better — but because many political leaders, particularly Republicans, apparently don’t think we need to. Their faith that America is already Living Its Best Life means there’s no need to learn from peer countries, or even gauge our relative performance. Consider:

Most of the rest of the developed world has managed to get covid-19′s spread under control. New cases across the European Union have plummeted; in New Zealand, the virus has been virtually wiped out. These and other places that have successfully mitigated the spread have enabled more citizens to safely return to their pre-covid-19 lifestyles, including even attending athletic events with packed crowds.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, the bodies pile up. New confirmed cases are again surging, especially across Sun Belt states. And political leaders seem to have no plan, nor even a plan to make a plan, for beating back the pandemic. Instead, they simply declare the virus vanquished, even as it claims more lives.

How did a country once known for our get-up-and-go come to shrug off mass death, particularly when other countries’ records suggest many U.S. covid-19 deaths were preventable?

Faith in American exceptionalism has curdled into resigned acceptance. We got so accustomed to resting on our laurels that we fell asleep.

This is of a piece with our supine responses to other national challenges that are unusually (sometimes uniquely) American. Much as they gave up on coronavirus containment, U.S. political leaders previously gave up on solving our epidemic of gun violence. And on our high numbers of police-perpetrated killings. Also our high rates of child poverty, uninsurance and carbon emissions.

On these and other metrics, the United States fares worse than most if not all other industrialized countries. Yet U.S. officials — from one party in particular — treat these crises as imaginary or unsolvable.

On the occasions political leaders do acknowledge that we’re not measuring up to peers, they excuse the failing as a trade-off necessary to pursue some other, supposedly superior American ideal. America can’t protect schoolchildren as other countries do, because we must prioritize unfettered access to firearms. America can’t save its grandparents from covid-19, because the Dow takes precedence. America can’t guarantee everyone health care, because [something something] liberty.

But there may be a ray of hope: Recent crises — involving health, the economy and police brutality — seem to have caused more Americans to question their country’s track record.

So suggests the COVID-19 Social Change Survey, a daily, nationally representative survey about the pandemic run by Northwestern University social scientists since mid-March. Some survey questions asked whether the United States is better, worse or about the same as other nations across about a dozen topics (economy, health care, criminal justice system, military, education, etc.).

On nearly every metric, the share of Americans rating the United States as “better” than other countries has declined since the pandemic began.

Other questions, from this survey and longer-term polling by Gallup, show declines in broader measures of national pride and confidence in U.S. institutions.

Normally, of course, reduced patriotism or institutional trust would not be positive developments. These declines can be constructive only if they spur the public — and elected officials — to create conditions that would inspire more patriotism and trust.

Maybe a more realistic assessment of our flaws — a crack in the national narcissism — will motivate change, at least if politicians ever catch up with their constituents.

Let's Talk Honestly About America's Gun Crisis

As regular readers know, I am a strong advocate of drastic changes to America's insane gun laws.  No other advanced nation has the number of guns in civilian hands and no other advanced nation has the gun violence and carnage seen regularly in America.  America is exceptional alright, and not in a good way. Indeed, America's inundation with guns is nothing less than a public health crisis which requires drastic action to address.  While in Charlottesville recently, Beto O'Rourke (family members met him) spoke honestly about the extent of the problem and what needs to be done to address it.  A column in the New York Times looks at O'Rourke's statements and the need to implement actions that will challenge the lies disseminated by the NRA and gun manufacturers and the politicians - mainly Republicans - who parrot the lies.  Here are column excerpts:

Beto O’Rourke has easily emerged as my favorite presidential candidate on the issue of gun control. 

I long ago tired of hearing politicians who are supposed to be in favor of smarter gun laws and reducing American gun deaths and injuries pull their punches so as not to upset the gun lobby and gun lobbyists.

Among other things, O’Rourke’s “gun safety” plan includes declaring gun violence a public health emergency, creating a national gun licensing system and registry, requiring universal background checks, implementing red flag laws and banning “the manufacturing, sale and possession of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.”

Other candidates agree with some of these proposals, and others have additional ones, but I like the full-throated way O’Rourke responds to being challenged on this front.

This week in Charlottesville, a reporter asked O’Rourke, “How do you address the fears that the government is going to take away those assault rifles — if you are talking about buybacks and banning?”

O’Rourke didn’t skip a beat: “I want to be really clear, that that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Americans who own AR-15s, AK-47s, will have to sell them to the government. We’re not going to allow them to stay on our streets, to show up in our communities.”

This was not the first time O’Rourke’s buyback plan has been challenged. Two weeks ago, the USA Today editorial board complained, “Anything smacking of confiscation would breathe life and energy into the not-from-my-cold-dead-hands crowd, endangering law enforcement and likely putting a full stop to any further gun safety measures.”

When asked this week on CNN about that criticism, O’Rourke responded, “This triangulation, calculation, poll-testing every move — that’s what got us here in the first place.”

Finally, a breath of fresh air. . . . we have to start taking deliberate and thoughtful action to deal with this problem. For instance, a mandatory buyback could be met with a constitutional challenge. A voluntary buyback might be most doable.

The scope of the problem is enormous.

According to a Washington Post report in 2018: “There are more than 393 million civilian-owned firearms in the United States, or enough for every man, woman and child to own one and still have 67 million guns left over.”

Furthermore, The New York Times reported in December:

“There were 39,773 gun deaths in 2017, up by more than 1,000 from the year before. Nearly two-thirds were suicides. It was the largest yearly total on record in the C.D.C.’s electronic database, which goes back 50 years, and reflects the sheer number of lives lost.”

We must reduce the overall number of guns in the population, especially those considered weapons of war; we must shrink the market desire for new weapons; and we must set a course to not only pass a new law in a moment but build in the expectation that federal legislation around guns will be the never-ending, ever-adjusting reality.

People interested in reducing gun violence in America have to stop lying about what that would require. Opponents of new gun legislation will accuse its supporters of seeking the worse no matter what they do.

The point is to see a reduction in all shootings. And that argument actually reinforces a need to aggressively fund studies to figure out which measures would work best.

They are right when they say that restrictions on new purchases would place a burden on responsible gun owners — the overwhelming majority of gun owners — when only a tiny fraction participate in shootings. To that I say: AND?! Nearly 40,000 people in 2017 were killed by guns in this country. If a reduction in that number comes with more red tape for you, then so be it.

This is a public health crisis, as O’Rourke points out, and anything we can do to prevent guns from being used in a crime, to prevent a child from accidentally shooting a sibling, to prevent a depressed person from putting a barrel in his or her mouth, must be a consuming priority for all of us.

Even in the radical District of Columbia v. Heller Supreme Court decision in 2008 that established the right to bear arms as an individual right, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion:

“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”

Guns can be effectively and constitutionally regulated in this country. People who want to do so should be upfront and honest about how far they truly hope to go in that regard.

America's Future: Getting Rid of Trump Will Help

Increased racial hatred, increased gun violence, trade wars damaging American farmers and perhaps moving the country toward a recession, and frayed relations with long time allies.  All trace back in varying degrees to a single individual:  Donald Trump.  The main is a boil (if not a cancer) on nation and conservative columnist and former Republican Jennifer Rubin makes the case that almost anyone else would be better in the White House and would set the stage where serious, sane progress to address pressing problems could begin.   If Trump cannot be removed by impeachment, then he needs to be removed at the ballot box in November 2020.  The cancer that he embodies must be removed and not allowed to further metastasize.  True, we will still have to contend with his dangerous supporters, but his removal from office will be a much needed beginning.  Here are column excerpts:

Even if we get a Democratic president Americans don’t like all that much, or whose limitations are obvious, we’ll be in a better spot than we would be with President Trump. That’s an unsurprising assumption by Democrats. But, increasingly, independents and disaffected Republicans — as seen from their praise of former president Barack Obama’s remarks on the mass murders in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio — know this to be true. “Anyone but Trump” should be the goal for all Americans, even Republicans.

For one thing, Republicans won’t have to observe the debasement of other Republicans like Sen. John Cornyn (Tex.), who lamely tried to create some moral equivalence between Trump, who incites white nationalism of the type motivating the El Paso terrorist, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who incites no one to hatred and whose ideology — progressive capitalism — hasn’t driven anyone to kill.

Whatever the problem, things would be better without Trump even with a president whose ideology and/or performance might not thrill most Americans.

Combating domestic terrorism? Just getting rid of the instigator of white nationalism would be a plus. The Post reports:

The administration has also curtailed or disbanded a Department of Homeland Security program that had been created to counter violent extremism by working with regional authorities and organizations to identify those vulnerable to radicalization, whether by Islamist groups or the far right. . . . this presidency has come to be defined by policies that are aligned with aspects of the white nationalist agenda and his penchant for fanning racial animus.

We could curtail Trump’s presidency and rebuke the white nationalist ideology, or we could reelect the man who stoked their grievance. It’s pretty easy to figure out the best option from a national security standpoint.

The trade war with China? Trump now has seized “control” of policy, . . . And how’s that working out? Not well:

Business executives, economists, and former government officials have said the worsening conflict between the White House and China was damaging the U.S. economy. Business investment contracted in the second quarter of 2019, and a number of White House officials are worried that the economy is beginning to slow.

Get rid of Trump and you would, at the very least, have a less chaotic, less impulse-driven policy from someone who understands U.S. consumers and not China pay the tariffs.

Relations with allies? They’ll immediately improve without Trump. Human rights policy? Once Trump is gone, we wouldn’t be in the business of praising mass murderers (e.g., Kim Jong Un). Environmental policy? Even some Republicans are dumping their climate change denial, but as long as Trump is in office, any hope of progress is illusory. Russia? No Democrat or Republican likely to be elected will kowtow to Vladimir Putin.

I don’t mean to suggest that all our problems will go away if Trump does, nor do I mean to suggest it doesn’t matter who succeeds him. However, we would eliminate a slew of Trump-created problems and inanities and make it possible rationally to address issues.

It’s not hyperbole to say Trump is a threat to our democracy, to national security and to progress on virtually any issue. We want the best possible president, but we will settle for anyone who isn’t Trump.

If you care about America and the future, vote Democrat in 2020 and in Virginia's 2019 elections.

2 Dead Young Heroes: It’s Time to Stand Up to Guns

The family of Riley Howell who died stopping a gunman.

Growing up I attended a small rural school system where a number of students, especially the boys, hunted and had guns in their homes.  Most such guns were hunting rifles and no one to my knowledge possessed military style assault rifles. Yet, despite this availability of guns at home, none of us students had to live in fear that our lives might be in danger while in our classes from past or present students - or others - out to commit murder and mayhem. Indeed, out only worry about guns were hunters who constantly disrespected property rights of others and trespassed , utterly ignoring "posted" and "no trespass" signs.  Over the intervening years, the number of guns in America has mushroomed and there are now more guns than people and, as a column in the New York Times notes, it is more difficult to adopted a pet from a shelter than it is to buy a gun.  Something is seriously wrong in this nation which has the highest rate of gun carnage of any developed country.  The 2nd Amendment, which the Founding Fathers included in the Bill of Rights for a limited purpose - i.e., maintaining a regulated Militia  - has been utterly perverted by the gun industry and its tools within the NRA.  The referenced column looks at the sickness in America and the need for gun control now.  Thoughts and prayers - a GOP favorite sound bite - do nothing.  Here are column excerpts:

Politicians fearful of the National Rifle Association have allowed the gun lobby to run amok so that America now has more guns than people, but there is still true heroism out there in the face of gun violence: students who rush shooters at the risk of their own lives.

Let’s celebrate, and mourn, a student named Kendrick Castillo, 18, just days away from graduating in Highlands Ranch, Colo., who on Tuesday helped save his classmates in English literature class from a gunman.

At least three boys in the class — one of them Brendan Bialy, who hopes to become a Marine — tackled and disarmed the gunman. “They were very heroic,” Nui said. Bravo as well to the police officers who arrived within two minutes of the shooting and seized the two attackers. The courage of those students in Colorado echoes last week’s bravery of Riley Howell, a student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Riley, 21, charged a gunman there and continued even as he was shot twice. As he tackled the gunman he was shot a third time, in the head, and killed, but he ended the shooting.

Riley was deservedly given a hero’s funeral, and presumably the same will happen with Kendrick. But their parents didn’t want martyrs; they wanted children and grandchildren. And it is appalling that we as a society have abandoned American kids so that they must die to save their classmates.

When New Zealand experienced a mass shooting in March, it took the government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern just 26 days to tighten gun laws and ban assault rifles. In contrast, America has had 53 years of inaction since the University of Texas tower shooting in 1966 claimed 17 lives. Sandy Hook … Las Vegas … Parkland — so many dead; so little done.

Since 1970, 1.45 million Americans have died from guns — suicides, murders and accidents. That’s more than the 1.4 million Americans estimated to have died in all the wars in American history going back to the American Revolution.

This should also make us all cringe: In a typical year, more American children ages 4 and younger die from firearms (110 in 2016) than police officers do in the line of duty (65 in 2016).

So let’s send thoughts and prayers to the families of victims in Colorado and North Carolina, but let’s also push for a sensible gun policy that would make such heroics less necessary.

Granted, this is complicated. . . . . Still, there are obvious steps worth taking. A starting point would be to require universal background checks before all firearms sales. Some 22 percent of guns are still acquired in the U.S. without a background check; a person wanting to adopt a rescue dog often undergoes a more thorough check than a person buying an assault rifle.

Safe storage of guns — in gun safes or with trigger locks — prevents children and others from accessing firearms. Voluntary gun buybacks would reduce the pool of firearms out there. We should also invest in “smart gun” technologies that require a code or fingerprint to fire. We need more “red-flag laws” that make it more difficult for people to obtain guns when they present a threat to themselves or others.

And tell me: Why do we bar people on the terrorism watch list from boarding planes while still allowing them to purchase guns?

Every day in 2017, the last year for which we have figures, an average of 107 people died in America from guns. We’re not able to avert every shooting, but we can save some lives. We need not have the courage of the students who charged gunmen; we just need to demand action from our members of Congress and state legislators.

That’s the best way to honor heroes like Kendrick Castillo and Riley Howell, by making such heroics less necessary in classrooms around America.

Many parents likely think gun violence could never happen to their children - or grandchildren - yet the truth of the matter is that it can and the possibility goes up every year that meaningful gun control fails to be enacted.  Look at the photo above and realize someday this could be you or your family members.  Vote against any politician who will not stand up to the NRA and gun lobby and support comprehensive gun control laws.

NRA and Its Republican Prostitutes Have More Blood on Their Hands

Yesterday saw another deadly school shooting that took ten (10) lives and left another dozen physically injured and many, many more left emotionally and psychologically harmed.  How could it happen again so soon after the Parkland massacre?  Simple, the United States is the sole advanced nation that has ridiculous and insane gun laws which, combined with a perverse gun mania among too much of the citizenry, nearly guarantees endless pools of blood.  No other country has the level of gun violence and, contrary to the talking points of the National Rifle Association, study after study have documented that more guns makes people less safe.  Indeed, later in the day after a high school graduation near Atlanta, Georgia, a shooting claimed a life when a dispute broke out and an armed individual used a gun at a venue where no gun ever should have been present. When will the insanity stop and when will the Supreme Court clamp down and interpret some sanity into the 2nd Amendment.   An editorial in the New York Times looks at the unique irresponsibility of America's gun laws and continued failure of Congress to act as the blood continues to flow.  It's time to make change happen.  Enough with the bullshit of "thoughts and prayers" which do absolutely nothing constructive.  Here are editorial highlights:

Inevitably, predictably, fatefully, another mass shooting breaks our hearts. This time, it is a school shooting in Texas.

But what is perhaps most heartbreaking of all is that they shouldn’t be shocking. People all over the world become furious and try to harm others, but only in the United States do we suffer such mass shootings so regularly; only in the United States do we lose one person every 15 minutes to gun violence.
So let’s not just mourn the dead, let’s not just lower flags and make somber speeches. Let’s also learn lessons from these tragedies, so that there can be fewer of them. In particular, I suggest that we try a new approach to reducing gun violence — a public health strategy.
The first step is to understand the scale of the challenge America faces: The U.S. has more than 300 million guns – roughly one for every citizen – and stands out as well for its gun death rates. At the other extreme, Japan has less than one gun per 100 people, and typically fewer than 10 gun deaths a year in the entire country.
Gun enthusiasts often protest: Cars kill about as many people as guns, and we don’t ban them! No, but automobiles are actually a model for the public health approach I’m suggesting.
We don’t ban cars, but we work hard to regulate them – and limit access to them – so as to reduce the death toll they cause. This has been spectacularly successful, reducing the death rate per 100 million miles driven by 95 percent since 1921.
The left sometimes focuses on “gun control,” which scares off gun owners and leads to more gun sales. A better framing is “gun safety” or “reducing gun violence,” and using auto safety as a model—constant efforts to make the products safer and to limit access by people who are most likely to misuse them.
What would a public health approach look like for guns if it were modeled after cars? It would include:
Background Checks: 22 percent of guns are obtained without one. Protection Orders: Keep men who are subject to domestic violence protection orders from having guns. Ban Under-21s: A ban on people under 21 purchasing firearms (this is already the case in many states). Safe Storage: These include trigger locks as well as guns and ammunition stored separately, especially when children are in the house. Straw Purchases: Tighter enforcement of laws on straw purchases of weapons, and some limits on how many guns can be purchased in a month. Ammunition Checks:  Experimentation with a one-time background check for anybody buying ammunition. End Immunity: End immunity for firearm companies. That’s a subsidy to a particular industry. Ban Bump Stocks: A ban on bump stocks of the kind used in Las Vegas to mimic automatic weapon fire. Research ‘Smart Guns’: “Smart guns” fire only after a fingerprint or PIN is entered, or if used near a particular bracelet.If someone steals my iPhone, it’s useless, and the same should be true of guns. Gun manufacturers made child-proof guns back in the 19th century (before dropping them), and it’s time to advance that technology today. Some combination of smart guns and safe storage would also reduce the number of firearms stolen in the U.S. each year, now about 200,000, and available to criminals.
It is true that guns are occasionally used to stop violence. But contrary to what the National Rifle Association suggests, this is rare. One study by the Violence Policy Center found that in 2012 there were 259 justifiable homicides by a private citizen using a firearm. . . . . The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence finds that states where guns are more regulated tend to have lower gun death rates.
The evidence is overwhelming that overall more guns and more relaxed gun laws lead to more violent deaths and injuries. One study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that a gun in the house was associated with an increased risk of a gun death, particularly by suicide but also apparently by homicide.
[R]emember that although it is mass shootings that get our attention, they are not the main cause of loss of life. Much more typical is a friend who shoots another, a husband who kills his wife – or, most common of all, a man who kills himself. Skeptics will say that if people want to kill themselves, there’s nothing we can do. In fact, it turns out that if you make suicide a bit more difficult, suicide rates drop.
For skeptics who think that gun laws don’t make a difference, consider what happened in two states, Missouri and Connecticut. In 1995, Connecticut tightened licensing laws, while in 2007 Missouri eased gun laws.  The upshot? After tightening gun laws, firearm homicide rates dropped 40 percent in Connecticut. And after Missouri eased gun laws, gun homicide rates rose 25 percent.
In many places, there is more rigorous screening of people who want to adopt dogs than of people who want to purchase firearms.
There’s simply a scandalous lack of research on gun violence, largely because the N.R.A. is extremely hostile to such research and Congress rolls over. When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did try to research gun violence, Congress responded by cutting its funding.
[T]he blunt, damning truth: Friday’s school shooting was 100 percent predictable. After each such incident, we mourn the deaths and sympathize with the victims, but we do nothing fundamental to reduce our vulnerability. . . . more Americans have died from gun violence, including suicides, since 1970 (about 1.4 million) than in all the wars in American history going back to the Revolutionary War (about 1.3 million). And it’s not just gang-members: In a typical year, more pre-schoolers are shot dead in America (about 75) than police officers are.
So let’s not just shed tears for the dead, give somber speeches and lower flags. Let’s get started and save lives.

Quote of the Day: Florida Student to Trump

America yet again finds itself stunned by another totally preventable mass shooting.  Seventeen are dead, many young high school students with their entire lives ahead of them, and we find Republicans who continue to block any common sense gun control legislation giving out the same bullshit responses of "condolences and prayers" to the victims.  One student at who survived the carnage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida,  summed things  up well when she tweeted the following to Donald Trump: 

I don’t want your condolences you fucking price of shit, my friends and teachers were shot. Multiple of my fellow classmates are dead. Do something instead of sending prayers. Prayers won’t fix this. But Gun control will prevent it from happening again.

The student is 100% correct in her assessment.  However, while directed to Trump, the message could apply to almost every Republican at the state and federal level who continues to be the willing political whore of the NRA and the gun manufacturers for which it is a front organization.  Here in Virginia, Republicans in the General Assembly killed a measure which would have banned bump stocks such as those use to deadly effect in the Las Vegas mass shooting.   No ordinary citizen needs an automatic rifle, the weapon of choice among mass shooters.   A piece in Vox looks at the ridiculous number of guns in America: 

The US makes up about 4.4 percent of the global population but possesses 42 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns. And the empirical research shows that places with more guns have more homicides.

Criminal justice experts widely recognize that America’s unusually high levels of gun violence are a result of cultural and policy decisions that have made firearms far more available in America than in most of the world. For the US, that means not just more mass shootings, but more gun violence in general.

 A piece in the New York Times continues the analysis and provides in part as follows:

Why, they ask, does it [America] experience so many mass shootings?

Perhaps, some speculate, it is because American society is unusually violent. Or its racial divisions have frayed the bonds of society. Or its citizens lack proper mental care under a health care system that draws frequent derision abroad.

These explanations share one thing in common: Though seemingly sensible, all have been debunked by research on shootings elsewhere in the world. Instead, an ever-growing body of research consistently reaches the same conclusion.

The only variable that can explain the high rate of mass shootings in America is its astronomical number of guns. The top-line numbers suggest a correlation that, on further investigation, grows only clearer.  Americans make up about 4.4 percent of the global population but own 42 percent of the world’s guns. From 1966 to 2012, 31 percent of the gunmen in mass shootings worldwide were American, according to a 2015 study by Adam Lankford, a professor at the University of Alabama.

Adjusted for population, only Yemen has a higher rate of mass shootings among countries with more than 10 million people — a distinction Mr. Lankford urged to avoid outliers. Yemen has the world’s second-highest rate of gun ownership after the United States.

Worldwide, Mr. Lankford found, a country’s rate of gun ownership correlated with the odds it would experience a mass shooting. This relationship held even when he excluded the United States, indicating that it could not be explained by some other factor particular to his home country. And it held when he controlled for homicide rates, suggesting that mass shootings were better explained by a society’s access to guns than by its baseline level of violence. A 2015 study estimated that only 4 percent of American gun deaths could be attributed to mental health issues. And Mr. Lankford, in an email, said countries with high suicide rates tended to have low rates of mass shootings — the opposite of what you would expect if mental health problems correlated with mass shootings.

Whether a population plays more or fewer video games also appears to have no impact. Americans are no more likely to play video games than people in any other developed country.

Racial diversity or other factors associated with social cohesion also show little correlation with gun deaths. Among European countries, there is little association between immigration or other diversity metrics and the rates of gun murders or mass shootings.

America’s gun homicide rate was 33 per million people in 2009, far exceeding the average among developed countries. In Canada and Britain, it was 5 per million and 0.7 per million, respectively, which also corresponds with differences in gun ownership.A New Yorker is just as likely to be robbed as a Londoner, for instance, but the New Yorker is 54 times more likely to be killed in the process.  They concluded that the discrepancy, like so many other anomalies of American violence, came down to guns.

[G]un control legislation tends to reduce gun murders, according to a recent analysis of 130 studies from 10 countries.  This suggests that the guns themselves cause the violence.. . . So while mass shootings can happen anywhere, they are only a matter of routine in the United States.

In 2013, American gun-related deaths included 21,175 suicides, 11,208 homicides and 505 deaths caused by an accidental discharge. That same year in Japan, a country with one-third America’s population, guns were involved in only 13 deaths.

After Britain had a mass shooting in 1987, the country instituted strict gun control laws. So did Australia after a 1996 shooting. But the United States has repeatedly faced the same calculus and determined that relatively unregulated gun ownership is worth the cost to society.

That choice, more than any statistic or regulation, is what most sets the United States apart.

In short, we know how to greatly reduce these tragedies.  When will a majority of Americans say "enough!" and vote pro-gun politicians and the political whores of the NRA out of office?  Until that happens and strict gun control is enacted, expect the blood to continue to flow in our schools and other public places.

Message to the GOP: Right-to-Carry Laws Lead to More Violent Crime

SB 372 Place of religious worship; carrying dangerous weapon.

log in | tally sheet 
floor: 01/23/18  Senate: Read third time and passed Senate (21-Y 18-N)

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YEAS--Black, Carrico, Chafin, Chase, Cosgrove, DeSteph, Dunnavant, Hanger, McDougle, Newman, Norment, Obenshain, Peake, Reeves, Ruff, Stanley, Stuart, Sturtevant, Suetterlein, Vogel, Wagner--21.

NAYS--Barker, Dance, Deeds, Ebbin, Favola, Howell, Lewis, Locke, Lucas, Marsden, Mason, McClellan, McPike, Petersen, Saslaw, Spruill, Surovell, Wexton--18.

Recently Republican political whores of the NRA passed a bill in the Virginia Senate committee which would allow guns to be carried by worshippers into churches.  As WTKR reports, the senators voted 21-18 in favor of SB 372, sponsored by Republican Sen. Ben Chafin of Russell County.  Thankfully, Governor Northam - who has said that as a doctor he understands the damage gus cause to the human body - has vowed to veto the measure which is little more than yet another NRA effort to increase gun sales that will benefit its masters, the gun manufacturers.  The ridiculous Republican argument that more guns make society safer fly directly in the face of modern analysis which finds that more guns lead to more violent crime, not to mention many more guns in the hands of criminals as the number of stolen guns continues to soar.  A piece in Salon looks at the real truth which is lost on Republicans who are akin to pigs gorging themselves at the trough of NRA money.  Here are highlights:

One of the most contentious arguments within the larger gun control debate is over whether right-to-carry laws that make it legal for gun owners to carry loaded weapons in public, usually concealed on their person, make people safer. Gun rights advocates argue that packing heat is a prevention against crime and violence, invoking slogans like, "An armed society is a polite society." Gun control proponents, however, argue that a proliferation of loaded weapons is bound to lead to more violence, if only because people have easier access to the means to harm others.

John Donohue, a legal researcher who works for Stanford Law School, has been working on this question for the better part of two decades.  . . . But now "this data [has] become complete enough, and some of the new statistical techniques have been implemented," he continued.

The correlation between the passage of right-to-carry or RTC laws and violent crime has long been documented, Donohue explained, but as anyone with even the most basic knowledge of statistics understands, correlation is not causation. Now, with a combination of sophisticated statistical analysis techniques, Donohue and his team believe they have been able to document a causal relationship.

"Ten years after the adoption of RTC laws, violent crime is estimated to be 13-15 percent higher than it would have been without the RTC law," explains the paper, published at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“The most obvious problem is people get into disputes that, without guns, would at the most lead to a bloody nose," Donohue explained. If one or both parties are carrying guns, such conflicts "can now lead to death." 

A high-profile killing in Minnesota last week offers a good example. A 25-year-old man named Alexander Weiss, who had a bumper sticker on his car that read "Gun Control Means Hitting Your Target," was arrested for allegedly shooting 17-year-old Muhammed Rahim to death after a traffic accident. Witnesses describe the two young men as confrontational, and Weiss has claimed he was acting in self-defense. But it's hard to imagine the incident would have ended in death if Weiss hadn't been carrying.

"[W]hen you start carrying guns, you make them much more likely to be stolen," which means that right-to-carry laws offer a steady supply of guns to people who are already inclined to commit crimes. 

"American gun owners, preoccupied with self-defense, are inadvertently arming the very criminals they fear," explained Brian Freskos at The Trace, kicking off his November investigative report on the way stolen guns have become a major component of the gun crime problem.

More than 237,000 guns were stolen from legal gun owners in 2016 alone, though Freskos believes that is a drastic underestimate, as many gun owners never report thefts to the police. One reason gun theft is so common is because right-to-carry laws and NRA propaganda encourage gun owners to have their firearms accessible at all times: in their cars, in their homes or on their person. If people kept guns locked up (as responsible firearms owners did for generations), this problem largely wouldn't exist. . . . Reliable estimates suggest as many as 3.5 million stolen guns have entered the black market over the past decade.

The gun industry profits from all those stolen guns, since many people who have a gun stolen are back in the store the next day, buying a replacement. So the NRA has every incentive to encourage people to carry guns or otherwise store them in places where they can easily be stolen. That ends up boosting profits for manufacturers, whom the NRA represents first and foremost.

Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that the NRA has been eagerly pushing "permitless carry" laws. Getting a concealed carry license is already laughably easy. . . . . Such a change opens up a new market for the gun industry: People who want to feel tough and walk around strapped, but can't be bothered to learn to shoot the thing or answer a few simple questions first.

On Wednesday, the Indiana General Assembly will have a committee hearing on just such a proposal, HB 1022, introduced by state Rep. Jim Lucas, which would repeal the law requiring any permit whatsoever in order to carry a handgun in the state. Gun control activists, who have testified previously against this proposal, plan to show up in force at the hearing.

The reality is that carrying guns may make people feel safer, but all the available evidence suggests that it makes society less safe. Having guns everywhere makes lethal violence more likely, and also has a psychological effect, making it seem more socially acceptable — desirable, even — to resolve conflicts with violence instead of diplomacy. We all need to heed the immortal words of Johnny Cash: "Don't take your guns to town, son/ Leave your guns at home."

Is the Myth of American Exceptionalism Dead?

As a history major well versed in America's history and as someone who has traveled a fair amount overseas, I have never been a fan of the myth of American exceptionalism (most countries hold similar myths about themselves, perhaps the British in particular).   The to subscribe to the concept, one must deliberately ignore a great deal of ugliness that is a core part of America's history and more or less hold a negative view of anyone different than one's self.  Not surprisingly, white evangelical Christians subscribe to the myth of American exceptionalism - a new "hymn," Make America Great Again" is now a licensed piece of Christian worship music -  more than most.  A column by conservative David Frum in The Atlantic looks at the fraying of the myth of American exceptionalism in the age of Trump, a man who is anything but exceptional except perhaps in the volume of his lies and his malignant narcissism.  Indeed, as the column points out, America may be exceptional - but in a very negative way. The topic is most appropriate to ponder on the 4th of July. Here are highlights:

Tomorrow, the Fourth of July, Americans will celebrate their independence, the birth of a free nation. Leading the celebrations will be a president mysteriously dependent on a foreign power—a president who lavishly praises dictators and publicly despises the institutions of freedom, not only the free press but also an independent judiciary and other constitutional restraints on his will.

This is a Fourth tinged with sad ironies. Can we put the occasion to any good use? Near the end of a much more terrible national ordeal, Abraham Lincoln urged Americans: "Let us, therefore, study the incidents of this, as philosophy to learn wisdom from.” Good advice. We should try.

A traditional theme of the rhetoric of the Fourth is the celebration of “American exceptionalism.” That phrase has acquired a boastful overtone, which is why President Obama famously handled it so diffidently. "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."

“American exceptionalism" began its career, however, not as a boast, but as a question.

“Why is there no socialism in the United States?” asked a Marxist German in 1906. According to Marxist ideology, the United States—as the most highly developed capitalist nation—should have led the way toward proletarian class-consciousness. When that did not happen, Marxists squirmed to explain the deficiency away. Non-Marxists took up the inquiry after World War II. With a Labor government nationalizing railways and steelworks in Britain—Germany shattered by Nazism—and communism holding Russia, China, and half of Europe in its grip, the United States stood out as a lonely beacon of liberalism. Again America seemed a special case that needed explaining. This time the explanations came from fellow-liberals who admired the American exception, which is how the phrase acquired its secondary and more positive meaning.

Over the next decades, however, as both democracy and market economics became accepted facts across the developed world, the question changed form. Even pre-Trump, it was hard to argue that the United States was a consistently more liberal society than Germany or Britain, let alone Denmark or Canada. In some ways, yes: Free speech is more protected in the United States than other places. In some ways, no: The right to vote is better protected almost everywhere else in the democratic world than in the United States.

But most of the compliments Americans paid themselves half a century ago ring hollow in the 21st century.  . . . . . Who your parents were and where you came from matters probably more in the United States than in most other advanced economies, at least if statistics on upward mobility are to be believed.

America’s uniqueness, even pre-Trump, was expressed as much through negative indicators than positive. It is more violent than other comparable societies, both one-on-one and in the gun massacres to which the country has become so habituated. It has worse health outcomes than comparably wealthy countries, and some of them most important of them are deteriorating further even as they improve almost everywhere else. America’s average levels of academic achievement lag those of other advanced countries. Fewer Americans vote—and in no other democracy does organized money count for so much in political life.

As I said: pre-Trump. Now the United States has elected a president who seems much more aligned with—and comfortable in the company of—the rulers of Turkey, Hungary, Uzbekistan, and the Philippines than his counterparts in other highly developed countries.

That result forces a reshaping of the question of American exceptionalism.

“Why was the United States vulnerable to such a person when other democracies have done so much better?” Part of the answer is a technical one: The Electoral College, designed to protect the country from demagogues, instead elected one. But then we have to ask: How did Trump even get so far that the Electoral College entered into the matter one way or another?

Thinking about that question forces an encounter with American exceptionalism in its most somber form. If, as I believe, Donald Trump arose because of the disregard of the American political and economic elite for the troubles of so many of their fellow-citizens, it has to be asked again: How could the leaders of a democratic country imagine they could get away with such disregard?

Nor has that elite learned its lessons. Look at the progress of the Republican health-care bill through the House and Senate. The authors of the bill are acutely aware of how despised it is, how much more despised it will be once it goes into effect: That’s precisely why they have broken through all normal legislative processes, why they do not hold hearings, why they conceal its elements, why they outright lie about its effect.

Only in America, as the saying goes. This Fourth of July, however, it is harder to say with pride.

Gun Violence: When Prayer Does Not Suffice

In the wake of the shooting in Alexandria, Virginia, yesterday that targeted Congressional Republicans, one once again saw the hypocrisy of politicians who have blocked any form of meaningful gun control - a hearing on lessening restrictions on gun silencers thankfully was postponed - bloviate about sending "thoughts and prayers" to the victims and their families.  Thoughts and prayers do nothing to address the root problem and why gun violence in America exceeds that of any other developed country in the world.  The real solution is strict gun control and a weapons surrender program as occurred in Australia in the mid-1990's after a horrific mass shooting. Decent people ought to view Republicans who have sold their souls and the lives of their constituents to the gun manufacturers with disgust and need to make their disgust loudly and frequently known, especially at the ballot box. Conservative columnist David Frum calls out these hypocrites of the right in a piece in The Atlantic.  Here are column highlights:

The attack on members of Congress at baseball practice in Alexandria this morning is, by one count, the 195th mass shooting of the year. Thankfully, this time it appears that nobody was killed. The same can’t be said, alas, for the gun battle in a Fresno home on June 6, or the workplace eruption in Orlando on June 5, or the shooting in St. Louis on June 2.

Mass-casualty gun violence, like all forms of violence, has declined from its terrible peaks of the early 1990s. Yet it remains prevalent in the United States on a scale that staggers the rest of the civilized world. Earlier this month, we grieved the terrible car and knife terrorist attack on London Bridge. In the United Kingdom, jihadis employ knives precisely because they cannot readily lay hands on guns. The consequence is that committed ideological murderers, operating in teams, inflict fewer fatalities on the rare occasions they strike than do American casual killers every few days.

In only one of all the completed and attempted Islamic terrorist atrocities in the U.K. since 9/11 did the killers even carry a single gun: a 90-year-old Dutch revolver so battered that they never tried to use it.

Yet despite the predictable recurrence of these crimes, Americans have developed a strong taboo against ever discussing or even thinking about them. When the killer strikes, it is “too soon.” The next day, it is “too late”; we have all moved onto the next topic. Then comes the next massacre, and it is “too soon” all over again.

Americans accept periodic plagues as a visitation from the gods, about which nothing can or should be done. The only permitted response is “thoughts and prayers”—certainly never rational action to reduce casualties in future. Even to open the discussion as to whether something might not be done violates the taboos of decency: How dare you politicize this completely unpredictable and uncontrollable event!

The fact that such things do not happen anywhere else with anything approaching the same frequency—that too is the work of some ineffable mystery. Who can say why such things happen so seldom in Canada and Australia and Britain and Germany and France, and so often in the United States? Who would be rude enough even to wonder?

About fires, apparently, it is permitted to use human reason. But not about firearms! Against the much greater toll from those, the only remedy—the only approved response—is to send “thoughts and prayers.”

[P]rayer alone does not lift from human beings the duty to do what they have the power to do. And that’s not my personal opinion. It’s also the opinion, emphatically declared, of the God to whom believers in the Bible address their prayers. In the stately words of the King James translation, Isaiah 1:15: And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.

In some ways, yesterday's attack was a case of Republicans reaping what they have sown.  Sadly, I doubt that it will be enough to end the party's self-prostitution to the gun manufacturers who are the true power behind the NRA.  The result will be more avoidable deaths. 

Sikh Man Shot in Own Driveway by Apparent Trump Supporter

An Indian tech worker in the Mid-West was murdered last week by a white male who shouted racial slurs and told the victim to "go back to your country."  A gay couple in Key West, Florida was attacked by a white North Carolinian who yelled to them that they "were in Trump country now." Now, the Washington Post is reporting about the shooting of a Sikh man who was in his own driveway.  The attacker shouted at his victim to "go back to your country."  Such attacks are becoming increasingly frequent and thankfully are being treated in many instances as hate crimes. Yet Donald Trump supporters refuse to admit that their foul leader - and they themselves - bears any responsibility for this surge of hatred and violence.  The truth, however, is that we did not see so many acts of hatred prior to Trump's appeals to racism, religious extremism and general misogyny throughout his presidential campaign.  If Trump supporters are honest with themselves and the rest of us, they would concede that "make America great again" really means "make America white and Christian again."  Don't hold your breath for such honesty to be on display anytime soon.  Here are highlights from the Post on this latest hate driven attack:  

The 39-year-old Sikh man was working on his car in his driveway in Kent, Wash., just south of Seattle, when a man walked up wearing a mask and holding a gun.

According to a report in the Seattle Times, there was an altercation, and the gunman — a stocky, 6-foot-tall white man wearing a mask over the bottom part of his face — said “Go back to your own country” and pulled the trigger.

Authorities are investigating the shooting as a suspected hate crime, the newspaper reported.

The victim, whose name hasn’t been released, was shot in the arm at about 8 p.m. Friday and suffered injuries that are not life-threatening, the newspaper reported. The man who shot him is still on the loose. Kent Police have reached out to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies for help.

The Washington state shooting comes just weeks after an Indian man in Kansas was killed and another was injured by a gunman who told them to “get out of my country” before opening fire in a bar.

In the Kansas case, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, died from his wounds. Alok Madasani, 32, was released from the hospital Thursday. A third person, Ian Grillot, a patron at the bar, was shot while trying to intervene, The Washington Post reported.

Authorities there were also investigating whether the shooting was motivated by bias, a widely held suspicion among the victims’ family members.

Family members of the two men said in interviews that they feared the current atmosphere in the United States. “There is a kind of hysteria spreading that is not good because so many of our beloved children live there,” said Venu Madhav, a relative of Kuchibhotla. “Such hatred is not good for people.”  Madhav said that “something has changed in the United States.”

Sikhs have faced similar fears since Sept. 11, 2001, worried that they are singled out for persecution because of their religious head coverings, according to Sikhnet, a global virtual community for the religion’s adherents. Sikhs, who wear turbans as part of their religion, are from northern India and are neither Hindu nor Muslim, according to Sikhnet.

America is becoming an increasingly ugly place.  As noted recently, foreign tourism is down by 17% as foreign travelers opt to go to more friendly and safe countries instead of America.