I love the United States. It is an endlessly fascinating country, but not always in a good way.
In Phoenix this month, a very young child found a loaded gun in his apartment belonging to his parents, played with it, and accidentally shot himself. Fortunately, the child did not die as a result. That child was lucky.
Earlier this month in Newport News, Virginia, a 6-year-old student was able to access a loaded handgun, bring it into school and intentionally shot his first-grade teacher.
On PBS television News which we watched every day here in Arizona, I heard a woman explain how her 6-year-old daughter who really liked that teacher who advocated for her, was terrified by the incident. It not only the direct victims of gun violence that are affected. The effects radiate through the schools or other places of violence.
In the United State where we now live for 3 months, gunshot wounds are now the leading cause of death for children under the age of 18 years! I find that astounding. It tells me a lot about the society in which we are now living.
According to Josh Sugarmann the Executive Director of the Violence Policy Center at the federal level there are no federal standards about the safe storage of fire arms. Standards in states of course vary widely. A 2018 survey that indicated roughly 4.5 million minors in America live in a household with an unlocked loaded firearm.
This is despite the fact that there has been a tremendous increase in fire power among Americans. Currently, there are 20 million AR-15s in the country belonging to private citizens. Yet around the country children are continuing to die from gunshot wounds.
There are also rising numbers of suicides by guns in America. I know it can happen anywhere. It actually happened in Steinbach. But the numbers in our country are dwarfed by the per capita numbers in this country. Sugarmann also said, “But, having said that, one of the most important things to note is that, when you talk to the experts regarding child safety, the most important thing you can do if you have a child is not have a gun in the home. All too often, we think that, as parents, as guardians, you can safely secure the gun and the child will never find it. Unfortunately, we know all too often that that is untrue”.
William Brangham, a PBS reporter said this to Sugarmann on a related issue:
“… you have documented quite clearly how the gun industry is targeting children as potential customers. And I saw this flyer that I want to put up. This is a flyer for what’s called the JR-15. It’s a kid-sized gun styled after the AR-15. The original tagline for this gun says: “Looks, feels and operates just like mom and dad’s gun.” And the logo is this skull and crossbones with a baby’s pacifier in its mouth.”
Sugarmann said the firearms industry was actually copying what the tobacco industry did when it started to lose customers. It upped the anti. They started to target women, members of minority groups, and now children. And they do it with what Sugarmann called “grotesque graphics.” When people complained they toned down the ads, but they continued to market guns to children. Is that not grotesque enough? As Sugarmann said, they mad a gentler to their approach to the marketing, but still, “the bottom line, they’re marketing a junior AR-15 to children.”
Some say, that for Americans, guns are more important than children. Guns are sacred; kids not so much. How do you deny that in the fact of such evidence?
And who can deny that such a wonderful country is in serious decline?