Eighteen Killed in California Shootings, 37 Dead in Chicago
– By Howard Sierer –
Mass shootings are shocking and attract nationwide attention. They also bring out predictable media calls for more restrictive gun laws that would do little to stem the murderous tide while ignoring another problem where many more lives are at stake.
Two tragic mass shootings in California in the past ten days left 18 people dead and the rest of us shaking our heads at the senseless killing. Even more tragic but little reported is the steady drumbeat of killings in Chicago: 37 had been shot and killed through January 26th, an average of over one per day. (Two more were stabbed to death.) As of January 22nd, 23 people had been murdered in New York City.
Sadly, I see no cure-all solution for gun violence. Restricting gun purchases by requiring a waiting period to do background checks before purchasers can take possession of weapons seems reasonable. But both California shooters had no police records and showed no prior evidence of mental derangement that would have prevented them from purchasing or owning guns.
Experience shows that restrictive gun laws do not reduce gun violence. Case in point: California has the most restrictive gun laws in the country, yet 18 people were killed.
Banning assault weapons has little effect. All 18 California victims were killed with handguns as were almost all of those in Chicago and New York, not with assault weapons. A total of 18,597 homicides were committed in the U.S. during 2022. In cases where the weapon used was identified, only about 7% were committed with rifles of any kind, including assault weapons.
Expanding mental health services might do some good for those living marginally well. Still, it wouldn’t have reached the two California shooters and are unlikely to reach gang members in Chicago and New York responsible for most shootings.
Recognizing all these difficulties, the New York Times has a useful article entitled “Why America Can’t Fix Its Gun Violence Crisis.” The article’s bottom line: the country has 390 million guns of all types, three to four times as many per capita as any other first-world country.
The Times blames all the usual suspects for inaction: the Second Amendment, the NRA, the Senate dominated by gun-loving states, and Republicans in general.
There is a much larger and more preventable crisis where political roles are reversed.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 108,000 Americans died of opioid overdoses in the year ending in February 2022, over six times the number of homicides.
The primary culprit is fentanyl, an easy-to-make synthetic drug produced primarily by two large Mexican drug cartels with raw materials supplied from China. Fentanyl is mixed into fake pills made to look like OxyContin, Percocet, and Xanax. Since fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin or morphine, it is easily overdosed by unwitting opioid abusers. The CDC estimates that fentanyl causes 70% of all overdose deaths.
Since almost all fentanyl enters the country through our southern border, we could save tens of thousands of American lives each year by securing that border. But Pres. Biden abandoned any effective control of our southern border in the first hours of his presidency, resulting in over two million would-be immigrants appearing in each of the last two years compared with only about 548,000 in 2020.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration seized 379 million doses of fentanyl in 2022, almost all in border states California and Texas. Nonetheless, overdose deaths rose again.
Blame for failing to address this far greater threat lies with Democrats, who instead prioritize illegal immigrant asylum claims over border security.
I’d willingly support stricter gun control laws in exchange for real security at our southern border that would save many more lives than would more gun control laws.
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