Debate: Gun Crimes in the U.S. (45,000 Annual Gun Deaths)

By Mohammad Ali Salih — Washington

Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe makes a speech before he was shot from behind by a man in Nara, western Japan July 8, 2022. Credit: The Asahi Shimbun/via REUTERS

Tetsuya Yamagami, center, holding a weapon, is detained near the site of gunshots in Nara, western Japan, Friday, July 8, 2022. (Nara Shimbun/Kyodo News via AP, File)

Alex R. Piquero is the Ashbel Smith Professor of Criminology and Associate Dean for Graduate Programs in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Reverend Eileen Smith, executive director of the Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Coalition for Peace.

The Washington-based Brady Center Logo.

Last week, when, in a rare incident of gun killing in Japan, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated by a homemade gun, America took notice. Particularly because, recently, almost every few weeks, there has been a mass killing in the US: in small communities like Highland Park (Illinois) and Uvalde (Texas), and in big cities like Buffalo and Chicago.

But recent nation-wide research by the Washington Post, with the help of the federal government’s data, showed that the big media and political uproars about mass killing have obscured the rising number of gun deaths “nearly every day inside homes, outside bars and on the streets.”

The rate of gun deaths in 2020 and 2021 hit the highest level, with more than 45,000 fatalities each year.

More alarming were figures that showed gun purchases rose to record levels during those two years, with more than 43 million guns estimated to have been purchased.

Last week, Forbes magazine, in a comparison of gun ownership, laws and violence in both the US and Japan, said that “Japan’s strict firearms regulations have kept the number of gun-related deaths incredibly low.”

In 2018, there were nine gun deaths in Japan, compared to 39,740 in the U.S. (including 24,432 by suicide and 13,958 by homicide).

In 2017 in Japan, there were 377,000 civilian guns, pistols and other firearms (0.3 per 100 people) and 79 million (0.16 per 100 people) in South Korea. In the West, Britain had 2.73 million (4.46 per 100 people), but the US was a category by itself: 393.34 million (120.48 per 100 people).

There were more guns in the US than the number of people, counting children.

In Japan, according to Forbes, guns are outlawed across the country. Obtaining a gun or a pistol requires a full-day class every three years, passing a shooting range test with at least 95% accuracy, a background check that includes interviews with family members, as well as mental health evaluations, drug tests and a report of where the guns and ammunition will be stored.

In the US, during the recent long weekend of the Fourth of July national independence celebrations, beside the seven people who were killed and dozens wounded at a parade in Highland Park (Illinois), numerous other fatal shootings played out across the country. In Chicago, 10 people were killed and more than 60 wounded in a string of shootings. During that same weekend, one person was killed and four were wounded in a shooting outside a nightclub in Sacramento (California); two people were shot to death at a home in Haltom City (Texas); and a man was fatally shot in Clinton (North Carolina), in addition to six people, including two children, injured in separate shootings there.

Why has the US been extraordinarily violent, and why are Americans obsessed with buying and owning guns, even if it would not have led to these killings?

Following are excerpts from three American experts, from their tweets, websites and statements to the media:

First, Alex Piquero, a criminologist at the University of Miami (Florida) and a consultant in fighting crimes in other cities, including Dallas (Texas), explains the “Why?”

Second, Reverend Eileen Smith, executive director of the Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Coalition for Peace, described the “How?”

Third, the Washington-based Brady Center, chaired by Kris Brown, answered the “Who,” particularly the high percentage of gun violence committed by Black Americans.

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Piquero: “Why More Killing”:

“There is not one clear answer as to what is driving the rise in bloodshed, but possible factors include: (1) The mental stress of the coronavirus pandemic. (2) Fraying ties between the police and the public. (3) Mounting anger. (4) The sheer number of guns in America …

You put all that into a pressure cooker, and you let the pressure cooker blow up.

It starts and ends with guns. The lethality of guns when they’re used in altercations is much higher than a fist or a knife. So, a simple disagreement, traffic quarrel or office anger could lead to shooting, hurting and killing …

For years, I have worked as a consultant to the mayor of Dallas (Texas) about safe communities, and it is not difficult to speculate why murders are climbing. And Dallas isn’t unique on the issue.

It it’s important that Dallas police continue to engage with community-violence interrupters and conduct tracing analyses on firearms. Many guns used in homicides are also used in other crimes.

I advised Dallas’ mayor not to give-up because of the continuous rising in gun violence, and cautioned him not to dismiss crime fighting plan because of the murder increasing.

When I see increases like this in gun violence, I always pause for concern, though not panic …

At the same time, I encouraged the mayor to increase studies about the relations between rising gun violence and the community’s social aspects, so as to try to decrease, if not to stop, this violence.

This will be important in order to determine whether there are any unique linkages between violent places, violent people and the risk factors that are associated with the interaction between violent places and violent people…”

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Rev. Smith: “Killing Instead of Fighting”:

“Local leaders, law enforcement officials and anti-violence workers say they have seen a worrisome trend recently, in which disputes that would have previously led to fistfights instead escalated rapidly to gunfire …

What we are seeing is a different type of violence here in Pittsburgh. They’re not fighting, at least not outside of schools; they are killing.

The ample access to guns plays a significant role. Americans are arming themselves because of deepening fears and divisions, because of frightening public incidents involving gunfire or violence, and because, simply, they know others may also have guns …

‘Stop the Violence’ rallies have been held in Pittsburgh’s communities that are infected with gun violence. Also, ‘South Pittsburgh Coalition for Peace’ has been holding prayer vigils at the Lighthouse Cathedral because there have been several shootings in that neighborhood.

Some of the shootings happened within days of each other in some South Pittsburgh neighborhoods …

It is like the killers don’t care. They are that cold-hearted.

I challenge organizations and churches to end this violence pandemic …”

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Brady Foundation: “Blacks Suffer More”:

“Brady Foundation, uniting Americans against gun violence, invites everyone who wants to end our epidemic of gun violence by taking actions, not sides …

Gun homicide (mass shootings, so-called ‘everyday’ violence, and police-involved shootings) is a universal American threat. But Black Americans are 10 times more likely than White Americans to die from it.

And Black youth fare even worse. Black children and teens are14 times more likely to die from gun homicide than their White counterparts.

The United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights Committee, in report titled “The Elimination of Racial Discrimination”, urged the U.S. government to take action, including implementing universal background checks for all private sales, prohibiting concealed carry in public and increasing transparency concerning crime guns …

Black people are not inherently more violent. Sadly, violence is a capacity that all humans share.

White men, for instance, commit the majority of mass shootings.

We must instead consider how public policy has made it so that Black people are more likely to face conditions that facilitate gun violence …

The same cities that experience disproportionate gun homicide — Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Newark, St. Louis, Chicago — all have large, segregated Black communities with a history of disinvestment. This segregation and disinvestment didn’t happen by nature, but by design. Discriminatory housing practices and Whites’ flights from where Blacks moved in rushed many blacks into poverty.

Today, many metropolitan areas remain just as segregated as they were in 1968 …”