Canada, Guns, and Reasonable Compromise

(713 words, three-minute read)

A heavily armed man recently killed 22 random Canadian citizens. Two of the guns were purchased in the US. While such violence is relatively rare in Canada, Prime Minister Trudeau responded with more than just “thoughts and prayers.” 

The US is on borrowed time

It has been two and a half years since two back-to-back mass shootings involving assault weapons claimed a total of 84 lives: Las Vegas in October 2017 and the First Baptist Church one month later. Both events were met with the outrage of our citizens and the vacuous empathy of too many of our leaders.

The human cost of gun ownership in America

That is not to suggest that there has not been ample gun violence since that time. Every day, more than 100 Americans are killed with guns (including suicides) and 200 more are shot and wounded. Gun violence is the leading cause of death of American children and teens, and each month on average 53 women are shot to death by their intimate partners. By any measure, gun violence in the US dramatically exceeds that of other industrialized countries. At an average of 37,000 per year, the US has 10.6 gun-related deaths per 100,000 people versus Japan at .003 per 100,000.

In America, a life is not a life

As I wrote in “America, Where a Life Is Not a Life,” Americans have a nonstatistical relationship with avoidable death, meaning that some forms we reject, while others we accept as a way of life. The relentless torrent of largely avoidable death by gun is one of those that we appear to accept, or at least are resigned to tolerating. 

Mass shooting, outrage, repeat

Mass shootings, however, although statistically unimportant in the totality of gun-related deaths, still get our attention. When the next one happens, as it inevitably will, there will be outrage. There will be more marching in the streets. Our leaders will once again profess their sorrow and share the now platitudinous line “Our hearts and prayers go out to the victims and their families.” And, just as certainly, nothing will be done. In the aftermath of the 2019 Dayton, Ohio, mass shooting, the House passed additional background-check legislation, but Senate Republicans have declined to even consider it.

Not so in Canada, or even New Zealand

In sharp contrast, Prime Minister Trudeau responded to the Nova Scotia shooting by pronouncing that “Our citizens deserve more than our thoughts and prayers.” He immediately moved to ban 1,500 varieties of assault weapons and proposed legislation to implement a nationwide buyback program.

Similarly, as I wrote last summer in “New Zealand Sets an Example of Self-Respect,” only six days after the 2019 mass shooting in Christchurch, also a rare event, Prime Minister Ardern passed a sweeping ban on semiautomatic rifles and large ammunition magazines.  

Why not here?

But not in America. And not because the majority does not desire some reform. When you aggregate polls of Americans across Democrats, Republicans, and independents, you find that 65% support increased gun control. So why doesn’t it happen here? 

Fear, not the Second Amendment, prevents compromise 

Let’s accept that Americans are attached to gun ownership and that the Second Amendment is close to sacrosanct even for those who prefer some reasonable gun reform. But the sheer lack of progress even on the most basic level must be caused by our current polarization as much as by Second Amendment principles. Surely there is a way to have constructive dialogue over how to enable law-abiding citizens to own guns for recreational purposes while protecting the public at large. Any small compromise need not launch the slippery slope to total Japan-like gun prohibition that the NRA and gun owners fear. 

Guns don’t kill people, but either do cars

Gun advocates, of course, argue that banning assault rifles would not prevent their illegal ownership and usage, and they did so again most recently in Canada. This is no doubt true in many cases. It is also true that speed limits don’t prevent all speeding, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have them. Having said that, in a country like Japan where there are virtually no guns, there are virtually no gun deaths. It is not rational to ignore the high correlation between ownership and death. Can we find no agreeable option somewhere between Japan’s approach and ours?

“Let us never fear to negotiate”

The famous advice of President Kennedy applies here: “Let us not negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.” We can negotiate a better way, and we should ask our leaders to do so before the next lone shooter disrupts our slumber. Canada and New Zealand reached compromise. We can as well.