Like many public officials and private citizens, I am dumbstruck by the deadly attack on children and seniors at Annunciation Catholic Church this past Wednesday. I cannot possibly understand the full grief of the families and friends of the victims. I can only imagine there is no greater pain to endure than a senseless mass murder that took your child. The grace with which Fletcher and Harper’s parents have shown speaking to a grieving community is truly humbling.
Next, I think of the first responders; police, EMS, Fire, 911, and emergency room professionals. Those who witnessed the carnage or did their level best to help, will forever be changed.
I am thankful that in my years as a police officer, I never came upon such carnage. That is not to say, I never experienced a life altering 911 call. On March 10, 1982 my partner and I were dispatched to a 4-plex on 36th & Columbus South. I grew up on 33rd & Columbus. A grandmother had not heard from her son, Craig Jackson, or his two young sons, roughly 3 years old and 18 months. We were admitted by the landlord. In checking the two back bedrooms, I lifted a bed frame, packed with blankets around the edges and found the body of a young woman. Lifting a second bed frame, I discovered the body of another young woman. Moving to the second bedroom, I lifted the bedframe and found the bodies of Craig Jackson’s two little boys. Jackson was later convicted of strangling all four.
I thought I handled it well, until two nights later. I was lying in bed thinking about it. I realized those two little boys were just about exactly the age of our two little girls at that moment. I thought, how could someone strangle their two little children? There was no such thing as critical incident debriefings and counseling in those days. Today there is and today’s first responders are more receptive to accepting help. It can make a huge difference.
In our extremely divided country very little draws more derision from the left than expressing support for policing. Although, that seems to be changing. On the right, very little draws more scorn than asserting that the AR 15 rifle is a threat to our nation.
I have written on the former, today I write on the latter.
Politicians on the left and right have made it de rigueur to refuse to answer any difficult question. In the case of Republican legislators, state or federal, when they are asked about the unequivocal fact that mass shootings in schools and elsewhere, only take place in great numbers in the United States, you get the standard mumble followed by, “but what I can tell you…”
We visited Norway for the first time this past July. In 2011, far right domestic terrorist, Anders Breivik, perpetrated the rare but horrendous mass casualty shooting on Utoya Island, home of the Worker’s Youth League summer camp. Using a Ruger mini-14 .223 caliber assault rifle, a smaller version of the US military M-14 and a 9 mm Glock handgun, 69 people were killed and 66 were injured. Most of the victims were young people. It was the second mass shooting in Norwegian history. Gun control remains strict and semi-automatic firearms, except for hunting rifles have since been banned.
Virtually all Norwegians know the name Anders Breivik. In the United States we have made a decision not to glorify the names of mass killers by giving them notoriety. Additionally, there are just way too many.
Fans of the AR 15 often assert, it is just a rifle like any other rifle. They are quick to point out, that AR does not stand for Assault Rifle, it stands for the Armalite AR 15. Why did Armalite design the AR 15? It was designed to replace the M1 and M1 carbine, our World War II standard military rifles. Its first military use was in Viet Nam where it was known as the M16. It was designed to be a lightweight rifle and to fire a new, high velocity, lightweight, small caliber cartridge to allow infantrymen to carry more ammunition.
Fans will also assert the AR 15 is in fact a hunting rifle. There are hunting rifles equally or more powerful than the AR 15. I ask then, why don’t police carry hunting rifles in their squad cars and why to so few hunters actually hunt with the AR 15? To the former, police now need a lightweight, almost recoilless weapon, to meet the threats that they face today. To the latter the AR 15 is not nearly as accurate as a high-quality hunting rifle. Also, hunting ammunition is designed for stopping power, not to maximize trauma. Surgeons and ER physicians will tell you the extra damage a round from the AR 15 does. Hunters hope to eat venison, not to destroy as much tissue as possible.
I had a forty-year police career. During most of my patrol years, I carried a revolver and a shotgun in the squad car. As police grew outgunned, they migrated to semi-automatic pistols, and after events such as Virginia Tech, the shotgun was replaced with an AR 15 variant. Where might the arms race go from here?
I believe a majority of police officers oppose many firearms restrictions based on a 2nd Amendment argument. I hope that is changing. I have always thought they were acting against their own best interests. I still enjoy pistol shooting and qualify annually. I have never felt the need to own a rifle designed for use in war.
In a forty-year police career, you collect a lot of memories and mementos. One of my most humbling is a hand-written thank you on United States Senate letterhead from Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone. In 1994 at his request, I hosted a press event at the Minneapolis 5th Precinct, of metro police chiefs and Senator Wellstone, in support for his assault rifle and high-capacity magazine ban. The law passed but sunset in 2004, when congress lacked the courage to even debate the law.
In a Star Tribune commentary, a writer and fellow police retiree, among other things, doubted we could we ever stop private ownership of the AR 15 variant rifles in the weapons stream. Regrettably, I think he is right on. I think that train has left the station. Since 2004, whenever you picked up the ads for sporting goods stores in the Sunday paper, you are offered six to eight variations of the AR 15 for purchase. However, some sporting goods stores have gotten out of the gun business.
As I write, Governor Walz and possibly our legislature appear to be on the edge of doing “something”. Thank God, but I cannot help but wonder how many lives would have been spared had we stayed the course Senator Wellstone set. The two major obstacles in my opinion are first, political money from the gun industry. Firearms, including assault rifles, are durable goods. The industry must continue to gin up demand for additional firearms to continue to profit. The second and tougher problem is what to do about the all the assault rifles and high-capacity magazines already in mass ownership. Shutting off the tap is a necessary start though.
Hopefully we can retain that pesky “well-regulated militia clause” of the constitution, even though the Supreme Court has to twist itself into knots to continue ignoring it.
Lastly, we have already heard politicians say this is not the time to “politicize” this tragedy by bringing gun control back into the conversation. It certainly is time. There is absolutely NO other logical reason, NONE, they can cite, why this carnage is prevalent only in our first world nation, the United States of America. We are awash in firearms like no other nation. Of course we should do better getting help for people in mental health crisis. However, clinging to mental illness as the primary cause of mass murder in our country asks us to accept that we have either way more mental illness and/or a far inferior health care system.
Like most readers here, I am appalled by the availability of military-grade weapons to the general public, but as Mr. Hestness has observed: “we are awash in firearms like no other nation”. I am concerned about how far we are willing to go and the ultimate feasibility in trying to shut the lid of Pandora’s Box, and then extinguish the horrors that have already been unleashed. We might recall our dismal historical experience with Prohibition. If there are a sufficient number of people who desire what is that they are denied, then a thriving illegal secondary market that is impossible to extinguish will arise to fulfill their demands. The endless supply of weapons in private hands will make this market robust.
Suppose in a Candidian world that we are able to completely stop manufacture and under sufficient coercion compel private owners to turn-in their illegal weapons to authorities. Will deranged individuals seeking notoriety through mass carnage be completely stymied in their frenzied compulsion? Or, will the simply learn to move onto the next easiest alternative, such as explosive devices, which are comparatively simple to manufacture?
Thank you Greg, your perspective is always highly valuable and right on point.
I grew up on a farm in southern Minnesota, surrounded by guns. I shot my first deer at age 14. I support hunters and their right to have effective hunting rifles.
I first met the M-16 in jungle training during my US Army career during the Vietnam era. I remember a demonstration where they fired its predecessor, an M-14, at a 5-gallon pail full of water. Two neat holes appeared in the bucket, with water jetting out from each one. When they fired the M-16 at another bucket, the whole bucket flew off its pedestal, with water spraying everywhere. We were impressed with the idea that any hit to an enemy soldier with the new weopon would be disabling.
The M-16 was shorter and lighter than its predecessor, and, being designed for use in the jungle, accuracy at long range was not a priority. It is not suitable as a hunting rifle simply because it is NOT accurate, and no hunter that I’ve ever met killed a deer with a 5-round-burst of automatic gunfire. It is a weopon of war, and its use should be left to those who fight wars.
I was a robbery/homicide investigator for three years. We got training from the medical examiner’s office. I remember him teaching that with gunshot wounds there are temporary and permanent cavities created when a bullet passes through soft tissue. The permanent cavity is the diameter of the round itself. The temporary cavity is created by all the force being expended out into the tissue. Different rounds and weapons create larger or smaller temporary cavities. It does damage far out into the tissue, but then comes back to rest as the permanent cavity, having done extensive damage. That is exactly what you describe from your military training.
I am not a veteran, but at 72 I had many friends and relatives who were drafted or enlisted. My best friend and I got bad lottery numbers. I got a 64 and he got a 19. He decided to enlist in hopes of having more control over his future. He wanted to be an MPD officer when he was discharged. He went to basic at Fort Leonard Wood, MO. Two weeks later I got a call from his brother who said Don had contracted spinal meningitis and died in basic. As it turned out, they stopped the draft with the 1953 babies. There were lots of Viet Nam vets on MPD when I started. They had experienced much and knew a lot.
Thank you for your commentary. I remember the murders on Columbus. I’d just move here from Chicago and lived a few blocks away on Park. Around my workplace I listen to the young men ( mainly white twenty year olds) talk about their guns. They’re not talking about hunting. I feel like asking them “What are you afraid of?”. I read somewhere awhile back that not as many people are interested in hunting. So, the gun industry needed to protect their sales and they ginned up the fear factor. Protect your family and your beautiful suburban home from the great unknown menace that will attack you! Women are encouraged to buy lovely guns with pink handles. I have a relative who owns a gun. He is a senior and lives in a Senior living complex. It is gated. I want to ask him, “Who or what are you afraid of?
Thanks for an excellent commentary–especially digging into the realities of assault weapons, and the contrast with the Norwegian experience. Supporters of unlimited gun rights should at least be honest: they value an expansive (essentially unfettered) interpretation of the 2nd amendment so highly, that they are willing to pay any price–including repeated, tragic, senseless carnage. It is beyond ironic that gun rights have permeated modern American culture–given that the 2nd amendment was written in the immediate wake of the American Revolution. A revolution that began with citizen militias, which essentially were an early form of armed forces. And the colonists creating a new government wanted to be sure that “well-regulated militias” –like the very ones that helped liberate the colonies–would always have the right to bear arms (which, of course, at the time, meant muskets).
To me, it is beyond obvious that this has nothing–nothing–to do with some grand theory of individual rights to own and shoot whatever lethal weapon one desires, for any purpose whatsoever, at any time, and at any place. Indeed, the US Supreme Court also thought that was obvious for most of our history. When I was in law school in the 1980s, we spent 5 minutes on the 2nd amendment in con law. It was crystal clear that it related to well-regulated militias. The general public doesn’t realize the sea change that occurred when the Heller decision came down in 2008. It was the product of a long-term right-wing effort to remold American culture in a libertarian, Ayn-Randian mold, which bears no relation to the actual American history. That effort has achieved spectacular success, for now. Our culture is now infused with a reification of violence and near-pathological individualism. It will take a counter-reformation, equal to that organized by the right over the last 5 decades, to change this. I think there is hope that this can be achieved, because what goes up must come down; what swings right will eventually swing left (or at least to the center). But in the meantime, we will live with repeated grotesque tragedy and unimaginable pain, for thousands of people.
Wow what an amazing commentary! Thank you so much Greg! We should all share this far and wide!