Emptying My Notebooks: We Are Already Doing Some Things to Reduce Gun Death, Let’s Do Those More

NOTE: I recently unpacked my hodgepodge of notebooks about gun culture to begin thinking about writing another book in 2025. Seeing John McPhee’s Tabula Rasa in a local bookstore inspired me to empty those notebooks here. Most of these posts have indeed been notes and not composed ideas. By contrast, the following text from 28 May 2022 is an opinion essay that seems about 75% finished. I don’t know why I set it aside and never submitted it.

As a gun owner who wants to see fewer gun deaths, I reluctantly watched events unfolding at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston Friday. The two extremes in our polarized gun debates were on full display, literally divided by Avenida De Las Americas. Inside the convention center at the NRA Institute for Legislative Action Leadership Forum, Wayne LaPierre and Donald Trump planted the flag for gun rights. Outside on Discovery Green, David Hogg and Beto O’Rouke rallied the crowd for gun control. Neither side could or cared to hear the other.

I feel the resignation of those less invested in either of these two poles but who still want answers to the problem of gun violence. I get the frustration people feel at the political stalemate on the gun issue. I understand the desire to do something, anything, in the face of exceptional and everyday tragedies involving guns.

Having studied guns in America for the past decade, I would like to share a small ray of light in the darkness we have all experienced this week. I am here to say: We are already doing some things to reduce gun death. Because they are not gun-centric, steer around our current impasse.

Mass public shootings. There is considerable ground between banning assault weapons and arming teachers. Student threat assessment. WORK.

Homicide. Mass public shootings like those in Buffalo and Uvalde get the most public attention, but most mass shootings are regular homicides just with more victims. The randomness that makes mass public shootings so terrorizing. Homicide is the opposite. As Northwestern University sociologist Andrew Papachristos puts it, a lot of homicide is “tragic but not random.” As The Trace has reported, St. Louis is segregated into neighborhoods with homicide rates higher than Honduras and those with rates that would make Japan jealous. Even within more dangerous neighborhoods in any given city, homicide is concentrated in certain identifiable social networks.

. . . these funds should go to programs that have already proved effective in reducing violence locally. I am thinking of programs that combine the efforts of police, social welfare agencies, and community members, like Operation Ceasefire and other focused deterrence programs, or those that work outside of state agencies, like Cure Violence and other public health approaches.

As Thomas Abt argues in his book Bleeding Out, violence and poverty exist as a truly vicious cycle. By taking on violence directly, disadvantaged communities can realize their economic potential, further reducing violence.

Suicide. The majority of gun deaths in any year are suicides. Unlike homicide rates, the suicide rate in the United States is similar to peer nations like . . . But we can do better. Recent research by David Studdert and colleagues suggests that owning a gun appears to increase the relative risk of suicide. But the absolute risk of even gun owning households experiencing a suicide is quite low.

Additional benefit: If we reduce homicide generally, we will also reduce mass shootings, which are often just large scale homicides. If we reduce suicide, we will also reduce mass shootings, since many mass shooters are suicidal.

Let’s get beyond reflexive responses, pre-written op-eds, and existing talking points.

Many who want to reduce gun deaths lament that Congress is powerless to act. Not so. Congress may not pass bills to add further restrictions on guns, but that is not the only way to reduce gun death.

Let’s not let our political polarization on the issue of regulating guns prevent us from investing in . . . I am sure some readers will say, “Yes, but . . .” As a realist about the polarization that has made guns a political wedge issue for both parties, I am content for now to just say yes.

Rather than proposing broadscale, blanket “solutions” to “eliminate” gun violence, we can pursue violence reduction and harm mitigation strategies that don’t engage the political stalemate on gun control.