“It” is mass casualty shootings, such as that which just occurred in the Washington Navy Yard. This historic facility now joins the long roll of place names indelibly associated with massacre and grief: Columbine, Virginia Tech, Newtown. I write on the day of the killing. Gun enthusiasts say it is inappropriate to talk about gun violence at the time it occurs. Better to wait … and wait … and wait … until time has passed, and the weeping next of kin have vanished from TV, and it’s safe to return to business as usual. The idea of the gun enthusiasts is that the way to show respect for the victims of gun violence is to do everything possible to multiply their number.
Yet the gun enthusiasts do have one point on their side: for all the horror of these massacres, they are only a small part of the story of gun violence in America. Most casualties of gun violence will not die at the hands of a mentally disturbed killer seeking random victims. Most gun casualties occur in the course of quarrels and accidents between people who would be described as “law-abiding, responsible gun owners” up until the moment that they lost their temper or left a weapon where a four-year-old could find it and kill himself or his sister.
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