You're up, gun owners

There’s just too much left to say about the shooting a week ago this morning in Newtown, Conn., and it’s hard to know where to begin. After most mass shootings (and isn’t that a telling, sad thing to write), there are clearly drawn sides on either pole of the gun control debate. One tiny silver lining in the aftermath of this shooting has been that its severity, and particularly the targeting of small children, has seemingly prompted a more serious reflection. At least in my experience – I can’t tell you how may times in the last week I’ve heard my most conservative friends and co-workers complain that assault weapons are too easy to come by in the U.S. The normally silent majority finally seems to be willing to drown out the pontificating of our corporate lobby-funded elected officials to say that there IS a happy medium between you owning a rifle or handgun and some nutcase owning an assault rifle, and it’s high time we found it.

I feel like the people in charge of our public policy on this issue only acknowledge that there’s no one solution when they’re looking for an excuse not to do anything at all. As in, banning semi-auto weapons/X type of ammo/all guns EVER won’t stop criminals from getting their hands on illegal weapons, so let’s not make any new gun control laws at all. (Which is the equivalent of saying that we should do away with highway speed limits because of how I drive every morning.)

But in this case I think it’s become clear that preventing the next tragedy isn’t about making one single policy change. That’s not a cop-out. Connecticut has an assault weapons ban; Adam Lanza’s mother purchased her guns legally (thus becoming part of the statistic that gun owners risk being killed by their own weapons). While the U.S. far outpaces the rest of the world in firearm ownership, we’re not exactly the only place in the world where lots of people own guns. We’re looking at a health care system with fewer resources for the mentally ill, and a culture that offers too many role models to an angry, pathetic person who can only make a name for himself by hurting others.

“Guns” as a concept in and of themselves don’t automatically turn their owners into killers. But it’s also true that killers tend to go forguns. In 2007, over 31,000 people died from being shot, the majority being suicides – which still leaves about 11,000 gun-related homicides in the U.S. in any given year. Meanwhile, another 75,000+ are injured by guns, either deliberately or accidentally. By comparison, between 10,000 and 11,000 people die in car accidents caused by drunk drivers in the U.S. each year. Where’s the MADD-style public awareness campaign about the dangers of guns in the wrong hands?

Which brings me to what should be an obvious point: When I have a cold and want to buy too large a box of cold medicine, someone at the drug store takes down my personal information. They do this so that, if I go across town and try to buy another economy-size box of Sudafed, law enforcement will know about it. Ok, I have a “right” to buy a legal and regulated product, but thanks to the meth labs of the world I can no longer do so in unlimited quantities. I have to wear a seatbelt. But no one keeps track of how many bullets you buy online (like the Aurora shooter did). If I buy a beer for a 20-and-three-quarters year-old, I go to jail; if I buy an assault rifle for a 10-year-old, I’m cool.

Even in a free society, we take for granted that there are stupid, sometimes even evil people in the world and we have to work around them as best we can. Except when it comes to guns. Too many people are making too much money making gun ownership and use a “culture war” issue for us to be able to rely on our political leadership to ever tell us what we need to hear, vs. what we want to hear.

And I put the blame for that on the NRA, which today unleashed its “meaningful contribution” to the debate: putting armed guards in all schools pronto. (Oh, okay. We spent five years debating the 1994 assault weapons ban, but we should rush armed guards into kindergarten next week.) Never mind that an armed, trained guard at Columbine High barely slowed up those shooters. Never mind that communities across the U.S. can barely maintain the police forces they already have. Who’s going to pay for this isn’t the NRA’s concern. They haven’t been about policy, or about advocating for actual gun owners, for some time. Take a look at the donors to the NRA’s foundation. They exist to convince people to buy more guns and bullets, that’s all.

If the NRA actually cared about sustaining the tradition of responsible gun ownership in this country, they’d be doing everything possible to distance Adam Lanza and his ilk from the rural hunter who takes his kids out twice a year. They’d take a hard look at what happened to the tobaccoindustry, who dug in their heels until public opinion turned so violently against them that the largest companies were forced to pay hundreds of millions into a fund that, among other things, pays for those annoying “don’t smoke or you’ll die” TV commercials. It’s not going to take too many more days like last Friday to convince a critical mass of Americans that guns run amok are a public health issue.

Because the one thing that I haven’t heard said in the last week is this: while the mass shootings get the press because they’re so indiscriminate (the “it could happen to you” factor”), something like 80 Americans are killed by guns each day on average. That’s more than three Sandy Hooks every day. You just don’t hear about them.

So I have something to say to all the gun owners out there. You know who you are. You’re the ones whose instinctive response when you learn about 20 6-year-olds being mown down in their classroom is to run to Facebook to remind us that “guns don’t kill people! People kill people!!” If you want to make sure that your kids and grandkids can buy handguns or shotguns if they want, then it’s up to you to figure this out. Right now you’re not drawing any distinction between military-style guns and “cop-killer” bullets and that shotgun in my dad’s closet. There are weapons that civilians should have access to, and those that they shouldn’t.

So y’all figure this out. National registration database? Limit on bullet purchases? Close the gun-show loophole on background checks? Required training to buy weapons over a certain firing capacity? Annual licensure? It’s up to you at this point. But right now most Americans see you as the people who put your hobby above the lives of American children, and that means that your window to police your own community is closing. If you all don’t come up with a solution, then people who know less about your tools and how you use them will gladly do so – and you most likely won’t like the result.

What happened last week doesn’t happen outside America, at least not with the regularity it does here. We will always have disturbed, inadequate types who will lash out at others. But they don’t always have to have such easy access to weapons, any more than a meth cooker has unfettered access to cold meds. A change is coming, and the people who think of themselves as the good guys need to be leading the way – not fighting for the right of the next Lanza to kill.

And everybody was happy

Like most Americans, I’m still mentally processing the terrible shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., yesterday morning, and this will be far from my last word on the subject. (For starters, it IS the time to quote “talk about this,” meaning policy changes that could prevent this type of mass shooting in the future.)

But I read this tonight – it’s making its rounds on the Internet – it’s from Roger Ebert’s review of the film “Elephant,” which is also about a school shooting:

Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. "Wouldn't you say," she asked, "that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?" No, I said, I wouldn't say that. "But what about 'Basketball Diaries'?" she asked. "Doesn't that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?" The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it's unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. "Events like this," I said, "if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory."

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of "explaining" them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.

In my previous jobs, I worked at two private colleges and a private secondary school, and one of my top responsibilities was working with the media. I have all the respect in the world for newspeople and the critical work they do, but after a few years at it I got pretty frustrated with the media’s tendency to focus on stories that could be reported on as quickly as possible and result in the max amount of attention. As they say, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Anyone who watches TV knows that.

But what got me was the superficiality of the media’s interest. I got to the point where I knew that if there was a disaster anywhere in the world, my day (at least up until the 3 p.m.-ish deadline for a 6 p.m. broadcast) would be taken up answering calls from each area media outlet wanting to know if we had any students from the affected area – even better if we had students there right then. Once I was at a conference away from campus, and on a break I noticed that I had three voicemails – as it turned out, from three different TV stations wanting to know if the school had any students studying abroad in Chile. And that’s how I found out that there had been an earthquake in Chile. I found out about the London bus bombing from a reporter, too, only that time my mom was one of three adult students in my school’s summer program at Oxford, so while I’m on the phone with this reporter I’m also frantically checking my email to see if there was anything from her or the other students.

And after each day spent answering questions about members of our school family potentially in Chile, in Oxford, in Japan, in Haiti, in wherever, almost never was there any follow-up. Those media outlets were running down a checklist of local colleges, and that was all they needed to do. They filled that day’s broadcast and everybody was happy – on to the next disaster.

Yes, we need to understand what happened yesterday and pay tribute to the victims. But that’s only if we can discover some lesson that will prevent future horrors. Sticking microphones in the faces of children who’ve just survived a mass murder doesn’t accomplish that. Digging up yearbook photos and Facebook profiles of the shooter doesn’t, either. Speculating about the effect of video games, movies and anything else irrelevant really doesn’t. But I guess it fills the time.

Why are you mad at Bob Costas?

It’s been nearly a week since NBC’s Bob Costas addressed the aftermath of the Javon Belcher shooting during the broadcast of the Sunday night game. And today on the TV while I was at the gym, some lady on Fox News was still going on about Costas’ “rant” against gun ownership.

Here’s the deal: I didn’t write about this a week ago because I thought it was stupid. It’s the kind of made-up controversy that too much of the media seems to glom onto because they have too much air-time and blogspace to fill and not enough paid reporters to fill it with actual news. But this incident was especially stupid and made-up because 30 seconds of fact-checking totally kills it… so what kind of agenda-obsessed nut would ignore obvious and easily verifiable facts for eyeballs and page clicks?

This is where, if this were the opening segment of “The Daily Show,” Stewart would pop onscreen the “Fox News: Fair and Balanced” logo and everyone watching would chuckle, not belly-laugh, because that joke’s just way too easy to make.

 

Costas said what he said, and he’s since said that 90 seconds of a halftime show was not the appropriate venue for entering into a debate on guns and crime. But here’s the thing: his actual comments were references to another writer, Jason Whitlock. In fact, Costas’ most pointed statement – “What I believe is, if he (Belcher) didn’t possess/own a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.” – was a direct quote from Whitlock’s column.

And Costas even SAID that he was quoting Whitlock. Seriously, the detective work it takes to uncover this consists of A) simply Googling the original clip, and B) watching it. Every single news account I read or watched about this “controversy” acknowledged that Costas was quoting Whitlock’s words.

So, why are conservative writers and TV talking heads, to say nothing of the head of the NRA, still bashing Costas?

A few reasons, I think. For starters, if you admit that what Costas said originated with another writer, then you’ll probably notice that that writer writes for Fox Sports, which would interrupt the prevailing conservative narrative that the big bad media elite – in the form of that guy who calls the Olympics, evidently – is out to get them. And since the Fox News audience’s permanent case of butthurt pays its commentators’ salaries, defusing said butthurt isn’t really in their interest.

But mainly, the reason that the country’s most watched news network didn’t perform the most basic act of journalism is that Fox News isn’t really a news network. It’s an agenda-delivery device. And I’m not talking about the “let’s report the news that fits with our viewpoint” selection bias of which other media outlets are guilty. When you’re straight-up ignoring demonstrable facts, you’re not anything remotely resembling a news organization. If she were a real person (vs. a long-gone fictional character), Emily Litella would work for Fox News… except that she’d never get to the “Never mind” part. 

Consuming one’s news from only one outlet is always a bad idea. But watching Fox News for anything other than pure entertainment at this point is just silly. It’s like asking your dog for a weather report. You’ve got just about that level of professionalism, understanding of the issues and accountability.

Now for the rough part… I don’t like the tendency among my fellow liberals to characterize conservatives as less intelligent. It’s inaccurate, it’s unfair and it isn’t very nice. But the reaction to this incident doesn’t make it very easy for me to defend the conservatives and Fox devotees I know, many of whom I care about deeply. I’m sorry – if you heard about this and didn’t bother to seek out the source (the widely available clip from the broadcast), or if you did watch the broadcast and you genuinely agree that Costas went on some anti-gun “rant,” then you have an issue with your critical thinking ability, perhaps colored by your defensiveness over your own attitude toward guns.

If you’re one of the people now pissed off because you think I just insulted you, then you’re exactly the person I need to answer some questions for me:

-          Why are you mad at Bob Costas?

-          Do you understand that a TV sports announcer has zero authority over gun control laws, so even if Costas had gotten on national television and declared that all firearms should be melted down to make sweet water bongs, this is not a thing that would actually happen?

-          Is the reason you’re really so mad at this because deep down you know that more than one American was watching Costas at home and nodding because they agree with him, and that those Americans vote?

-          Why aren’t you mad at Jason Whitlock?

For the record, I give zero f---s how many firearms you keep in your home, because it’s your home and I’m sure you’re very responsible. But I do want you to ask yourself why you get so overwrought – I mean, trying to take a man’s job – when someone suggests that not all gun owners are as responsible as you are.

(That and – please do yourself a favor and stop watching Fox News, unless you have the benefit of a  mythical Costas water bong beforehand.)

Fiscal Cliffhanger

Today in “things that would’ve made a killer episode of ‘The West Wing’ but that suck in real life,” our nation’s leaders are still arguing about the so-called fiscal cliff that our federal budget will hit at the end of the year.

In a very large nutshell, this started last summer when the federal government was approaching its debt ceiling. Instead of raising the debt ceiling, preserving the U.S. credit rating (as it has done many times before), Congress instead acted like that one kid in my 7^th grade math class who deliberately didn’t do his homework in order to keep our class from getting the merit-based pizza party that EVERY OTHER CLASS GOT that year… but 20 years later I still remember his attention-whoring ass, which I guess is the Tea Party’s end-game as well.

As a backstory, Congress and the Obama Administration had previously faced off over the Bush tax cuts – signed into law in 2001 and 2003 and set to die naturally in 2010. In 2010, President Obama and Democrats in Congress wanted a jobs bill; Republicans held the tax cut renewal as leverage. Their compromise was a jobs bill that included a two-year extension of all of the Bush tax cuts.

Welp. It’s been two years, so here we are talking about the Bush tax cuts again. It’s not just that they’re set to expire (again), but that they’re a key point in the debate over how to resolve the fiscal cliff issue. Because the last-minute Budget Control Act of 2011, which temporarily resolved the debt ceiling problem, gave Congress until the end of this year to reach a long-term deal on deficit reduction. If they can’t, then automatic cuts kick in across the board. Automatic meaning, there’s nothing anyone can do about them. Across the board meaning EVERYWHERE, including the Department of Defense, which – apologies to Social Security – is the actual third rail of American politics.

So, the fiscal cliff and the death-date of the Bush tax cuts are separate things, and the fact that they’re coming to a head at the same time is A) cosmic sh*ts and giggles, or B) proof that we really are living in an Aaron Sorkin TV show, in which case I should have better dialogue and more scenes with Bradley Whitford.

But unfortunately, this isn’t TV. This isn’t something we can or should observe ironically from great remove in between checking our fantasy football scores and reruns of “30 Rock.” One of the proposals for resolving the whole fiscal cliff/deficit reduction/tax cut brouhaha – which, for the sake of clarity, will now be referred to as “Roscoe” – will directly impact the class of Americans whose direct expenditures drive our entire economy, and the other proposal for dealing with “Roscoe” will affect a vastly smaller number of Americans. So I feel like we should understand our choices.

Choice #1: No increases in tax rates for anyone, but eliminate tax deductions such as those for mortgage interest payments and some charitable contributions. Cut $1.2 trillion in spending on health care and entitlements, and raise the eligibility age for Social Security.

Choice #2: cut federal spending, keep the Bush tax cuts for most, but allow the tax cuts for incomes over $250,000 to expire like they’re going to anyway if we can’t agree on a deal.

Choice #2 asks the wealthiest Americans to go back to paying the tax rates they paid in the 90s, when, to my knowledge, people making six figures were not, in fact, reduced to panhandling. Look, no one’s saying that an AGI of 250k+ makes you “own your own yacht” rich, but you’re not exactly hurting. And no, I’m not advocating some draconian tax rate that de-incentivizes your success – just reminding that that the American Utopia y’all conservatives love to wax poetic about was also the era when the top marginal tax rate was 90 percent. So you’d think that going back to the much lower rate you paid when I was in high school would be a reasonable compromise.

Because under Choice #1, we’d kiss goodbye to the public incentives that are available to basically any American who owns a house or donates to a charity. I own a house, and my mortgage interest deduction is a big part of the reason why I’ve held on to my house. There’s not a nonprofit in this country that could survive without contributions from individuals or corporations. For high-wealth Americans, charities are a key part of their wealth management. You mess with that by nixing charitable deductions, and you’re screwing with the foundations and non-profits that allow the well-off to maximize their wealth, not to mention the thousands of jobs created by nonprofit organizations.

So, we can do all that, and STILL not fix Roscoe, or we can extend all of the Bush tax cuts minus one and be closer to okay.

Now would be a good time to ask a question I’ve always wanted to ask the John Boehners of the world. If funneling cash to the very wealthy is the best way to create jobs… when do they start? Because – again – tax rates on high income households are the lowest they’ve ever been – ever – and this isn’t something that happened last week. The first round of Bush tax cuts happened 11 years ago. What are they waiting for? Am I to believe that the wealthiest one percent have portfolios full of sure-fire investment opportunities that would put thousands of Americans to work and make even more millions for themselves, but they’re holding out for another one or two percent drop off their tax rate?

The tax cuts are among the largest contributors to the federal debt. We did this because letting the uber-rich keep their cash was supposed to trickle down to the rest of us, but doing so has coincided with the worst U.S. economy since the Great Depression. If they are the ones to save us, then apparently the uber-rich are very bad at this. So maybe we should just stop listening to them.

The universally acknowledged “best ever” times for our country economically were those when a guy like my grandfather could work decades for a local manufacturer, buy a house and put three sons through college though he himself had only a high school degree. You can’t do that in many places in America these days, and federal spending is NOT the reason why. No, Congress shouldn’t be in the business of redistributing wealth. What it should do is set fair tax rates and get out of the way. What Republicans in Congress are proposing is the opposite of that.