Let’s Outlaw Men
We’re currently in the midst of yet another post-mass shooting swirl.
After the usual “hopes and prayers” have been dispensed, comes the bitter words, accusations and, eventually, “solutions” that aren’t really designed to solve anything.
So here we are.
President Trump, in a fit of (imagined) bravado, told a room full of folks that he, unlike those sheriff’s deputies down in Parkland, Florida, who failed to respond with guns blazing, would’ve exhibited the courage of the Lone Ranger.
“You don’t know until you’re tested, but I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon,” he said, as if his age and his girth would have allowed him to run. And his presence would have changed the outcome.
Mr. Trump, you had your chance back in the ’60’s to show your guts. Those five deferments your wealth got you stood in the way.
Meanwhile, Trump, his fellow Republicans and, most notably, the National Rifle Association are furiously trying to show the country that they know exactly what to do to keep us, and our children safe from gun violence.
They’re proposing we have more guns.
Let’s arm the teachers, they say.
Most teachers, though, say nonsense.
First there’s the cost.
To equip large numbers of teachers with handguns, then train them to aim them at a crazed killer carrying a rifle that’s capable of hitting targets hundred yards away, would be costly, and perhaps futile.
Of course, anybody who suggests that military-style rifles should be outlawed, is met with that old fallback, “you want to take our guns away.”
To the NRA, and our president, halting sales of AR-15’s is as demonic as using the U.S. Constitution, or the American flag for target practice at firing ranges.
Ok, then.
I have another way of putting a stop to mass shootings.
Let’s just outlaw men!
Since 1982, there have been mass shootings by 95 men in this country.
There have only been two mass shootings by women.
If we outlaw men, we can put a stop to mass shootings altogether.
Here’s how we’d do it.
On a teenager’s 18th birthday, the government would issue them an AR-15, then sentence them to stay at Mar-A-Lago for the rest of their lives.
And if any of them ever got out of line, Donald Trump would “run in there even if he didn’t have a gun,” and save the day.
That’s no sillier answer to this country’s growing problems with mass shootings than to increase surveillance of people who suffer from mental illness.
Heck! According to the National Institute of Mental Health, women are more likely than men to suffer any form of mental illness (21.7%, for women, only 14.5% for men), yet a man is far more likely to take out their hostility using a high caliber rifle than a woman.
There’s also that nonsense about the prevalence of violent movies and video games being the causes of this nation’s bloodlust.
To be honest, I used to think that myself.
Starting in 1982, and continuing for ten years, I reviewed movies for several television stations.
I felt contempt, and was very vocal about the parents who used their town’s movie theaters as babysitters — without being discriminant about what their children were permitted to see.
Yet, there have been numerous studies that are nonconclusive about the direct correlation of violent movies and video games being the source of real world violence.
But, it’s clear that in countries like Japan, where the nation’s youth is as full of video game players (on average) as there are in the United States, the incidence of widescale violence is nearly nonexistent.
Or, if you look at Canada, which has the same exposures to violent movies as we have in this country, the number of mass shootings are very small by comparison.
And so the debate continues.
And with the rapidity in which these horrendous events are increasing, there is no real solution in sight.
I’d still like somebody to take up mine.
There’s just too many men!
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. Email him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.