History by Magazine -- What to do with our deadly guns?
Thirty years ago the debate between gun haters and the gun lovers was just as hot and crazy as it is today. The only difference is that the gun-homicide rate was higher back then than it is today.
Way back in January of 1990 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette plugged my coming weekly column on magazines in this Page 1 promo. I wrote a mag column for the PG until 2020 and then Pittsburgh Tribune Review until 2007.
What to do with our deadly guns?
Dec. 16, 1993
America's war on booze was a social experiment that failed, and America's war on drugs isn't going much better.
But don't try to tell the editors of Mother Jones that a prohibition of handguns won't work to end America's spree of deadly violence.
In their well-timed January/February issue, the one with "Gun Crazy" and a drawing of Ward, June and Beaver Cleaver toting pistols and assault weapons on the cover, MJ's editors call for an outright ban on handguns and assault weapons.
"Gun Crazy" is a well-presented package of facts, photos and arguments that will not please the half of the American population that has a gun in their home.
Josh Suggarman's lead article argues that the Brady Bill is of little value and that we must "acknowledge that gun violence is a public health crisis fueled by an inherently dangerous consumer product. To end the crisis, we have to regulate — or in the case of handguns and assault weapons — completely ban the product."
MJ's editors, who have successfully improved the look and readability quotient of their magazine, also toss in a handy "action guide."
It urges readers to write to everyone to express their views and includes the addresses of friends and foes of gun control, plus savvy tips for grass-roots activists. The kit even offers two pages of specially commissioned Easter Sealish anti-handgun stamps to stick on your letters.
Mother Jones' package includes some statistics that many may find interesting or surprising.
For example, in 1990, in a country with 200 million firearms of all types, 37,184 people were killed by guns. Fifty-one percent of those deaths — 18,885 — were suicides (13,000-plus with handguns).
Forty-four percent — an all-time American high 15,377 — were gun murders (12,489 with handguns). Four percent of all gun deaths were accidental. And police killed the same number of people as private citizens did in self defense — 1 percent.
Mother Jones' editors believe handgun control is a giant first step toward ending the insane gun violence in America. They make their case, but they never get around to explaining how a government ban on handguns might be enforced in a free society.
Or what means will be used to separate current gun owners from the 67 million beloved handguns they already have stashed in their night stands.
Time magazine builds a more balanced cover story on the war over handguns around last week's massacre on a Long Island commuter train.
Time notes the paradoxical effect of such killing sprees on the public's attitude about guns: They produce both a furious demand for gun control and a furious demand for more guns by people who feel safe if they own a gun.
One of Time's articles, "Beyond the Brady Bill," tries to answer a question Mother Jones dodges: Will gun control actually reduce the killing?
Time surveys the various proposals of the gun-control interests, from taxing ammo to licensing gun dealers more stringently. It presents arguments and facts and analysis supporting both sides, but reaches no conclusion — except that the future of gun control will probably be a process of incremental regulation.
Meanwhile, out in right field, is National Review.
Its editors acknowledge that the Brady Bill is not unreasonable as a way of preventing a handful of felons and madmen from committing a handful of crimes. But National Review sees the Brady Bill also as the continuation of a "moral crusade against the legitimacy of gun ownership."
It also argues that the "unpleasant facts" gun-banners should know are that "Most murderers are career criminals, not normal citizens tempted into crimes of passion by the availability of weapons . . . and low crime rates in countries with tough gun laws pre-date the laws themselves, and are cultural in nature."
If the data and debate of violent death in Mother Jones and Time isn't depressing enough for you, turn to New York magazine's unbelievable piece on the "Killer Cowboys," the Big Apple's deadliest, boldist, scariest drug gang.
The Cowboys at their peak were making $45,000 a day selling crack and are credited with anywhere from 10 to 30 shooting murders, all but one drug-trade related.
UPDATE:
The gun debate is never over. Here’s a link to a 2010 piece that shows that the gun homicide rate had fallen by 49% since 1993 — and that the public (thanks to the lame and/or biased media) had no idea it was lower. In 2023 the rate is lower but the number of people murdered by guns was higher because the country’s population was so much higher. Despite what the media continues to make us think with its tilted and sensationalistic coverage, were safer today than in the 1970s: “On a per capita basis, there were 14.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2021 – the highest rate since the early 1990s, but still well below the peak of 16.3 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 1974.”