Newsletter: Opinion: Guns and the gruesome price of freedom
Good morning. I'm Matthew Fleischer, Web editor of The Times' Opinion section, filling in for Paul Thornton.
Columbus Day arrives on a somber note this year, as the Umpqua Community College mass killing in Oregon continues to shock and anger.
Nearly 1.35 million Americans have been killed by firearms since 1970 in this country. That, writes Skeptic magazine publisher Michael Shermer on The Times' Op-Ed page, “is disturbingly close to the figure of 1.39 million Americans who have died in all wars since the American Revolution.”
Guns are on display at Roseburg Gun Shop in Roseburg, Ore., on Oct. 2.
Guns on display at Roseburg Gun Shop in Roseburg, Ore., on Oct. 2. (AFP / Getty Images)
Is there even a question as to whether guns make us safer?
If you own a gun and keep it safely locked up and unloaded with the ammunition somewhere else (recommended by gun safety experts), do you really think that, in the event of a break-in, you could get to your gun, find your ammo and load it, engage the intruder, accurately aim and kill him, all before he takes your things? If you do, you've been watching too many movies. Go to a firing range and try shooting a handgun. It isn't easy to do. It requires regular training.
If you own a gun and you don't keep it safely locked up — if you keep it loaded and under your pillow, say — you might have a chance against an intruder, but you're also setting yourself up for an accident. A depressed relative or perhaps a child could find the gun.
A 2009 study corroborated these findings. Conducted by epidemiologists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and published in the American Journal of Public Health, it found that, on average, people with a gun are 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not possessing a gun.
But let's go back to your gut for a second. What if you acknowledge the validity of the statistics above, but your intuition tells you that gun control laws just won't work to reduce the carnage. Is your gut right? No, it's almost certainly not.
Mental healthcare in the United States is woeful. But, make no mistake, easy access to deadly weapons is responsible for our epidemic of gun violence, not mental illness. L.A. Times
The American political system has long been paralyzed in addressing the issue of gun violence. Can Hillary Rodham Clinton be the one to get things moving? L.A. Times
On a lighter note, consider the octopus: It can change color and shape, it can taste with its skin, it has a beak like a parrot and it can pour a 100-pound body through an opening smaller than an orange. It can also help us redefine our moral universe. L.A. Times
Know anything about Canada’s art scene? We don’t either. Thankfully, actor, comedian and art lover Steve Martin does. He speaks with Patt Morrison about one of Canada’s greatest artists — a virtual unknown south of the border. L.A. Times
Ever wonder what it feels like to be a stranger in your own neighborhood? Frogtown resident Daniel Paredes gives us an oral history of being gentrified out of your home. Livable City
Words mean a lot to us, especially yours. Please send any feedback you have about this newsletter to letters@latimes.com.
A cure for the common opinion
Get thought-provoking perspectives with our weekly newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
