A group of more than 1,000 gathered at the Colorado Capitol to demand the governor ban motor vehicles and buy back the machines that killed nearly 43,000 people around the country last year.
Maybe I got that wrong.
They demanded Gov. Jared Polis ban fast food and buy back the French fries that killed nearly 280,000 obese people. Or was it the couches and large-screen televisions that caused them to not exercise?
Actually, the activists wanted to ban syringes that killed 106,000 people from overdoses. Or was it the bottles of alcohol that killed 104,000 people? The tobacco plants that killed nearly half a million?
Vehicles, food, furniture, and drugs were the culprits responsible for much of the top ten leading causes of death — disease and accidents — if you don’t believe in human agency, that is.
And yet, which inanimate object did the activist group Here 4 the Kids target this week for criminalization? They want to ban all firearms and quash the right to self-protection enshrined in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Getting the 45% of Colorado adults who say they own at least one firearm to give up their possessions would be logistically difficult. It would take a police state and that’s somewhat ironic given advocates’ feelings about law enforcement personnel. Eliminating the knowledge of how to make firearms will be even trickier since they were invented in the 13th century. Perhaps Here 4 the Kids has a time machine. The group’s website is light on details.
Homicide and suicide by firearm or any other means is a serious subject, but this event was anything but serious. No wonder Here 4 the Kids fell far short of the 25,000 people organizers hoped would participate. Not just people, they wanted “25,000+ white women from around the country…to put their bodies on the ground as marginalized communities have always done and continue to do.”
Why only white women? Women of any ethnicity are far less likely to be victims or perpetrators of homicide by gun or other means than men. Black men are more likely to be shot to death than white men and the perpetrators of these homicides are usually other black men. Shooters and their victims are generally of the same ethnicity. Black men make up a disproportionate share of both categories relative to their total population while white men are more likely than black men to die by suicide with a firearm.
Every homicide and suicide is a tragic human-caused event. While acts of violence can be magnified by powerful technology, be it a firearm, hijacked airplane, improvised bomb, or charging vehicle, only a human can commit violence. Objects do not, indeed cannot, act on their own.
Until recently, lawmakers have focused on ensuring that violent and potentially violent people do not have access to firearms by requiring background checks and allowing authorities to issue Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPO), while respecting the rights of law-abiding individuals to bear arms.
This year, however, legislators enacted several laws that impact law-abiding gun owners while doing nothing to stop those involved in the illegal gun trade. They instituted a three-day waiting period for legal purchases, banned build-your-own gun kits, raised the minimum firearm possession and purchase age to 21, and made it easier to sue gun manufacturers and dealers. While the new laws will impinge on law-abiding gun owners’ rights, none of them would have stopped the Club Q murderer last November.
The problem is the person, not the piece.
A majority, though certainly not all, young killers come from families without a father in the home. The Club Q murderer was no exception. Perhaps Here 4 the Kids can work on encouraging more fathers to be here for their kids by encouraging marriage and involved fatherhood regardless of family structure.
They could focus on helping troubled young people get involved in school, community, and faith activities to facilitate moral development and a sense of belonging. They could fight against teen use of potent marijuana which can trigger psychotic disorders. Rather than mount a feckless and bizarrely racialized attack on Coloradans’ rights, they could do something meaningful to decrease the homicide rate.
Krista L. Kafer is a weekly Denver Post columnist. Follow her on Twitter: @kristakafer
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