<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1654063499148,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000162-07b6-de22-a173-2ffe05de0001","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1654063499148,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000162-07b6-de22-a173-2ffe05de0001","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_54006990", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1022927"} }); ","_id":"00000181-1ddd-de8b-afe9-ffffeed70000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedMarc Polymeropoulos wrote this week in the Washington Examiner that the time has come to do something about the gun violence that is “plaguing our country,” and he calls on “gun owners to break from the NRA and support smart gun safety legislation.” Polymeropoulos continues, asking “Republicans who in their hearts do not believe in the NRA’s radicalism [to] step forward and call for smart, productive gun safety legislation.”
Polymeropoulos is hardly alone in his appeal for a change in laws that will somehow alter our social situation in such a way that mass shootings like the recent one in Uvalde fade into history. In this goal, he is voicing what many of us feel.
Alas, he does not offer suggestions about legislation that would have prevented the Texas shooting. He is not alone in this deficiency: President Joe Biden and other politicians have also called on Republicans to join with Democrats to “do something.” Despite hearing this call every time someone shoots up a public place, we still lack any useful recommendations to end mass casualty attacks.
Polymeropoulos offers universal background checks as one possible remedy. He also tells us he is a gun owner. So, I would challenge him to tell us when he last purchased a firearm without undergoing a background check. As a gun owner myself, I honestly cannot remember the last gun I bought without a background check. And he ignores the fact that the Texas shooter underwent a background check for the firearms he carried to the elementary school.
We are also told that high-powered and easily available assault rifles are an absurdity. Considering my circle of gun-owning friends, I would say the AR platform is extremely popular. Not because it can kill a lot of people quickly, as happened in Uvalde, (none of my friends has ever done that) but because they are good for specific types of match shooting and very effective in hunting wild hogs.
You might not like hunting, but it is a legitimate pastime, as is the target shooting the AR is often used for. Moreover, outlawing the rifle because it was used in a shooting would probably not prevent another. In point of fact, 9 mm pistols are used in far more unlawful shootings in America, an inconvenient point overlooked by Polymeropoulos. He cites FBI statistics showing that shootings of youngsters have risen and then leaves it to the reader to conflate mass casualty events with gang shootings in the inner city, which are responsible for far, far more young deaths.
Polymeropoulos attacks the NRA repeatedly. To my knowledge, no NRA member has ever been involved in a school shooting. Politicians like to criticize the NRA because it is an effective lobby. It is also active in many valuable youth safety programs and has encouraged and backed firearms legislation that does work. Those points are routinely overlooked by politicians who feel the pressure of NRA lobbying.
Like Polymeropoulos, I have also served my nation overseas, in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. I was a foreign service officer in the U.S. Information Agency and Department of State for 28 years, retiring from the Senior Foreign Service. I have also voted for both Democrats and Republicans. And while I don’t tweet, I, too, am very proud to represent our “shining city on a hill” that President Ronald Reagan (not JFK) invoked in his 1988 State of the Union address.
I, too, want to see a change in America that will end mass casualty events — by gun, by auto, or whatever. I think social policies that incentivize intact families and fathers staying in the family are likely more effective than universal background checks in ending school shootings. I recognize, though, that they are not as easy to recommend as calling for a new law or opposition to the NRA.
School shootings are a serious problem. They deserve serious deliberation. We are not yet seeing that, and I fear that Polymeropoulos has not advanced it with his column.
Fred LaSor retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 1997 and lives in Nevada.
