CHAPTER 25

Weapons of War on America’s Streets

Yes, people pull the trigger—but guns are the instrument of death. Gun control is necessary, and delay means more death and horror.

-Former New York governor Eliot Spitzer

America has a deep and complex problem with guns, which simultaneously draws on the history of genocide and slavery, the ongoing and widespread hatred and/or fear of people of color by a significant portion of America’s white population, and the interconnection of “conservative” media like Fox and right-wing talk radio.

There are multiple strategies to dial back gun violence, most drawing on the experience of other nations. The key to all of them is to reduce the overall number of guns in circulation; numerous studies show that there is a clear and simple association between the number of guns in circulation and the frequency and severity of gun violence.

As David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Center, told the New York Times’ Elisabeth Rosenthal, “Generally, if you live in a civilized society, more guns means more death. There is no evidence that having more guns reduces crime. None at all.”¹

Similarly, when the new mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, banned carrying guns in cars or in public in 2010, the homicide rate in the city dropped by 50 percent.^{2 3}

Given both the anecdotal evidence of the radical drop in deaths and crime in country after country that make it harder to buy and own guns, and the multiple scientific studies that back up that observation, it appears that two simple changes to US law—both based in other laws that Americans already know well and like, could solve most of America’s gun-violence problem. They are:

1. Treat all semiautomatic weapons in a similar way under the same laws as fully automatic weapons.

2. Regulate gun ownership and usage the same way America regulates car ownership and usage.