A Parade of Grief: Gun Violence in America

Armed authorities pitted against unarmed Black men. Increased suicides. Tattered lives. Our means of preventing gun violence is fatally flawed. Robert Fraga covers the history, statistics and more, answering the question: what can be done?

Of the 30,000 or so killed each year by firearms, 2/3 are self-inflicted. African-American males-6% of the US population-are victims of about 22% of fatal police shootings. Fraga unpacks the reasons for these stark statistics and how they persist.

New Zealand reined in gun violence, why can't the US? Fraga explains how rural voters in the US have more clout than their counterparts in New Zealand, and they are the fiercest advocates of gun rights. Not long ago, a Texas congressman evaded a metal detector in the Capitol. He was reported to have sneered, "You can't stop me." Another congressman told police who tried to scan him after he set off the machine, "Nah, I'm not going to do that." And a third member of Congress refused to let the police search her handbag after she bragged that she was going to carry a loaded Glock to Congress.

Many in rural states believe you fight guns with guns. Fraga examines the Heartland, specifically Kansas. 'Bleeding Kansas" he reminds the reader, is "home to Dodge City, the cow town so beset by violence that it invited Wyatt Earp to be its Marshall. The City Council instituted a 'Deadline' along Front Street, separating the north end of town where guns were prohibited-cowboys packing heat there were arrested and immediately packed off to jail-from the free-wheeling south end where pretty much any behavior went unchecked."

Unpacking the right to bear arms and the 2nd Ammendment, Fraga exposes the history of the NRA up to and including the Russian Maria Butina's involvement in the NRA in 2016. He wonders "if-as per District of Columbia v. Heller-the need to arm men was to support militias, then what were those militias for?" and gives the reader an answer that fits with the turmoil of today. An important read.