28 Modern Healthcare | August 12, 2019
‘Do something!’
rorists. In recent months, he has repeat-
edly disparaged Hispanic immigrants,
minority legislators, and “disgusting, rat
and rodent infested” inner cities. One
researcher who focuses on hate speech
noted “having the most powerful person
on Earth echo their hateful views may
give extremists a sense of impunity.”
The gun violence epidemic in the U.S.
is much larger than these latest incidents.
Nearly 40,000 people die every year from
gunshot wounds, two-thirds by their own
hand. More than half of the 13,000 mur-
der victims (and the perpetrators) are Af-
rican-Americans living in impoverished
urban neighborhoods that have been
flooded with guns easily purchased on
their periphery or in neighboring states.
The public gets it. To begin reversing
the epidemic of gun violence, we need to
totally ban civilian ownership of assault
weapons since their only use is mass
murder; expand background checks for
all gun purchases; and screen gun pur-
chasers for suicidal tendencies and the
propensity to inflict harm on others.
Dr. Patrice Harris, president of the
American Medical Association, spoke
for the entire healthcare industry when
she called for “common-sense steps ...
to prevent avoidable deaths and injuries
caused by gun violence. We must also
address the pathology of hatred that has
too often fueled these mass murders
and casualties.” lMERRILL GOOZNER Editor EmeritusT
hat significant gun control legislation has only a slim chance of passage in the wake of
recent mass shootings reveals the depths to which the Republican leaders in the U.S.
Senate and White House have sunk in their willingness to flout public opinion.According to polls taken well before
the recent carnage in El Paso and Dayton
took 31 lives and wounded more than 50,
two-thirds of Americans backed stricter
gun laws. Similar margins backed Con-
gress and President Bill Clinton when
it passed and he signed the 1993 Brady
bill, which required stricter background
checks for purchasing handguns, and
the 1994 assault weapons ban, which ex-
pired in 2004.
When Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine spoke
to a crowd of mourners in Dayton, the
people chanted, “Do something! Do
something!”
Yet a few days after the shootings,
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McCon-
nell’s hometown newspaper, the Lou-
isville Courier-Journal, reported he was
“unlikely to accept gun control legis-
lation.” Instead, McConnell instructed
Republican Senate committee leaders
to talk with Democrats about “potential
solutions to help protect our commu-
nities without infringing on Americans’
constitutional rights.”
It’s not just the $1.2 million in cam-
paign contributions the National Rifle
Association has given McConnell over
his 34-year political career. He’s a true
believer. He told an NRA convention in
2014 that “the liberal establishment in
Washington doesn’t understand Ken-
tucky values ... As long as Washington
attacks our heritage, I’ll fight back.”Yet it wasn’t Daniel Boone who drove
from the Dallas suburbs to El Paso, a
peaceful border town where cross-bor-
der commerce is common. It was a
self-appointed white nationalist terror-
ist taking up arms against the Hispanic
“invasion,” a word used all too frequent-
ly by President Donald Trump.The president, rather than calling at-
tention to the rising share of domestic
terror incidents being perpetrated by
white nationalists, placed the blame for
the carnage on mental illness and vid-
eo games. “We must reform our mental
health laws to better identify mentally
disturbed individuals who may com-
mit acts of violence,” the president said.
“Mental illness and hate pulls the trig-
ger, not the gun.”
As with so many things the president
utters, the facts are completely opposite.
Research shows less than 5% of gunshot
deaths are associated with mental ill-
ness and there’s no connection between
obsessive video-gaming and violence.
“Rates of mental illness are roughly the
same around the world,” noted Rosie
Phillips Davis, president of the American
Psychological Association. “Yet other
countries are not experiencing these trau-
matic events as often as we face them.”
The president also refused to take re-
sponsibility for how his Twitter feed may
be emboldening white nationalist ter-