Thoughts on violence

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 31,000 people die each year in the US from gunshot wounds. This is an average of just over 87 per day. About 30 of those are murders, more than 50 take their own lives, and others are accidents.

If lives don't get your attention, how about this. Gunshot wounds and deaths cost the US over $12 billion, that's billion with a B, a year in court costs, insurance costs, and government health programs. In 2010 medical care for a fatal shooting cost $28,700. In 2010 lost work revenues were $5.4 billion, court costs of $4.7 billion, Medicaid and Medicare costs of $1.4 billion, $180 million in mental health care costs, $224 million to process insurance claims, and $133 million in response call costs. These numbers are from Ted Miller's analysis for Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation. An interesting conclusion was that about half of Medicaid's medical costs go to this atrocity.

The Buddha said that the three roots of evil are greed, hate, and delusion. My suspicion is that all three are at work here. US citizens own over 300 million guns-----that's just under one per citizen. The recent frenzy in gun purchases and ammunition hoarding is evidence of all three. I would associate greed with the criminal elements' obsessive use of violence in all levels of crime--drugs, prostitution, etc. I would associate hatred, paranoia, and fear (a manifestation of hatred) with the frenzy mentioned above. Delusion is the overpowering cause of the assumption that you combat violence with violence. Delusion drives misinterpretation of the Second Amendment. Delusion drives the misplaced trust in retaliation (only) and misconception that violence preserves peace.

Background checks? YES!

Improved mental health treatment? YES!

Eradication of homelessness? YES!

Confiscation of excessively powerful weapons? YES!

We are better than this. I find it irrationally insane that the nation that claims to be so religious, so Christian is at the same time so violent and quick to answer force with force. Guns kill, so do people. Guns are the symptom of much deeper problems that deserve, yes require our creative attention. An idiot can shoot a gun. Caring, compassionate people solve problems.

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