Paula Claycomb was one of our first three contributors with her June 2018 article "Our Guns and Our Kids". You can click the link to see the earlier article, or just continue reading below Paula's current article. We thank Paula for being a strong supporter and regular contributor to the XUNICEF blog and newsletter. We hope you too might send us an article looking back over the past few years and reflecting on what has and has not changed for you and for the children of the world.
It would have been nice, on the 6th anniversary year of this newsletter, to report that solid progress in the US has been made in reducing the level of death by gun or in the quantities of guns and other light weapons transported legally and illegally to dozens of conflict zones around the world.
Sadly, that is not the case.
In the US overall, deaths and injuries from guns have only increased over the past six years. Depending on the source, between 30,000 and 48,000 people have died annually from guns either by accident, homicide, suicide or other (I think this includes shootings by police, for example). Categories of reporting on gun violence are shockingly diverse: Children killed, children injured, teens killed, teens injured, accidental deaths, accidental injuries, officer-involved shootings, school incidents, mass shootings ... well, you get the idea.
As I write this, a message from Everytown USA, one of the largest NGOs dealing with gun sense issues, just stated that “nearly 300,000 lives could be saved over the next decade if every state in the country had the gun death rates of the eight states with the strongest gun safety laws” (my emphasis).
Many of you are familiar with The Knotted Gun at the UN Secretariat in New York City. It was A piece called “Non-violence” was created by Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd, a friend of John Lennon’s family. He wanted to pay tribute to the singer’s vision of a peaceful world and promote a message of non-violence. A bronze version replicated Reuterswärd’s piece in Central Park and was placed at the UN. I could not find my knotted gun pin and must have given it away.
Yet the US gun manufacturing industry continues to rake in staggering profits. Everytown USA reported a year ago that the gun industry has cashed in to the tune of $9 billion in profits in 2021. Legal gun exports in 2022 were the highest ever at $14.5 billion. These numbers do not include the illegal trafficking of arms to say, Haiti or Yemen, Turkey or Mexico. (I won’t even begin to address the complexities of arms and ammunition provided to Ukraine, Israel and Saudi Arabia.)
Back to New Mexico alone, our firearms death rate has surged, making us the third highest in the US in 2021. It increased by 87 per cent in age-adjusted death rates from 2010 to 2021. The gun death rate is per capita is 27.8, third only to Mississippi and Louisiana and followed by Wyoming, Montana and Alabama. We in the South and the West surely do love our guns!
At least one poll (Evolv Technologies) reported in 2023 that 88 per cent of Americans are anxious about gun violence. What do they do about it? Well, nearly half of gun owners said they carry guns more as a result. And other governments fear for their citizens who travel to the US. According to CNN in August 2023, at least nine countries have issued travel advisories, warning about the high level of gun violence.
But ... enough of statistics! What happened to the local group of Moms Demand Action that I had joined and into which I poured much time and energy? Well, one member’s husband was murdered by a hitchhiker and could not continue. A co-founder grew overwhelmed and withdrew. Pushback from local gun owners intimidated a few of us. And I decided that climate change was where I would devote my volunteer time; I am currently deeply involved with Earth Day planning.
I will leave gun sense advocacy to others, including young people whose voices are being raised ever more loudly. David Hogg, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018, is as amazing an advocate for gun sense as Greta Thunberg is for climate or Malala Yousafzai for education. At least I can support research, advocacy and action groups financially. And hope that Americans smarten up in the coming few years so that hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved.
Paula Claycomb
(With a shout out to the editors of XUNICEF News and Views, who work tirelessly to keep us all connected.)
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Our Guns and our Kids - Retirees Talk “gun sense”
“Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” That was the response by the first person I invited to a meeting of Moms Demand Action, a US grassroots NGO that works in all 50 states to reduce gun violence. I joined MOMS, as it is called, after a school shooting in Florida on Valentine’s Day, February 14, left 17 high school students dead and another 17 people wounded.
Before that senseless massacre in Parkland, seven school shootings had taken place in the US in 2018 alone. Since that day, another 14 schools have had shootings, making a total of 22 school shootings so far this year. This does not include the many thousands of deaths due to domestic violence, suicide or other incidents such as home invasion or other crimes.
In the wake of the tragedy in Florida, Niloufar Pourzand, wrote to all of us on the XUNICEF mail list to suggest that UNICEF should make a statement about gun violence in the US. Niloufar’s message generated a lively discussion about whether UNICEF should speak out on critical issues of child protection and the voices of youth in the US and other developed countries in light of the campaign led by high-school students themselves. Many of those who participated in the discussion pointed to the rights of young people to speak as agents of change.
Adhiratha Keefe circulated an article by Carly Kabot, a UNICEF Voices of Youth blogger, written shortly after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Carly’s blog post came at a time when the Parkland students began their ongoing, highly visible movement to control dangerous firearms. These students were then often villainized by adults who characterized them as professional actors or too young to understand politics.
As the daughter of a hunter who kept his family of six children fed with venison, rabbit, grouse and other game for much of the year, I have always respected the power (and sometimes admired the beauty) of guns and rifles. As Chief of the Landmines and Small Arms Section from 2006 through 2008, I recognized the rights of hunters and gun sportsmen. I represented UNICEF in the first UN-sponsored talks on a small arms treaty which began in 2006. Even then I could sense the reluctance of UNICEF to allow my team’s participation in the forum, despite an incredible increase in adolescent deaths due to armed violence in Latin America. The treaty was finally adopted in 2013. In early 2018, the conservative Heritage Foundation called for the US to “un-sign” from the treaty in keeping with the withdrawal by the Trump administration from other multilateral agreements.
Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a widely read opinion piece on March 27 that urged a repeal of the Second Amendment. That amendment states, “a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Stevens eloquently argued that concern over loss of such rights is a relic of the 18th century, and quoted former Chief Justice Warren’s statement that the NRA has been perpetuating “one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.” That was in 1986 and the NRA’s successful propaganda machine continues today, 32 years later.
So what should or could UNICEF retirees do? Should we urge the Executive Director to take a stand on gun violence globally? Should the Executive Director issue a directive calling for country, regional and headquarters support to children and adolescents in their activism around gun violence? Our discussion unfortunately did not lead us to a conclusion about what actions UNICEF should take or what actions we should recommend to the Executive Director. That indecision in no way means, however, that we as individuals cannot ourselves take action on this important issue.
Working with a group of about 30 other residents in Taos, New Mexico, I am learning just how divided these days my country is around gun violence and so many other issues. We started with a small group of older people unable to march or walk for any distance but who wanted to show our support for the high schoolers campaigning for safety from guns. We line the streets on days of their marches and hold regular vigils in highly visible places. We are now joining with teachers, counsellors, fathers, town officials and others in establishing a local chapter of MOMs.
It was in that context that I was making phone calls to invite residents to an organizing meeting in mid-June. My very first call was to a 64-year-old man who lives a short distance from my house. As I explained above, as soon as I introduced the purpose of my call, his immediate response was negative. Though we had a cordial if somewhat tense conversation, I do not believe I changed his mind even a sliver. And he certainly did not convince me that the weapons themselves are responsible for the global 560,000 annual deaths by guns.
Like every issue that UNICEF deals with, even seemingly straightforward ones like childhood immunization and education, the complexities of armed violence permeate discussions to find solutions. The US is especially entrenched in its gun culture, but should be able to follow the examples of other countries where murder by guns is almost non-existent.
Please contact me at paula.claycomb@gmail.com if you would like more information on the gun sense movement in the US. Or go to one of my three favourite organizations to learn more: Gabby Giffords’ organization https://giffords.org/; Moms Demand Action https://momsdemandaction.org/ or the Brady campaign http://www.bradycampaign.org/. These and several others are worthy of financial support and of your time.
Thank you Paula for the very nice update on your original article. Sadly, as you say, the situation has only gotten worse. We are all perplexed on how this affects the population, especially the younger ones. My Ditty ton this;
ReplyDeleteSome people think it is a lot of fun,
To own or to use a loaded gun.
Now I dont want to preach as would a nun,
But also cannot stand those who act as a Hun.
The narrative that is always spun,
By the NRA, to name just one,
Is something that we should shun.
There is no reason under the sun
Why this is not generally done,
And why politicos choose to run
Away from the issue, as if it were a pun.