Talking Shop: Lust for guns
Many of today’s nations have gun-toting fiends and vagrants, but the rampant misuse of the same now, particularly the killing of innocents, is cause for alarm
"I want more politicians to
lose their jobs to do the right
thing. Maybe your service is
not about continually winning
elections but winning the right
one, so you can make a brave
and once-in-a-lifetime choice."
– Taylor Schumann
Historically, Samuel Colt's Single-Action Army pistol, as it was called, was revolutionary, especially in 1870. It was the single-most high-tech killing device of the time. Before this invention, gun-toters had to pour and pack gunpowder into the barrel and prod a ball down with a ramrod to get it to fire, and that just once. The process would then start all over again, with others smattering with ball and powder of their own. Colt's new single-action had cartridges, it was accurate and also sported interchangeable parts—it shot straight and was high-quality for the times. Why am I telling you this on a Monday morning? Well, perhaps because the Colt was the world's first dependable killing machine, and our today's Corporate murder starts on Mondays.
Moving on across the Atlantic, in 1871, the British came up with the Martini-Henry Short-Lever Rifle. This one was also designed in 1870, but came into the market in 1871, as a hybrid that combined the single-shot of a Martini with the rifling system of a Henry. In 1871 itself, it was adopted for service by the British Army and used in the Anglo-Zulu War, the Second Anglo-Zulu War and World War I.
What is my obsession with guns and rifles of the yesteryear? It is perhaps due to the deadly roadie asphalt that tells me that the same Colts and Martini-Henrys were used against peacefully-marching Indians, even those looking decades after for salt to defy the Raj, a hungry and destitute lot marching along a dusty India for freedom. It finally happened in 1947. But in decades preceding, as many British soldiers died to the resounding staccato of German machine guns as they did to the machetes of the Zulus. History is rife with mankind's follies, myopia and vagrancies. Today is no different. It is a great leveller, and perhaps that is why that an oft-looting West now faces a tumult within its own land, with teenagers mowing down friends and colleagues, empowered to do so with weapons strewn carelessly in their homes.
You want examples?
Stoically and sadly, here we are. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when humankind was at its most scared in recent times, as many as 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries in the United States, according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That figure includes murders and suicides, along with three other and less common types of gun-related deaths tracked—some unintentional, some involving law enforcement and some where circumstances could not be determined. The total excludes deaths in which gunshot injuries played a contributing but not a principal role. Whew.
Nearly 79 per cent of murders in the US in 2020 involved a firearm. That marked the highest percentage since 1968. Well over half of all suicides in 2020—around 53 per cent, 24,292 out of 45,979—involved a gun, a percentage that has remained constant for years now. How has the number of gun deaths changed over time? Well, the 45,222 total gun deaths of 2020 were the most on record, ever, representing a 14 per cent increase over just a year before and a 25-per cent increase from five years earlier and a 43-per cent increase over a decade.
Across the world, gun murders have climbed sharply in recent years. Europe is but a little better, as per data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Albania saw the worst rate of gun violence in 2019, with 1.39 gun violence deaths that year over 100,000 people. Montenegro followed with 0.99 deaths and North Macedonia with 0.98. EU member states have seen lower rates of firearm homicides than many others worldwide. Wishful thinking, since nearby Venezuela saw 10,599 gun deaths (37.45 per 100,000), El Salvador 2,313 deaths, (36.50 per 100,000) and Guatemala a mere 5,982 deaths (33.52 per 100,000).
What of our own?
Well, apart from the fact that we appear to prefer to bludgeon, lynch or mow down our brethren, we are better off, though we do rank third on the global list in this list, with 26,500 gun-related deaths in 2019, as per data from the Institute for Heath Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), an independent global research centre in the University of Washington. Trust the historical and proven global ruler of gun crimes to pass diktat and verdict on everyone else.
Back to the rest of the globe, nearly two-thirds of gun deaths in 2016 were the result of homicides, compared to just over a quarter for suicide and less than 10 per cent from accidental injuries caused by firearms. In that same year, almost nine in 10 killed were men and the highest number of deaths was among people aged 20-24 years (for men in this age group, an estimated 34,700 deaths, compared to 3,580 for women). The pattern that emerges is that most firearm-related deaths are homicides of young men—I am glad that I am now old and getting more so.
As per a report of the World Economic Forum, things are not getting any better. For one, in 1990, 209,000 people died from firearm injuries. The figure was 251,000 in 2016. But the overall death rate decreased over the same period. In every year other than 1994 (the year of the Rwandan genocide), global firearm-related deaths were higher than those resulting from overall conflict and terrorism. With nearly 700 deaths from firearm-related injuries every day, there's a long way to go.
That's why this column
We have enough dissatisfaction, consternation, anger and hatred brewing across the world—enough that we are now seeing youngsters in countries developed and not (including our own India) pulling the trigger on a whim or slitting throats in school toilets when the easier alternative is not readily available. The body-count and our profligacy have both risen, as quickly as the fall in moral standards and values. Something surely has just got to give, lest we throw in the towel and give in and up.
How do we do that when top global leaders are evading yet another burning issue and un-leading by example? Perhaps by learning from the debauchery and vested interests that seem to be taking over most parts of the world. And what better way to peg down this depravity and licentiousness than sharing a quote, this once ostensibly from a leading member of the great British royal family, which reads: "A gun is no more dangerous than a cricket bat in the hands of a madman." May the Lord save the King, and us too, for these are the former rulers of a now mostly-free world.
The writer is a veteran journalist and communications specialist. He can be reached on narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com. Views expressed are personal