Abstract
Just over two years ago, a 17-year-old man was walking with his “girlfriend” on Damen Avenue in Chicago, two blocks from our front door. The young man belonged to a street gang. Two members of a rival gang pulled up in a car. The young man on the sidewalk knew he was in trouble, and he grabbed his girlfriend and put her in front of him as a shield. The young men in the car tried to shoot through her with an automatic pistol. The man on the sidewalk was slightly wounded; his girlfriend was killed.
In recent weeks, as we have put together this issue devoted largely to small arms and light weapons (in consultation with Michael Klare of Hampshire College, one of the leading experts on the changing nature of warfare), I have thought a lot about my neighborhood, the now-and-then bursts of gunfire, the terror that young woman on Damen Avenue must have felt, the amorality of the men who did the shooting, and the utter depravity of the young man who used his girlfriend as a shield.
The National Rifle Association likes to say: “Guns don't kill people; people do.” The statement is true, in a simplistic sort of way. Guns do not kill by themselves. People must pull the triggers, intentionally or by accident. But the ready availability of inexpensive guns, especially semi- and fully automatic weapons, has dramatically changed the face of large American cities. When I came to Chicago in 1964 as a newspaper reporter, it was exceedingly rare for a person to shoot at someone from a moving car. Today such incidents are so common they are simply called “drivebys.” The drivebys themselves are more deadly. Shooters in the 1960s generally used revolvers, mostly inaccurate “Saturday night specials.” The intended victim was more likely to be wounded than killed. Today, the guns may be sophisticated enough to mow down a platoon.
The global scene sometimes seems like Chicago writ large. There are peaceful “neighborhoods,” but there are also neighborhoods–particularly the “failed states” or states racing toward collapse–in which killing has become part of life. The reasons are many, including centuries of exploitive colonialism, disruptive national boundaries drawn in European capitals, decades of using states as Cold War surrogates, and present-day governmental corruption, cronyism, inequality, and poverty.
Guns are inanimate objects, as the nra says. They are brought to lethal life only by human intervention. But the sheer number of military-style guns and their killing efficiency greatly enhances the level of violence. An angry man is a threat to his friends and neighbors, those who are within his physical reach. But with a gun–and particularly with an automatic weapon–he can engage in slaughter or even take part in genocide.
More than 50 years ago, the Bulletin was founded with the idea that nuclear weapons must be brought under control, that they must never again be used. That goal has been partially accomplished, although there is still a long way to go. Meanwhile, over the past 50 years, tens of millions of people have died in local and regional conflicts, with small arms and light weapons the chief instruments of death.
As long as societies and states remain dysfunctional, killings will continue. But the numbers who die can be greatly reduced–if ways are found to sharply curtail the global traffic in small arms and light weapons, as well as to remove and destroy a significant percentage of guns already in the field. The nra is only partly right. People kill, but guns make it easy.