Ralph Yarl shooting exposes the illusion of gun protection | Opinion
Incidents of wrongful shootings have become so common that they’ve ceased to be national news, but occasionally there’s a spate of them that make headlines and make you wonder how something so dangerous as a gun became so connected to personal safety.
The latest run began in Farmington, New Mexico, on April 5. Police officers responding to the wrong address shot and killed Robert Dotson, 52, when he opened the door of his home holding a handgun.
On April 13 in Kansas City, Mo., a teenager who came to the wrong house to pick up his younger siblings was shot in the head by an 84-year-old man who fired through the storm door. The teen survived. The homeowner is charged with first-degree assault.
Two days later, in Hebron, N.Y., a 65-year-old homeowner fired two shots at cars that had mistakenly come up his driveway. Kaylin Gillis, 20, was struck and killed. The shooter is charged with murder.
What connects the three incidents is the idea that having a gun in your house will protect you from intruders. Sometimes that happens and the gun lobby hails the results. But far more often having a gun creates more danger than it prevents.
Guns in the home raise the risk of suicide, fatal domestic violence, shootings of and by children, being shot by police called to your home and, as these recent cases attest, the mistaken shootings of people coming onto a property with no ill intent.
Yet for all that, the illusion of guns enhancing safety persists. It’s reinforced by “stand your ground” laws passed by at least 28 states, including North Carolina. It grew even stronger as more Americans armed themselves at the start of the pandemic, fearing a dystopian breakdown of society in which bad people will come for them and theirs.
The Wild West notion of blasting away at deadly intruders rarely fits reality, but it creates other real dangers. Even as the pandemic spurred gun sales, it also greatly increased home deliveries of goods and food. These days walking up to strangers’ doors at night to deliver an Amazon order or a pizza comes with a nerve-wracking element of suspense, especially if the delivery person isn’t sure if they are going to the right door.
In North Carolina, Republican lawmakers have only added to the problem of too many guns creating hair-trigger situations. The Republican-controlled General Assembly passed a “stand your ground” law in 2011 that gives gun owners more legal leeway to shoot when threatened. This year, the legislature overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of a law that eliminated the need to obtain a permit from the local sheriff before buying a handgun. Meanwhile, the Republican majority has refused to pass a red-flag law that would take guns from people who are found to be a danger to themselves or others.
State Sen. Natasha Marcus, a Charlotte Democrat, has tried to stem the carnage. She’s a primary sponsor of the Gun Violence Prevention Act. The legislation would make a host of sensible, popular and long overdue changes. Those include requiring a permit to buy a long gun or assault rifle, a 72-hour waiting period on gun purchases, mandating for the safe storage of firearms and the reporting of firearms that are lost or stolen.
The bill has no chance of passage, but it’s important that solutions keep being offered. As Marcus said on the Senate floor prior to the shameful vote on repealing the state’s pistol permit requirement: “We are tired of living this way, with the constant threat of gun violence and politicians doing nothing about it.”
It’s probably hopeless that most gun owners could be persuaded that their weapons are too often a threat to themselves. But if politicians not beholden to the gun lobby would make a more forceful case that a gun in the nightstand or under an automobile’s front seat is an unnecessary hazard, perhaps it would become a little safer to knock on a stranger’s door, or send your child to a sleepover or survive a road rage encounter.
The numbers are overwhelming. More politicians and civic leaders need to challenge – rather than cater to – the idea that guns make us safer. They are weapons that create more danger than they eliminate.
This story was originally published April 19, 2023 at 12:12 PM with the headline "Ralph Yarl shooting exposes the illusion of gun protection | Opinion."