Opinion: Gruesome descriptions of bodily harm have to be a part of any discussion on gun reform

Sutton is a freelance writer and opinion columnist who lives in Carlsbad.

Baby steps. That’s all we have one month after the Uvalde massacre.

Commentary

Opinion: U.S. schools and the nation need to address mass shootings

Massacres last month in Texas and New York have led to a spike in interest in gun reforms and in guns’ place in U.S. history. Here, the county district attorney details her efforts to keep schools safe; a Second Amendment supporter challenges what he sees as gun myths; and a local writer details the inadequacy of a new law signed by President Biden.

June 30, 2022

The senseless carnage in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24 left 21 dead and was the second deadliest attack on schoolchildren since the ghastly murders in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

Not far behind was the slaughter of 17 students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018.

The bipartisan deal from Congress, signed into law by President Joe Biden, strengthens background checks for gun buyers under the age of 21, provides more money for mental health services and school security, and allow guns to be removed from people deemed dangerous (red flag laws).

This framework doesn’t come close to what most polls show Americans want — sensible and stricter gun control measures.

There was also talk of increasing the age from 18 to 21 for anyone wanting to purchase an AR-15 type assault weapon. That didn’t happen.

But then it’s maddening that anyone at any age is allowed to buy an assault weapon, not just those 18 to 21. AR-15 guns are weapons of war and have no place on our streets or in our homes.

What’s next? Cannons? Tanks in the streets? Shoulder-mounted bazookas and grenade launchers? Will anything be taking the Second Amendment too far?

Blame can be placed on blood money to spineless politicians from the gun rights lobby, the lack of sufficient mental health services for the disturbed and aimless, social media sites that permit groundless conspiracy theories and unbridled hate to spread uncontrolled, and other reasons why this country leads the world in mass murder.

But the ready availability of high-powered guns is at the center of it all.

A gun owner himself, Matthew McConaughey, in his speech June 7 at the White House briefing room, said, “Responsible gun owners are fed up with the Second Amendment being abused and hijacked by some deranged individuals.”

Uvalde native McConaughey graphically described the damage done to one girl at the school by displaying a pair of green sneakers as the only way to identify her body after being shot with an AR-15.

Doctors on the scene in Uvalde spoke of the destructive power of an AR-15 and the damage it can do to a human body, saying some of the children’s bodies were decapitated, were blown to bits beyond recognition, with many only identified using dental records.

In a recent CNN piece, Dr. Sanjay Gupta related a lesson from medical school when his professor took his students to a gun range and demonstrated what a handgun and a powerful rifle can do — using a watermelon as a target.

With the handgun, there was a clear entrance and exit wound, about the same size. But when hit with a semi-automatic rifle, the watermelon shuddered and exploded red fruit.

“Instead of a predictable linear track, the watermelon looked like it had been cored out and what was left was shredded,” Gupta wrote. “The bullet doesn’t simply travel through the body; it creates a big cavity inside.”

Thus, the term cavitation.

Peter Rhee, a trauma surgeon at the University of Arizona, said in a 2016 Wired story that the damage an AR-15 can do to the human body “looks like a grenade went off in there” — with a jagged hole for an exit wound the size of an orange.

An AR-15, America’s most popular rifle and the one most commonly used in mass shootings, fires at three times the velocity of a handgun and can literally blow humans apart. It can shatter bones and pulverize tissue beyond repair.

Firing an AR-15 requires little aim, unlike a handgun, so no need for accuracy.

These gruesome descriptions have to be a part of any discussion on gun reform, when gun rights individuals falsely claim an AR-15 is just like any other gun.

The worry for many who demand serious action on gun control is that this pathetic legislation will be the end of it, that those who care more about guns than the lives of children will continue to prevail.

One month later, and this is all we have to show for the Uvalde killings.

Parents have been advised to reassure their kids that they are safe, but this feels like an insult to their intelligence.

Any child older than 10 who goes through regular active shooter drills at school knows that safety at school is nothing a parent can guarantee.

Far-reaching legislative actions are what’s needed. The only way to get this done is through the ballot box.