The Gun Ratio (2)

This morning’s Washington Post features a front-page article announcing that President Biden is going to initiate a series of actions to curb gun violence in the U.S. What President Trump ignored for four years is finally getting attention from the nation’s top executive.

Meanwhile, reactions from readers to my post of yesterday about gun deaths in the U.S. made me realize that most Americans have no understanding of the lethality of firearms. Those of us who have lived through combat on the battlefield are, these days, few and far between. The percentage of Americans who have seen men killed by guns is vanishingly small.

But I’ve seen it. Many times during my thirteen years on the Vietnam battlefields and later elsewhere, I witnessed the horror of what firearms do to the human body. I know, first hand, up close and personal, the unspeakably gruesome consequences of bullets tearing men apart.

What do we have to do to persuade Americans that we must rid ourselves of this monstrosity? Why do some Americans, particularly Republicans, resist movements to reduce the number of firearms in the hands of American citizens?

I don’t know the answers to these questions. I welcome suggestions from readers.