Common Sense Isn’t Common

A friend had a favorite saying for avoidable events or opinions based on faulty reasoning—common sense isn’t so common. I think that our current epidemic of gun violence and death is a prime example of that adage. As I begin to research and write this column nearly 10 years have passed since the slaughter of children and adults in Newtown. There have been 611 mass shootings in 2022 alone, the second highest on record, but the year is not up yet. For those who are unfamiliar with the criteria for being included in that statistic, a mass shooting is an event in which 4 or more persons are killed with a gun, not including the shooter. Although mass shootings attract a lot of media attention, they only represent about 1% of the deaths involving guns. Adding together all deaths that involved the use of a firearm through November 2022 (suicide, homicide, and unintentional shooting), the death toll as I write this is 39,935. Among the dead are 291 children 0 to 11 years old and 1,225 teens 12 to 17 years old. Tens of thousands more sustain nonfatal injuries involving guns each year. Males make up the majority of the perpetrators and victims of gun violence, especially mass shootings. According to the Violence Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization, 98% of the mass shootings are carried out by males. The 2 groups that make up the largest portion of the deaths by homicide and suicide are older White men and young Black men. White males are 6 times as likely to die by suicide than other Americans and 4 times that of women who attempt suicide. Black males are 17 times more likely to be killed with a gun fired by someone else.