Author's Note: I wrote this in response to the mass shooting in Oregon in October, but didn't finish in time. I sadly thought that I could wait for the next one and post it, and here we are.
I remember it like it was yesterday. My dad and I were in his van, driving to my Aunt's house for Christmas Eve. We were coming from the warehouse, moving around some showcases so he could deliver them later that week. We used to talk Politics a lot in the van. I used to bait him with my extreme, liberal values but then he'd start yelling at me, the veritable philips-head screwdriver in the conservative toolkit, so I stopped. That night, though, he baited me.
"Did you know that half of the U.S. budget is spent on welfare?" He casually threw into our pleasant conversation.
H'OH boy. This was a classic. I asked where he heard that and he quickly replied that Howie Carr said it on AM talk radio. Howie Carr has been a mainstay of my dad's commute going on twenty years now. This guy talks, unchallenged, for hours a day. Going on jobs with my dad, I listened to him make fun of LGBT people, promote the idea of welfare queens, say the most racist, homophobic stuff, that usually resulted in me turning it off in a rage.
Already knowing that this was not true, I pulled out my phone. "I'm gonna look that up." I said. Then he ripped into me! "You have so much time to just research stuff. I'm out here working!" Valid point, but not a reason to not listen to me. Yelling would not work this time! I went online and saw the actual statistics.
Turns out, Howie Carr had been baiting all of his listeners by using the word Welfare. In truth, he was talking about Health Care, Social Security, Veterans Benefits and Safety Net programs, aka Welfare. Safety Net Programs are:
"the refundable portions of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, which assist low- and moderate-income working families through the tax code; programs that provide cash payments to eligible individuals or households, including Supplemental Security Income for the elderly or disabled poor and unemployment insurance; various forms of in-kind assistance for low-income families and individuals, including SNAP (food stamps), school meals, low-income housing assistance, child care assistance, and assistance in meeting home energy bills; and various other programs such as those that aid abused and neglected children.
All of these programs COMBINED take up only 11% of the Federal Budget. The rest as I mentioned is Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and Veterans Benefits. Which I'm sure Howie is not against, else he lose a lot of his listeners. And I'm sure my dad isn't against all this stuff either! But Howie essentially tricks his listeners into thinking that things are a certain way.
So, another mass shooting. I called my father. I asked him what he thought about guns. He said that he HATES guns. He's never shot one, has never had the desire to shoot one, just doesn't like them, period. I was in shock. We agreed on something. I couldn't believe it! So, I asked if he wants stricter gun laws. Nope. He does not. I'll give you two guesses as to why.
Howie Carr.
A listener called in and posed a scenario. What if he buys a gun legally, gets screened and everything, then in five years, he's lost everything, has nothing left to lose and goes on a shooting spree? How do you protect against that!? Great point.* Also, according to Howie, if you make guns illegal then only the criminals will have them! Another fantastic point.* And in the end, criminals will still have them, so why even try it in the first place. I mean, why even have laws at all if people are just gonna break them?
So, that's Howie's point of view. Perfect for the working man who has no time to research stuff. So below, I present to you, the research. I'll meet you back here once you've looked at it...
Weird, right? Looks like the states with stricter gun laws have less gun deaths per 100,000 people. And if you've ever watched Dog the Bounty Hunter (don't.) you'll see that Hawaii has some fucked up shit happening in it. LOTS of Meth. Yet, gun deaths are lower than in New York City, which you'd ASSUME would have more gun deaths than in, let's say...ALASKA. Where the fuck are people shooting each other in ALASKA? Apparently everywhere. From far across the Tundra. Alaska is super spread out, yet the highest rate of gun deaths in the country. You'd think New York would have the highest being that we have large concentrations of people living right next to eachother, but we don't. Why? Because we have strict gun laws.
And this logic is sound, right? The stricter the gun laws, the less people get shot! But somehow, this basic logic gets twisted by people like Howie Carr who have a captive audience who don't have the instinct or time to research things when they hear them because they didn't grow up with iPhones. There's a reason that the NRA is the most powerful lobby in America. Because it HAS TO BE. That's like if terrorists has a lobby. It'd have to be fucking POWERFUL to convince people that we should keep terrorism around!
Also, can you BELIEVE that there aren't permits required in most states to buy a gun!? Do you REALLY want people who don't necessarily know how to use a gun to be able to buy one? You wouldn't let someone drive a car without a permit, and a car's primary purpose isn't to KILL!
The chart above proves stricter gun laws equals less gun deaths. It makes logical sense. But Howie Carr has taught my father and all his listeners to not listen to charts and graphs and statistics. He doesn't think it would work, so it won't. Some caller knows one guy who got through background checks, and that means the whole thing wouldn't work. But my question to him and Howie is, what if you knew that it would just fix it just a little?
What if stricter gun control only saved 10 lives? Would it be worth it? 100 lives? What’s the minimum amount of lives that would have to be saved for stricter gun laws to “work”? What if it only saved one life? MY life? Would my dad be for it then? When I went home for Thanksgiving my dad said he was glad I was home because he was afraid for my safety after the Paris attacks. But think about how unsafe I would be every day if guns were running rampant through the streets of New York City.
My dad is the most caring, hard-working, loving person I know. He'd do anything for you and then some. I don’t know how to stop people like Howie Carr from baiting people like my dad who don’t have the instinct to check. That’s the liberal bias, we look stuff up. Welfare does not equal Medicare and Howie knows it. Transgender does not equal pedophile and Mike Huckabee knows it. Illegal Immigrants do not equal rapists and Donald Trump knows it. And Benghazi doesn't mean scandal, but the entire Republican party knows it. But they keep saying it. And people keep believing it.
*I'm being sarcastic.