Gunsmoke

The first and only time I got in trouble in school I was in seventh grade, my first year in junior high school. Many of the older boys in the school would regularly gather in the boy's bathroom to smoke. Like most high school students then and now, I wanted to be cool. I had never smoked a cigarette before, but thats what everybody seemed to be doing, so I decided to do it too. There were probably between ten and fifteen of us in that bathroom, and very quickly the place was filled with smoke. It wasn't long before our Principal stormed through the door, waving his arms to see who we were through the choking smoke. He ordered all of us to his office, and once there, called each of us in individually to meet our consequences.

The moment I heard him call my name to go in that office was one of the scariest moments of my life. He got right to the point. There was a large razor strap hanging on the side of his desk. He told me I could take three licks with that strap or he could tell my father I had been smoking cigarettes in his school. I quickly nodded at the strap, because I knew if he told my father (who was a holiness preacher) I might literally die. He told me to stand up and put my hands on the desk. The pain was sharp, but tolerable. He then told me if he ever caught me smoking again he would give me TEN  and tell my father too. I never smoked another cigarette. I was twelve years old. The year was 1965.

This was a time when there was a culture of smoking in the United States. The society accepted those who smoked. The glamorous, rich, and famous smoked regularly. The military supplied soldiers, sailors, and marines with cigarettes as part of their daily rations. Cigarettes were ubiquitous in movies and television programs. People smoked in bars, restaurants, stores, schools, churches, trains, buses, airplanes, and at work. Cigarette ads were everywhere, and the tobacco companies were flush with power and profits.

Then, something happened.

In September 1950, the British Medical Journal published an article linking smoking to lung cancer and heart disease. In 1954 the British Doctors Study confirmed those findings. In 1964 the United States Surgeon General's Report on Smoking and Health agreed that cigarettes were killing people. In the United States, people began to sue the tobacco companies for damages related to their use of tobacco. During the next forty (40) years more that 800 lawsuits would be filed against the major tobacco companies. "Big Tobacco" would win them all...every single suit.

Things would change in the mid 1990's when states begin to sue. The states were seeking to recover the costs for medicaid and other public health expenses incurred from treating patients for illnesses caused by smoking. Eventually, every state's attorney general would sue on the simple premise that "you (the tobacco companies) caused this problem, you should have to fix it". Big Tobacco agreed to settle. They agreed to pay the states $365.5 BILLION dollars, be subject to FDA regulation, add stronger warning labels to cigarette packaging, and restrictions on advertising.

During the last twenty years the culture of smoking in America slowly but surely ceased to exist. Federal laws, State laws, and local ordinances have eliminated smoking in literally all public places. Cigarettes are rarely seen in movies and television programs. The rich, famous, and glamorous are rarely seen smoking. Smoking is simply no longer cool.

Today, we have a culture of guns. Guns are ubiquitous in our movies and television programs. States are passing laws to allow guns in our schools, bars, restaurants, workplaces, and airports. Americans are being shot and killed everyday at rates that challenge the imagination. 

Since 1968, more Americans have been killed by guns than were killed in ALL of America's wars COMBINED. America's combined war dead is 1,171,177. Americans killed by guns since 1968 is 1,384,171.

According to the Washington Post, if a "mass shooting" is defined as 4 or more shot, there were 204 mass shootings in the first 204 days of 2015 in the United States.

That's right. I did not stutter. There have been 204 mass shootings in this country in the first 204 days of this year. http://shootingtracker.com/wiki/Mass_Shootings_in_2015

You might be saying, "but I didn't hear about all those shootings on the news", or "but the President didn't make a speech". You did not read about them because thats just what we do. Thats how we roll. Just go to a movie or turn on your television and you will see what I'm talking about. We have made shooting people cool. Ask any Hollywood "action star". Today's star without his gun is like Humphrey Bogart without his cigarette.

That is how you define "culture".

It took 50 years to change the American attitude and appetite for cigarettes. It will take at least as long to do the same for guns. The war against tobacco was won in the courts, not the US Congress. The same will be required for guns. It is much easier to lobby (buy) a congressman and a senator than a judge and a jury. 

In my lifetime alone, 1,384,171 people were killed by guns on American streets and in American homes. For many of them, your tax money and mine paid for their care, as well as for millions of others that were shot and survived. 

America decided that the death toll from cigarettes was unacceptable. True, the motives of those attorney generals were not entirely noble ($365 billion dollars is an attention-getter).

Nevertheless, when will America tell the gun makers "you created this problem, now you will have to fix it"?

Tobacco smoke kills people.

Gunsmoke does too. 

Don't wait until you're a victim to do something about it.