Since October 2020, the Cruz marketing campaign has paid Houston-area government safety agency Atlas Glinn practically half 1,000,000 {dollars} to guard himself and his household—$499,661, virtually all of it in month-to-month lump sums averaging round $30,000, based on federal disclosures. (The Atlas Glinn web site features a photo of a safety element guarding Cruz in a parade automobile.)
Cruz—a Harvard Regulation Faculty grad who within the aftermath of final week’s elementary college bloodbath in Uvalde, Texas, attacked the Democratic politicians and the media for dominating the gun management narrative—additionally put more than $800 of his donors’ cash towards “safety tools” final 12 months from Houston-based boutique Caroline+Morgan Interiors. It’s not instantly clear from the company’s website precisely which of its wares would match the invoice as safety tools.
Oh, proper. Did you neglect that Cruz went to Harvard? Some would possibly describe that as an “elite” college. However what do I do know? I went to a public state college with the remainder of the AR-15 fodder.
Whereas Cruz is the largest GOP spender, nevertheless, he additionally hauls in essentially the most money from pro-gun rights teams, based on knowledge from the Center for Responsive Politics. However the specter of violence now seems to be outweighing these rewards, a minimum of in monetary phrases. Cruz has spent a lot donor cash guaranteeing his personal security that he has absolutely exhausted the $442,343 he’s acquired through the years from the gun foyer, after which some.
Now, to be honest, I perceive the purpose Ted was making an attempt to make. So-called “elites” don’t have to fret a lot about random gun violence as a result of they reside in good neighborhoods and might afford state-of-the-art safety methods. So it may appear hypocritical of them to name for gun management once they don’t want the perceived safety {that a} private firearm would possibly afford them. However is that basically a good level? On this nation, you may keep away from hassle to some extent when you’ve got cash, however we’re all susceptible to rampaging mall, church, and theater shooters, and anybody’s kids may discover themselves within the crosshairs anytime they head for varsity.
Elie Mystal is on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast
So the query stays: What can “elites” do to make society safer for everybody, and not only for Ted Cruz and the individuals he likes to criticize?
At the very least one group of elites would inform you we have to do “one thing”—whereas Cruz’s unique right-wing Ivy League clique will inform you “nothing works, so don’t even hassle.”
Who’s proper? The preponderance of the proof suggests it’s the “do one thing” crowd.
In a 2016 research revealed in Epidemiologic Opinions, Columbia College researcher Julian Santaella-Tenorio, et al., reviewed 130 research revealed in 10 completely different international locations and concluded that gun violence tends to drop after international locations move complete gun management legal guidelines. “The simultaneous implementation of legal guidelines concentrating on a number of firearms restrictions is related to reductions in firearm deaths,” the research famous.
However not all gun restrictions are created equal.
This discovering does not spotlight one particular regulation, like an assault weapon ban, in isolation. There have been “so many various sorts of legal guidelines,” Santaella-Tenorio instructed me, that it was onerous to make good worldwide comparisons on each particular form of gun restriction.
Relatively, international locations handed large packages of gun legal guidelines, which overhauled the nation’s firearm code pretty broadly, which all tended to share comparable options. In keeping with Santaella-Tenorio, they typically included:
- Banning highly effective weapons, like computerized rifles.
- Implementing a background test system.
- Requiring individuals to get permits and licenses earlier than shopping for a gun.
In the meantime, a May 31 New York Times story got here to the same conclusion, citing California’s profitable “Swiss cheese mannequin” (i.e., stacking legal guidelines on high of one another to cowl up the holes in particular person gun security rules), which has helped drive down gun violence.
California’s charge of firearm mortality is among the many nation’s lowest, with 8.5 gun deaths per 100,000 individuals in 2020, in contrast with 13.7 per 100,000 nationally and 14.2 per 100,000 in Texas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported. And Californians are about 25% much less prone to die in mass shootings, in contrast with residents of different states, based on a current Public Coverage Institute of California analysis.
There is probably not something we will do to place an finish to gun violence, however California’s instance proves that it might probably a minimum of be robustly confronted.
In an interview with Dr. Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Analysis Program on the College of California, Davis, Medical Middle in Sacramento, Wintemute famous, “The decrease the prevalence of possession, the decrease the speed of firearm violence—that’s been one of the vital sturdy analysis findings for many years. Charges of gun possession are decrease right here, partly due to this bundle of state measures. In america general, one thing like 25% to 30% of people personal weapons. In California, it’s about 15% to 18%.”
Hmm, fewer weapons, much less gun violence. Who may have ever predicted that? Properly, elites who went to Harvard in all probability may—however not in the event that they’re paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to faux in any other case.
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