By Karen Hill Anton
STATISTIC: People killed by handguns in various countries in 2023
Japan—10
Great Britain—50
Switzerland—47
Canada—611
United States—38,658
“Ten? That many?” That was the shocked reaction of a friend, an emergency room doctor in Japan who’s never had to treat a gunshot victim.
I’ve never seen a gun — that is, a gun that was not in a policeman’s holster. That’s probably because I’ve lived in Japan for the last 50 years.
My children and grandchildren, raised in Japan, have never walked through a metal detector in a school. Their schools have never held an “active shooter drill.” A potentially traumatizing experience, it's something American children are subjected to on a regular basis.
STATISTIC: The biggest cause of death of children and teenagers in America is firearms. [I could find no data of a child being shot in Japan.]
Recently, I listened to a podcast in which three journalists discussed the shooting in Minnesota at a Catholic church. In case that shooting has been overshadowed by recent ones, two children were killed and 18 injured by a shooter at a Catholic church in Minnesota in August.
The possible reasons for the killings they discussed were: It was an act of political violence, a mental health crisis, the shooter’s community overlooked warning signs, Minnesota institutes insufficient measures to protect children, or the church lacked of security and armed personnel.
Never once did they mention the sheer number, proliferation, and easy access to guns in America.
[Noting the political killing in Utah this summer, and the shooting at Brown University this month, and reflecting again on the easy access of guns, I’m reminded that the person who assassinated Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe in 2022 had to make his gun.]
Researchers have demonstrated that a gun in the home vastly increases the chance of suicide. And accidents. When I read that a 5-year-old girl had shot and killed her 4-year-old sister, my first thought, and fervent hope, was that the girl’s young age meant that she would one day forget.
Whether a baby is shot while in a stroller or struck by a stray bullet in her grandmother’s arms, one does not need to be a cynic to note the sun does not set on a day in the United States in which a person with a gun hasn’t brought terror, grief, and heartache to families and whole communities.
I truly thought the tragedy and the horror of Sandy Hook would be the defining moment when Americans said goodbye to guns. Surely that would be the reaction when they learned the parents of the children massacred were not allowed to see their bodies — because attending doctors advised it best they not see the damage a bullet does when it rips through flesh, organs, bones, brains.
No matter how bad we may feel, or heartbroken we may be, no matter how much pity and sympathy we have for the parents who lost children — we will never know their suffering.
Years ago, I remember visiting my sister in Harlem, NYC, and being perplexed to see the number of young people, boys, in wheelchairs. Most too young to have served in any war, my sister said the most likely explanation why they were paraplegic was the result of a bullet having severed their spinal cords.
