Anti-Life versus Pro-Human: The Tragedy of Vegas in Context and Why the NRA is Bad for Business
In the aftermath of the unfathomable horror of the mass shooting in Las Vegas over the weekend, the debate about gun control is once again in the headlines—never mind the Republican party line that now it not the time to talk about gun control.
The chronic inability of the Republican-majority United States Congress to come to grips with such an obvious, clear and present danger to the American people—mass shootings are now an almost daily event in America—speaks as much to creative, warped rationalizations as to how effectively the deep-pocketed gun lobby has spent its money.
Yet lost in the anger and anguish is that the epidemic of gun violence is part of a larger, Anti-Life whole. Putting the obscene profits of a few well ahead of the good of the many has become the hallmark of an administration still in its first year. Steep budget cuts to healthcare, basic research, public health programs (domestic and global) and environmental protections are the equivalent of not merely shooting ourselves in the collective foot, but also in the heart.
Diseases don’t know from borders or income brackets — just as stray bullets raining down at automatic speed from a broken window on the 32nd floor of gamblers’ hotel hit anyone unlucky enough to be in their way. Still the health threats keep ratcheting up. Although the focus has traditionally been on the headline-grabbing Next Big Pandemic (see movies like Contagion or 28 Days Later), we are in the midst of wave after wave after wave of overlapping epidemics that are killing and maiming millions. Some of these plagues are newly seen, like SARS. Some are old, obscure diseases recently genetically-mutated such as Zika (a single mutation likely led to it being able to cause microcephaly in the developing brains of the unborn). Some are spreading as the climate warms (tick-borne Lyme disease has tipped millions into the “pre-existing conditions” category). Some are traditional scourges reinvigorated (measles). Then there’s flu, a chameleon of a malady that switches up its genetic arsenal by regularly jumping species, a talent made that much more deadly by modern industrialized agriculture (btw, the strain that’s heading our way this year is supposed to be particularly nasty, so get your flu shots early). As icing on the cake, there’s drug resistance, whose latest horror is a “Super Malaria” spreading through Asia.
Houston, Florida and Puerto Rico are reeling from the after effects of hurricanes, which include mold and cancer-causing chemical exposures, putting millions more into the “pre” pre-existing conditions bucket. As for the post-storm mosquitoes, they’re carrying all sorts of pathogens, including dengue (aka, breakbone fever). Hurricane winds spread mosquitoes and the viruses they carry well into the mainland. Since mosquitoes can survive winter in a hibernation state called diapause, the colder parts of the US aren’t necessarily safe.
The gun lobby isn’t the only only one buying off Congress for pennies on the dollar. It’s going to take another year or so before we really start to feel the effects of the Republican budget cuts and policy machinations that threaten knock tens of millions of Americans out of the health care system, while drug prices are allowed to hike ever skyward. So entwined are the the issues of healthcare and gun violence that it was necessary to start to a Go Fund Me campaign: crowdfunding to help cover at least the immediate medical bills of those injured in the attack.
BACK TO VEGAS: WHY THE NRA IS BAD FOR BUSINESS, TOO
While it is heartening that millions of dollars have already been raised for the Vegas victims, it is literally a drop in the bucket: roughly 1% of the cost of treating all the victims of gunshot wounds in the US *each year* — a tally now estimated at a staggering $700 million. That’s just for starters.
In 2015, Mother Jones magazine produced an in-depth report adding up all the costs. Bottom line: Gun violence costs $229 billion or $700 per person per year in the US. By some estimates as much as 87% of those costs are borne by taxpayers— and those numbers have probably gone up over the last two years.
This isn’t just a gobsmacking subsidy for the gun industry, but taxation without representation. Indeed, perhaps the best, most equitable tax cut of all would be the implementation of thoughtful gun control laws, balancing the the right the bear arms with the right to…life. Imagine if that $229 billion dollars were redirected toward stimulating the economy? How would you spend your $700 windfall?
As a society, we cannot afford to continue with business-as-usual. As humans, we cannot watch tragedy after predictable tragedy unfold without trying to stop it. From a purely an economic perspective—putting aside the immense human tragedy and ethics of the issue—it is time that the great minds of Economics and Business took this on and brought some cool hard logic to the table: Tell Congress the NRA is bad for Business.
Maybe that will finally do the trick.
