Guns: Finding Common Ground in the Debate

There is nothing more contentious than the ongoing debate on gun rights versus gun control. Proponents of individual liberty hew to the position that honest citizens have a God-given right to keep and bear arms. Advocates of stricter control fear the carnage that results from the prevalence of guns.

What makes the debate contentious is that both positions have merit.

There are numerous examples of the evils wrought with guns. Sandy Hook. Aurora. Columbine. Just the names evoke horrific memories, visions of grief-stricken parents and grievously wounded survivors.

A recent in-depth investigation by the Providence Journal described the destructive path of a single community gun “in the hands of teenage boys and young men who passed it around and used it to wreak havoc throughout Providence.”  Over a six month period in 2012, six shootings, four fatalities, several  wounded, familial loss and grief.

In Attleboro, more recently, shots were fired in a road rage incident. Property was damaged but no one killed nor injured. This was pure luck. The suspect, a heavily tattooed ex-con, languishes in jail awaiting a dangerousness hearing, the outcome of which may be self-evident.

On the other side of the debate is the defensive use of guns.

In Chicago’s Logan Square last week, a Uber driver happened upon a chilling scene as a young man began spraying bullets into a crowd. The driver drew his licensed handgun and fired, wounding and stopping the assailant. The driver was not charged because, according to the Assistant State’s Attorney, “the driver had a concealed-carry permit and acted in the defense of himself and others.”

In an earlier case reported by the Chicago Tribune, a licensed citizen “shot and wounded an armed man who had fired into a crowd on Chicago's Far South Side.” (Concealed carry was only recently legalized in Illinois, the last state to do so).

Just this week in Baltimore, a shopkeeper with a shotgun protected a reporter who was being accosted by an assailant. The reporter, Justin Fenton, described on CNN that a man in a hoodie “Maced” him in the head and demanded his cellphone. Fenton retreated to the protection of the armed shopkeeper and was later able to safely depart the area.

Defensive gun use (DGU) is the measure of societal benefit that arises from the positive use of guns to dissuade or stop murder, assault, robbery, rape, carjacking, home invasion, and so on. The statistics on DGU vary widely depending on who is providing them. Estimates of annual DGU range from 1 to 1.25 million instances per year at the high end to 55,000 to 80,000 at the low end.

It should be no surprise that the high-end estimates come from gun rights proponents and the low-end from gun-control proponents. (The true number is almost certainly somewhere in the middle).

Where does this leave us in the great debate?

First, we must recognize the true causal factors in gun crimes. Sandy Hook, Aurora, and Columbine all were perpetrated by sociopaths. The Providence single-gun shootings were all committed by criminals. The Attleboro road-rage shooter is an ex-con with a lengthy record and obvious anger management issues. Of note, none of the aforementioned are concealed carry permit holders.

In contrast, the defensive gun use cases referenced above all involved legally owned weapons that were utilized in a legal manner.

It is not surprising that guns rights advocates react in dismay when opponents attempt to further restrict rights rather than addressing root causes.

It is also not a surprise that gun control advocates continue to seek tighter controls. The Rhode Island legislature is debating a bill to ban the carry of concealed weapons on school grounds even by a permit holder. (This is spite of no instance of a school shooting having been committed by a permit holder, and several documented instances of a shooting being stopped by a permit holder).

So like any negotiation between diametrically opposed sides, the hopeful and the fearful, the way forward is to find common ground.

Neither camp should protest if, for instance, we posted signs in shopping malls stating that “Illegal guns are not permitted.” Nor should there be much controversy on either side if we were to redouble efforts to identify sociopaths and keep guns from their hands. There also should be no argument about getting illegal guns off the streets and putting their criminal possessors in prison.

There is plenty of common ground. Let’s start there.

A cult of life

The “baby boomer” generation, when we were young, read tales of World War II, seeming distant to young minds but actually quite proximate. As close as the dreadful events of September 11, 2001, are to the current crop of kids, who view it as history, something which happened before they were born, or before they remember. So was World War II to us.

We read of grinding land wars in Africa and Europe. Of swirling naval battles and island campaigns in the Pacific. We read of the Holocaust, and the unthinkable cruelty of the Nazis to those viewed as “other.” We read of the fate of Allied prisoners imprisoned by harsh Japanese captors. And how seventy years ago this summer, it was all brought to a just and satisfactory conclusion.

There were many tales of heroism, from the small theater of a Marine falling on a hand grenade to save his buddies to the riveting drama of Jimmy Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo. While militarily insignificant, the raid was the first truly good news of the Pacific campaign, that Japan was vulnerable to attack.

But as the war shuddered to its inevitable conclusion, there were disturbing accounts of desperation, of Japanese volunteers who willingly gave up their lives. Waves of kamikaze pilots, nearly 4,000 in number, attacked Allied ships with what amounted to human-guided, flying bombs. Kamikaze, “divine wind,” was a deeply foreign concept to young Western minds.

Perhaps from our foundation as a free country based on individual liberty, and certainly shaped by religion, we believed in the sanctity of human life. We admired heroism, but cheered the hero who survived as much as one who lost his life in an heroic act. The Marine falling on a grenade was deeply respected, but we did not expect thousands to do so. We would rather they would fight, win the battle, prosecute the war, and come home to take jobs and father children and mow the lawn and go to church on Sunday. We did not expect, nor would we admire, mass suicide.

If we had a cult, it was a cult of life. Death would come in God’s time, not ours.

But here we are, seventy years later, after the Japanese kamikaze waves proved ineffective, with a new cult of death.

We are now in a struggle with Islamic extremists, who twist their religion to justify their war on the West and Western values. Al-Qaeda, ISIS (or ISIL ), and Boko Haram are all examples of this theologically twisted philosophy. They share several fundamental features:

• A blind intolerance for other beliefs. Convert or die.
• Patriarchal and cruel. Women have no rights, gays are put to death.
• Regular use of suicide attackers. Your reward is in paradise, not on Earth.
• Unbelievable brutality. Kidnapping, torture, beheading, immolation, the more gruesome the better.
• Worldwide domination as a goal. International operations are underway, with recent attacks in France, Canada, Belgium, Australia, and the United States, among others.

What could be more antithetical to Western beliefs and culture?

And yet, and yet… we dither in the goal of containing a nuclear Iran. We stand by as the ISIL-declared Caliphate grows in Africa. We continue to avert our eyes… the Fort Hood terrorist attack is officially termed “workplace violence,” its victims denied crucial medical benefits. We refuse to openly recognize the Islamic roots of the enemy. A fringe, twisted, extremist Islamic belief system, but one with millions of supporters.

One only hopes that the next president, whoever he or she is, will recognize the existential nature of this struggle. That if we truly believe in the equality of women, gay rights, and the freedom of expression and religion, there is no accommodation that can be made, no moral equivalence that can be argued. It is time that we clearly state what we stand for: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is foundational. It is who we are.

Let’s only hope that January, 2017, is not too late.

It's Long Division

Arithmetic seems to terrorize a significant number us, students both young and adult. And nothing is more emblematic of that terror as long division.

The alternative rock band Fugazi captures the sense:

It's a long time coming,

It's a long way down,

It's long division,

Crack and divide.

There is nothing more daunting to students we have tutored than long division. It seems a special torture invented in Hell for their personal torment.  But it need not be so.

Arithmetic was invented largely to keep track of human trade and commerce. How else would one keep things straight? Purchased 200 wheels of cheese, sold 192, lost 8 to vermin, made a modest profit. Without arithmetic, it would be impossible to track.

These early traders weren’t schooled mathematicians, but they weren’t stupid. They learned how to mark sticks or make imprints on clay tablets to record numbers. They added and subtracted to determine sales and inventories and profits and losses. Arithmetic was not an abstraction but the means to a very important end.

At some point they realized that when a customer ordered five crates of clay pots, each crate containing 10 pots, there might be a quicker way to determine the total of pots needed than to add 10 together 5 times. Hence was eventually born multiplication, with a variety of  creative solutions: the Ancient Egyptian method, the Russian Peasant method, the Gelosia method. Human ingenuity knows no bounds when trying to avoid tedious labor. These methods required a few brain cells but were better than adding a column of the same number, over and over and over.

But, then, technology forced us to take many steps back.

Imagine in the 1940s, the slowest, most unwitting arithmetician among us. That would be an electromechanical computer. The computing machines of Alan Turing’s day (of “Imitation Game” fame) were notably obtuse. Huge, hot, electric sparking and fumes, they could add a column of numbers not that much faster than you could. They had but two fantastic advantages: absolute accuracy and immunity to fatigue.

Oddly enough, though, these electrical behemoths didn’t know how to subtract. Or multiply. Or divide. All they knew how to do was add.

So how did the machines of Turing’s era perform subtraction and multiplication and division when all they knew was addition?

Addition is a basic, primitive operation. If you are given two apples, then three more, you will have a total of five apples.

                2 + 3 = 5

Even the Common Core methods will agree with that.

But say you are given five apples, then two are taken away. We know the answer is three – we did the subtraction in our heads. But Turing’s machine can’t subtract. So, brilliantly, we instruct it to add five and the negative of two:

                5 + (-2)= 3

Still using only the basic operation of addition, the machine has succeeded in subtracting by simply adding the negative of the subtrahend (the number being subtracted). We can now say that the machine knows how to subtract:

                5 – 2 = 3

…but in fact, we know that it is adding the negative to do so.

How about multiplication? That is simple for the sparking behemoth as well. After all, it is tireless, and simply replicates the feat of early humans  before the many multiplication methods were invented. It merely adds, repeatedly. Five cases of ten clay pots is calculated thusly:

                10 + 10 +10 + 10 + 10 = 50

Multiplication is just repetitive addition. (With some fussing with decimal points, but we can ignore that for the time being).

Now for the promised key to long division. If multiplication is repeated addition, might you suppose that division is repeated subtraction? Yes, you might, and you would be absolutely correct.

Let’s try to divide 49 by 12 given this method. Keep track of how many times we can subtract 12 and stop only when the balance is not greater than 12.

                49 / 12

                49 – 12 = 37         (1^st subtraction)

                37 – 12 = 25         (2^nd subtraction)

                25 – 12 = 13         (3^rd subtraction)

                13 – 12 = 1           (4^th subtraction)

                1 left over

The answer is 4 with a remainder of 1. That’s division, using only subtraction. And remember that subtraction is just the addition of negatives. This is how Turing’s useful idiot, the sparking monster that could only add, was able to subtract and multiply and divide as well.

The moral of this story is that arithmetic is ancient. It is rooted in the real world, not an abstract implement of student torture.  And, hopefully, by realizing that a quite stupid computer can do this, you will have the confidence that you can, too.

Now, to those of you who found this all very simplistic, it’s time to volunteer as a tutor. Some yearning student needs your insights. This is how you give back.

Bucket list - Italy!

Aunt Grace on her first morning in Sicily

It is rare, the occasion that one gets to check off  an item from one's bucket list. And to complete two in under four months is nearly unheard of. And that both involved a trip to Italy is fantastic luck.

The first, of greatest import.

Our Aunt Grazia (Grace) was born to newly emigrated Sicilian parents in the early 1920s. Remaining in Sicily were three first cousins and their families, corresponded with, but never seen nor touched for a veritable lifetime. The bucket list trip occurred to us on the eve of her 90^th birthday. When, if not now, would she be able to embrace her family?

A furious round of planning commenced, involving your intrepid writer, his wife, and two sisters. We studied the logistics of an international trip with an advanced octogenarian. The AAA travel folks in the South Attleboro office were fabulously effective. Domestic air travel to gather in Boston, then international to eventually land in Sicily, and a large rented van to accommodate us on our way to the final destination.

Finally, one day in October, the plan was put into effect. One sister flew directly to Providence. The other, to Texas to join Aunt Grace and to bring her to Boston. Finally, all gathered in Attleboro, we had a family dinner at the Heritage Tap in Pawtucket, a family-friendly place if ever there was one.  Next day, how to better enjoy the local cuisine than lunch at Tex Barry’s. You locals know what that means.

Then, finally, the limo ride to Terminal E at Logan Airport. Aunt Grace with her crisp, brand new passport, having never before exited the country of her birth, was ready to go.

The flight to Rome was long, but the wine and dinner service were decent and we managed to sleep a bit. At Rome’s Fiumicino Airport, we awaited our transfer to Palermo, Sicily. The cappuccinos (cappuccini) from the airport coffee bar were excellent, a prognostication of the wonderful gustatory delights to come.

After a relatively short flight, we arrived at Palermo and secured our Hertz rental van, an eleven passenger behemoth adequate for the five of us and our considerable luggage.

The first night was spent in Palermo, on the bay, in a lovely hotel with beautiful grounds and a wonderful restaurant.  To close the circle, this was the same hotel to which we had brought our parents in 1997, both since passed. It was very sentimental, but the focus was on tomorrow – the Sicilian relatives were in Agrigento, some 80 miles to the south.

Morning dawned and we checked out, only to spend nearly an hour in Palermo rush hour traffic.

But then the traffic thinned and we finally headed south, into the dry, dusty hills and mountains of central Sicily. After nearly two hours, we emerged on the southwest coast, with the Mediterranean aglow below us. This was the land of our grandparents. Arid, poor, but with a wealth of olive groves, lemon trees, irrigated vegetables, and the endless bounty of the sea.

Finally checked into our hotel, a small family-friendly, former estate, we began the phone calls and arranged meetings. Three first cousins, all octogenarians, and we met them all, with multitudinous nieces and nephews and grandkids. To see Aunt Grace embrace her kin for the first time was beyond touching. Hugs abounded, tears flowed, and the tables were never empty (yes, Italians do insist that you eat – mangia mangia). She was welcomed into the family as if her parents had never left. Their  mountain village, almost unchanged for over 500 years, celebrated her presence.

A bucket list item is often thought of as being a personal thing. ”I want to see Mount Everest. I would like to visit Tokyo.”

But this bucket list trip was different. The five of us were delighted to meet the first cousins and numerous nieces, nephews, and grandkids. There were perhaps fifty people touched by this one event. That’s the way to do a bucket list trip.

The other trip, some three months later, to ski the Italian Alps for the first time, was personal and selfish, not worth recounting here. But that it was to Italy, with the scenery and the food (the food!), made it fabulous.

No, the adventures of Aunt Grace, on the eve of her 90th birthday, on her first trip ever out of the country, to see close relatives she had never met… that’s what made this  bucket list trip magical. Most probably, never to be matched.

But always remembered.