I recently had the good fortune to be out of town when some 80,000 worthies joined one another in Dallas in singing a paean to the gun, the pistol, the long rifle, the six shooter, the single-shot-pump-action-semi-automatic-automatic-shotgun with a few Bowie knives thrown in. Yes, the NRA had their annual convention in Dallas. Politicians were falling all over themselves to pay homage to that never-runs-dry fountain of political power…filthy lucre. They were all there. The Governor, both Texas Senators, assorted Congressmen, county and city officials, and wannabes too numerous to count. And yes, the Veep and The Trumpster his-own-self were there.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m mindful of the right of assembly guaranteed by the same 1st Amendment that assures us of freedom of religion and speech. I quote: “Congress shall make no law…abridging the right of people to (sic) peaceably assemble.” There is more than a little irony, in that the organization about which I write is unrelenting in its efforts to advocate for the ownership and use of weapons of personal destruction, which seems to be somewhat at odds with the “peaceably assemble” part of their authorization for existence.

I’ve learned over the last fifteen months not to pay too much attention to what The Trumpster says about any subject, but I was drawn inexplicably, like Icarus to the flame, to the television to listen to bits and pieces of what he had to say in Dallas. Most of what he said was the mumbo-jumbo of unintelligible bromides designed to titillate the masses. For 28 minutes and 12 seconds, he did just that. As far as I could tell, he was “off script” but “on message” for the entire time. He got “witch hunt” in more than once, followed by numerous references to “the wall” and the duty of teachers to protect their students by keeping a .45 in their desk.

Two comments stood out. First, he said, “Your 2nd Amendment rights are under siege, but they will never, ever be under siege as long as I am your President.” Huh? How can your rights be under siege, but not under siege at the same time. You figure it out. Second, and to the point of this post, he spoke at some length about how we would all be safer if everyone carried a gun. He illustrated this by citing the tragic incident in Paris wherein 130 people were killed with assault rifles and explosives, saying that if only one person in the nightclub had had a gun and shot back, all would have ended well. This repeats a more or less constant refrain from Trump, his acolytes and the more die-hard fringe of the NRA. Arm everyone! Teachers, movie theatre ticket takers, cashiers in retail stores, as well as every man and woman (except the maniacs) in the street. If everyone packed heat, the bad guys would be afraid to do their bad thing! But then, of course, one immediately thinks of the prohibition against carrying a gun in Congress, or anywhere in proximity (including this same NRA convention) to the President or Vice-President because it’s a threat to national security. So not only is this idea insane on the face of it, it is clearly at odds with the facts. But before I lay out the evidence, let me give you two mutually exclusive statements, only one of which you can support.

1. If everyone was armed, we would all be safer.
2. If no-one had a gun, we would all be safer.

Which would you choose? Okay, I know – you say this is one of those false choice deals, where neither condition could ever be achieved, but you get my point. I’ll bet, however, that the vote would be in favor of number two.

There are, depending on what source you subscribe to, between 200 and 350 million guns owned by private citizens in the United States. That’s pretty close to one gun for every man, woman and child in the country. Of course, that’s not how it plays out. There are wide variances in gun ownership among the various states and even counties. Not surprisingly there is also a great variance in the number of gun related deaths by state. So one would think, if you subscribe to the Trump theory of being safer if everyone carried, that the jurisdictions with the highest gun ownership would also have the fewest deaths by gun. Not so. Not even close. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. Let me give you some facts.

According to both American Journal of Public Health and data provided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), the states of Alaska and Louisiana are numbers 1 and 2 in gun deaths per 100,000 of population at 19.6 and 19.2 respectively. They are also numbers 1 and 4 in the percentage of households owning guns at 56.4% and 49.2%. On the other hand, Hawaii and Rhode Island are numbers 1 and 2 in the least gun deaths per 100,000 of population at 2.8 and 3.2 respectively. They are also numbers 1 and 3 in lowest percentage of households that own firearms at 12.5% and 15.9%. I was never terribly good at math, but I am good at logic. Based on these data and more, I’ve arrived at an incontrovertible logical conclusion…the more guns, the more gun deaths. And do gun laws matter? Of course they do. Alaska and Louisiana have notoriously permissive gun laws, while Hawaii and Rhode Island have among the most strict. Got it? More guns + weak gun laws = more gun deaths. Pretty simple isn’t it?

But what about mental health? That’s the problem, isn’t it. It’s the crazy people that are doing all the killing. Well, I’m willing to stipulate that anyone who mows down second-graders or exterminates concert-goers is certainly nuts. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that pretty much anyone who points a gun at someone and pulls the trigger (with the possible exception of self-defense) has a few screws loose. I don’t think, however, that there are more nutso people in Alaska and Louisiana than in Hawaii and Rhode Island. So let’s leave that bit of gorilla dust behind us.

In this same 28 minutes and 12 seconds, President Trump also managed to offend (again) our two oldest and best allies, by spouting nonsense about their own gun regimen. I’ve already cited Trump’s inane comments on the French tragedy in 2015, so I’ll not repeat it here. As for the U.K., Trump cited an article he had read (already casting doubt on the veracity of what was to come) that suggested that although gun deaths might be lower in UK the deaths from stabbings more than made up for it. What? Egads! Even someone who routinely plays fast and loose with the truth would have a hard time saying this with a straight face. In 2017 the U.K. had 14 (yes, I said fourteen) murders by firearms while the U.S. had 9,369. If you’re agile with numbers you can see the U.S. wins this category by a multiple of 669. Said another way, U.K. had .236 gun killings per million while the U.S. had 32.5 or 138 times the U.K.. I guess it’s possible that the gap could have been made up by stabbings, bludgeoning with hammers, and strangulation by panty hose, but I rather doubt it. In fact, U.K. had 11.7 violent crime deaths per million, compared to the U.S. 42 per million, which is four times that of U.K.

I know it to be a fool’s errand to try to convince any of the more ardent 2nd Amendment types, even those that I count as good friends, that gun ownership leads to gun deaths and therefore should be more tightly controlled. Lord knows, I’ve tried. People of good will often have differing opinions on the role of government in our lives. Nothing wrong with that. But it’s hard to ignore the fact that we have too many gun deaths in America. We have too many mass casualty events. We have too many gun-inflicted suicides. We have too many wife killings. We have too many cop shootings with guns of all types. What I can’t figure out is why anyone, NRA members included, would not want to do something to address this clear public health crisis, and would not want to do it now.