Cost of gun violence

Oct 22, 2021 Editorial

Kaieteur News – Earlier this year, a nonprofit organisation, Everytown for Gun Safety, released a study, which “broke down the economic costs of gun violence into five categories: medical, police and criminal justice, employer related, work loss and quality of life” in the United States. Annually, for the last quarter century, the cost of American gun violence is a staggering US$200 billion to US$300 billion. As calculated by the nonprofit organisation, this “works out to about $860 person.” It is a huge sum per capita, when spread across major and minor incidents, with one common denominator: firearms.
Though we have never heard of such a study in Guyana, or the existence of any associated statistics compiled, it also has to be a staggering amount locally, when one considers the proliferating presence and use of firearms in our society, and the ghastly results. When we factor in injuries and deaths, limitations of our law enforcement agencies, weaknesses in our healthcare system, and missing components in our support systems, this country also has to be paying heavily for gun violence. It doesn’t have to be actual physical violence, and dollar costs. Rather, it is those that are intangible, such as the psychological traumas and emotional paralysis that often results in those victimised by gun violence. It does not matter that blood may not have been shed, or even bruising to have occurred; what matters is that a citizen, now fallen into the faceless bulk of victimised, was forced to be near to the barrel of a gun. Stated differently, there is this thing called quality of life.
This was what was noted by someone, who assisted with the report on the cost of gun violence. Ted Miller, a health economist and researcher at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, pointed to “work and quality-of-life costs as the largest. Work losses refer to lost income because of firearm-related death or disability, while quality-of-life costs are more indirect losses from gun violence — pain, suffering, a loss of well-being for victims and families.”
Miller acknowledged that quality of life is an indirect metric, but the point he was driving at was that the traumatised and victimised “can’t go out and buy quality of life.” Meaning, that jury awards and insurance benefits (when such exist) do mean something, but only for a very limited time, and to a narrow degree. To put bluntly, money can’t buy everything, especially peace of mind, or make the bitter painful memories go away. Many remain crippled for life, and from a single brutal experience only.
In this country, elected officials like to highlight, with supporting official reports, how much was spent on vehicles and training, and much more. There can be no question that those are solid constructive investments, and money well spent, but there is that hidden side, the costs unaccounted for here in Guyana.
Spiraling gun violence is a fact of life in this country today. It is almost the exception when a firearm and its usage (threatened or actual) is not part of the mix, meaning, crime on the street, or something going on in the home. It does not have to be the direct costs to victims and their families, but such costs extend to the workplace, particularly if a state agency, in terms of lost man hours and productivity, and the sums expended on training, with seepages into the wider economy.
We have had gun amnesties, with negligible results. We have a porous border, with a well-earned reputation for gun smuggling, leading to a possibly continuing influx of weapons. We have uncertainties about what happens on our streets when law enforcement encounters an illegal firearm, relative to what and who is taken in versus let go. We have strict laws, but regarding confidence in the consistency of enforcement of those laws, that is up in the air. What we do know is that there are many guns, and their uses cost us heavily. When the costs are totalled, the prices are steep, especially for quality of life. We hope that our politicians are listening and plan on doing more, with a quality security apparatus, and going after real criminals and not imagined ones.

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