Our View: Too many deaths, too many guns in Modesto

Finally, we’ve made the list. But please, let’s not celebrate by shooting a few rounds into the sky.

Mass Shooting Tracker lists all the shootings with four or more victims that have occurred in America this year. We wrote about the group earlier after Dylann Roof allegedly killed nine in a Charleston, S.C., church. There had been 215 mass shootings in the first 215 days of the year.

Now, Modesto joins Tracker’s list after a gunfight broke out last weekend in a parking lot on Kansas Avenue where young people had gathered after the X-Fest music festival. An estimated 20 shots were fired, leaving one dead, two critically wounded and five more injured. Dozens more ran for their lives. The victim, said Modesto police Chief Galen Carroll, appeared to be an innocent bystander.

It was the third fatal shooting in five days in Modesto. And yet, community outrage is not boiling over. There are no calls for police action. We didn’t make the national news. It barely registered.

Gun violence is a raging epidemic in America, claiming nearly 100 lives a day – lives lost because mentally ill people have guns; because someone is enraged or jealous or paranoid; because gangsters fight over drug turf. Regardless of the reason, gun violence is killing people at an astounding pace. At some point, and that point should be now in Modesto, we must demand action.

But what? Politically, doing anything to stem access to guns seems futile. The National Rifle Association, which purports to represent gun-owning Americans but which actually represents only gun manufacturers, stymies most efforts to deter even a single gun sale.

So effective action must be local action; after all, that’s where the problem is. Modesto could be on its way to a record number of homicides in 2015. There have been 19 so far with two more pending the outcomes of investigations. If they are ruled homicides, we will match the record of 21 set in 2009.

Not all have been committed with guns. But guns have contributed to most, a logical consequence based on the increase in guns on Modesto’s streets. How many more guns?

“It’s hard to say,” said Chief Carroll. “We are seeing more guns this year; we saw a lot last year, but we’re seeing even more this year. … And these are guns in the hands of hardened criminals. It makes me concerned for officer safety. These aren’t people you want walking around with guns.”

Many of those guns come from good homes, where they weren’t adequately protected from thieves.

“That’s something we could do much better as a community,” said Carroll, “lock up the weapons we have.”

Fortunately, gun confiscations are also up. The Police Department has taken 117 guns from criminals. Carroll also noted the U.S. attorney’s office has agreed to prosecute at least four gun-possession cases that came up last month and is looking at more.

Someone intent on harm doesn’t need a gun. But violence born in a hot-tempered confrontation is far, far more likely to become deadly if guns are present – and clearly too many guns are present in Modesto.

Perhaps our best remedy is to concentrate on curtailing violence – with or without guns. It might seem like weak tea with so many being shot and shot at, but parents, teachers, spiritual leaders, volunteers and others must help train young people in conflict resolution; steer them away from violence and death.

This is not (yet) a call for new taxes to support such efforts and other government solutions. It’s a call away from arms. A call to a community that must find a way to confront the violence within.

This story was originally published August 29, 2015 at 10:08 AM with the headline "Our View: Too many deaths, too many guns in Modesto."