Uppity Wisconsin

For a number of years, the primary legislative goal of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE) has been to require all gun sales in the state to include a criminal background check of the buyer.

Many people think we already have that. But in fact a background check is required only if the sale is made by a federally licensed dealer.

If you sell a gun across your kitchen table, or through the classified ads, or out of the trunk of your car, there's no background check. And it's all perfectly legal.

A New England Journal of Medicine article helps put that into perspective:

In 2007, a total of 12,632 people in the United States were murdered with firearms, and it is estimated that another 48,676 were treated in hospitals for gunshot wounds received in assaults. Guns are frequently used to commit crimes in the United States, partly because they are so easy to get.

Imagine not 4,000+ Americans dead, but 150,000 American fatalities in the last five years.

Thirty or more American deaths on the average day, week in and week out, with no end in sight.

Would that be enough to arouse the citizenry, to demand an end to the killing and bloodshed?

You'd think so. But the answer is no.

The 4,000 US fatalities in Iraq pale beside the 150,000 Americans killed by firearms in this country over a five-year period.

Wednesday, the first anniversary of the massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech, the media paid a little bit of attention to memorials and observances around the country.

But there is no real outcry and no concerted national effort to end firearms violence, even though 32 -- the number of people killed by gunfire at Virginia Tech -- is also the number of gun homicides recorded on an average day in the United States.

That's because many gun-toting Americans seem to think we have a constitutional right to kill each other with firearms, or at least to be free of any sensible restraints that might limit or prevent gun violence.