Owner-Donor: Two Words to Make Guns Life-Saving

            Let’s get real – people with guns and ammunition kill people.  There is overwhelming evidence that restrictions on access to semiautomatic weapons, high-capacity magazines, and just plain guns reduce gun-related deaths – not just murders but suicides and accidental deaths.  Despite that, it seems unlikely Congress is going to do anything that could actually make Americans safer and reduce the carnage.  But does this mean we should throw in the towel?  Absolutely not – a towel thrown in the air could easily be mistaken for a skeet, with very unpleasant consequences.  Yelling “Duck!” when throwing the towel would only increase the risk.

            Instead, we need accept that our elected representatives lack the guts to stand up to the gun lobby and move on to more constructive ways of dealing with the mayhem we know will continue coming.  First, there is an obvious way to make guns save at least as many lives as they take.  No, I don’t mean requiring every man, woman, and child to pack heat.  More guns = more death, remember?  Rather, without restricting access to guns at all, we simply pass a law that requires anyone owning a gun to agree to be an organ donor – the Owner-Donor law.  Sure, you say, but what about those cases where the gun owner has not committed suicide or been shot with his or her own gun, hopefully sparing the heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, and other transplantable organs?  No problem – living organ donation is already accepted and widespread.  If you shoot someone with your gun and it is not found to have been self-defense against a legitimate mortal threat, you have just agreed to donate a kidney and/or a lobe of your liver.  You can keep your other kidney – unless you do it again.  If your gun is not securely stored and is used by another person to harm someone, you have also just agreed to become a donor – thank you.  Use of a gun in committing a crime, similarly, should constitute an automatic donation consent, so if your stolen gun is used to commit a crime, thank you twice! 

            Imagine the headlines this policy could create.  “RISE IN GUN DEATHS OVERWHELMS HOSPITALS WITH ORGAN TRANSPLANTS – ORGAN WAITING LISTS ELIMINATED!”

            Of course, some might criticize this as a facile oversimplification that ignores the real complexities involved.  Adult-sized organs are not suitable for transplantation into children, so how could this proposal address the needs of children awaiting organ transplants?  But I am not the only person to offer facile oversimplifications in the debate about gun violence.  Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association made the absurd statement after Newtown that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.  But that strategy did not stop Columbine.  Besides, what if the good guy has a bad day?  Do we need two armed good guys, keeping eyes on each other all the time?  And then how will they see the armed bad guy approaching?

            Instead, we need to mandate that all schoolchildren pack heat in school.  Given the importance of guns in American society, it is criminal that we are not devoting at least 25% of time in school to guns.  If recess were changed to target practice and physical education (or science – gun advocates don’t seem to have much use for that) to firearm education, we could finally lead the world in one area of education and guarantee that any bad guy thinking of going into a school for target practice would think at least twice.  Which would be at least two times more than many gun advocates seem to be thinking.

            But, you say, kids tend to have poor impulse control and not think through the long-term consequences of their behaviors.  If Sally dumps Harry’s lunch tray, isn’t there a risk that Harry will draw and somebody, or some bodies, get shot?  Sure, but it’s a small price to pay for liberty.  Besides, did you forget about all the kids on the organ transplant waiting list?  With Owner-Donor, when Harry shot Sally could yield 2 kidneys from the late Sally, 1 from Harry, another from Harry’s mom or dad who was the registered owner, plus Sally’s other useful organs.

            As the famous American philosopher Benjamin Parker once said to his nephew, “With great power, comes great responsibility.”  It is time for American gun owners to step up to the plate – and the operating room gurney.