Salon: We Need ‘Gun Control’ for the U.S. Military to End ‘Carnage’ Overseas

A recent Salon piece argues that — in addition to the need for tougher gun regulations nationwide — the U.S. military’s arms should be subject to similar “gun control” measures that would curtail the American arsenal. The essay also alleges that the Pentagon inflicts “carnage” worldwide, resulting in civilian deaths across the globe.

The Memorial Day essay — titled “‘Gun control’ is a great idea — and what about for the U.S. military too?” —  was penned by frequent Salon contributor Norman Solomon, who founded the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA), which is reportedly funded by George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

“Believe it or not, the U.S. military kills about as many civilians every year as die from gun violence at home,” the essay’s subheading reads.

Noting that fresh calls for gun control “have followed the horrible tragedies of mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo,” the author asks, “but what about ‘gun control’ at the Pentagon?”

Solomon — a co-founder of a liberal organization that was behind the movement to impeach then-President Donald Trump — compares deadly domestic shootings to U.S. military operations abroad.

“The concept of curtailing the U.S. military’s arsenal is such a nonstarter that it doesn’t even get mentioned. Yet the annual number of deadly shootings in the United States — 19,384 at last count — is comparable to the average yearly number of civilian deaths directly caused by the Pentagon’s warfare over the last two decades,” he writes.

Accusing the military of wreaking havoc worldwide, he expresses outrage over the range of weaponry utilized in operations such as the American-led global counterterrorism campaign launched in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“From high-tech rifles and automatic weapons to drones, long-range missiles and gravity bombs, the U.S. military’s arsenal has inflicted carnage in numerous countries,” he claims.

“How many people have been directly killed by the ‘War on Terror’ violence? An average of 45,000 human beings each year — more than two-fifths of them innocent civilians — since the war began, as documented by the Costs of War project at Brown University,” he added.

The essay attacks the alleged “militarized” American mindset as well as the growing budget afforded to the country’s armed forces. 

“The mindset of U.S. mass media and mainstream politics has become so militarized that such realities are routinely not accorded a second thought, or any thought at all,” he writes. “Meanwhile, the Pentagon budget keeps ballooning year after year, with Biden now proposing $813 billion for fiscal year 2023.”

He then suggests that “corporate war mega-profiteers” do not receive as much scrutiny as the makers of consumer firearms.  

“Liberals and others frequently denounce how gun manufacturers are making a killing from sales of handguns and semiautomatic rifles in the U.S., while weapons sales to the Pentagon continue to spike upward for corporate war mega-profiteers,” he writes, noting the many contracts that have gone to corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Dynamics.

He also questioned how it is that “countless anguished commentators and concerned individuals across the nation can express justified fury at gun marketers and gun-related murders when a mass shooting occurs inside U.S. borders, while remaining silent about the need for meaningful gun control at the Pentagon?”

Solomon goes on to attack America’s role as a leading weapons exporter.

“What’s more, the U.S. is the world’s leading arms exporter, accounting for 35 percent of total weapons sales — more than Russia and China combined,” he writes. “These U.S. arms exports have huge consequences.”

Civilian casualties, according to Solomon, “don’t appear on American TV screens.” 

“Many lose their lives due to military operations that go unreported by U.S. media, either because mainline journalists don’t bother to cover the story or because those operations are kept secret by the U.S. government,” he writes.

“As a practical matter, the actual system treats certain war victims as ‘unworthy’ of notice,” he adds.

The essay then associates ideologies such as “nationalism, jingoism, chauvinism, [and] racism” with a willingness to overlook civilian deaths.

“Whatever the causal mix might be — in whatever proportions of conscious or unconscious nationalism, jingoism, chauvinism, racism and flat-out eagerness to believe whatever comforting fairy tale is repeatedly told by media and government officials — the resulting concoction is a dire refusal to acknowledge key realities of U.S. society and foreign policy,” Solomon writes.

He argues that describing military expenditures as the “defense” budget is part of a “routine deception” drilled into Americans before detailing those expenses.

“Congress devotes half of all discretionary spending to the military, the U.S. spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined (most of those nations U.S. allies), the Pentagon operates 750 military bases overseas, and the U.S. is now conducting military operations in 85 countries,” he writes.

“Yes, gun control is a great idea,” he concludes. “For the small guns. And the big ones.”

Solomon has a long history of radical left-wing activism. 

He is the founder and executive director of the IPA, which collaborated with Saddam Hussein‘s regime to organize “fact-finding” trips to Iraq for American political figures and entertainers, as well as a former executive at FAIR.

The left-wing journalist visited Moscow on eight separate occasions during the 1980s, staging a sit-in at the American Embassy there and serving as an anti-American propagandist. 

Solomon also traveled to Iraq with actor and anti-war activist Sean Penn in order to protest and impede the “momentum toward war.” 

In 2020, he led a two-phase campaign called “Vote Trump Out” to defeat President Trump by targeting and persuading progressive voters in battleground states — especially Bernie Sanders supporters —  to cast their ballots for the Biden-Harris ticket and then to advance their far-left progressive agenda through relentless pressure on the Biden administration “from day one.”