Turning On the Safety

Normally, I have kept it my policy to keep politics out of the Report.  The election custom banner was notably bipartisan, and even that report's content was exclusively pop culture.  However, following the positive response to my recent politically and personally motivated piece on marriage, I feel encouraged by the readership and compelled by recent events to delve into the political once more.  And this time with significantly less satirizing.

Yesterday, in what President Obama called a "a pretty shameful day for Washington," the Senate defeated several measures to expand gun control, including expanded background checks for gun buyers, a ban on assault weapons, and a ban on high-capacity gun magazines.  The votes came as a discouraging anticlimax to a months long national search for agreement, understanding, compromise, and change following the tragic shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.  In the moments following the vote my Facebook and Twitter feeds were clogged with expressions of anger, disappointment, and disgust.  This is, perhaps, more a reflection of the circles I choose to float in than of the national landscape, but if that is the case, then I am proud to float in these circles.

For me, what this comes down to is a matter of safety.  Over the past two years, I have come to know safety well, working in an office that works to keep the National Airspace System (NAS) safe.  It is the mantra of our office, the disclaimer at the end of our presentations, the sign-off to our videos: Safety Is What We Do.  How we do it gets complicated, but to sum it up in a sentence: When people want to make a change to the airspace, or when an existing process raises some safety concerns, we look at it to determine what mitigations can be applied to make the process and, in turn, the NAS more safe.  In a way, the gun control debate can be seen through the same lens, that of Safety Risk Management.  An event occurred that revealed gaps in existing safety regulations, and mitigations were proposed to address those gaps and increase safety.  Unfortunately, when it came time to apply those mitigations, the powers that be decided against it.  In doing so they bent to concerns outside the scope of the safety of those who looked to them for protection.

There are two things we consider as "out of scope" when we look at the safety effects of changes.  The first is efficiency.  Of course, we acknowledge that realistically efficiency must be considered within reason.  As one of my coworkers puts it, the NAS was the safest its ever been on September 12, 2001.  Every plane was safe, because every plane was parked.  Trading 100% safety for 0% efficiency is not an option for the flying public, nor is it an option that can reasonably be considered for gun control. 
 
On the issue of legislation concerning background checks, however, it is unreasonable to choose efficiency over safety.  Carlee Soto, sister of Vicki Soto, a teacher killed in the Newtown shootings, suggested that "It's too much paperwork. It's too time consuming" was an argument against background check legislation.  Consider viewing the time consumed by a background check in comparison to another form of time consumption.  Using U.S. mortality data from the World Health Organization, Periscopic developed a visualization of the years stolen by U.S. gun deaths in 2013.  Already in the beginning of this year alone they estimate 127,912 years have been stolen from the 2,906 Americans killed by guns.  It is only April.  127,912 years in four months.  THAT is time consuming.

The other element out of scope: financial concerns.  Again, these must be considered within reason, but in the aviation world this means that you can't propose that an impossibly expensive system be put in place to address a minor safety concern.  It does not mean that the financial contributions of special interests should take priority over the safety of the American people.  The ~$25 million spent in the last election cycle by the National Rifle Association on contributions, lobbying, and outside spending should not take precedent over safety.  Gabrielle Giffords is right: Putting political fear and cold calculations above the safety of our communities is a shameful act of cowardice, and the American public must respond.

This vote comes in a week already marred by death and tragedy.  The bombing in Boston and the explosion in West, Texas have revealed the fragility of our existence, but also the tenacity of our spirit.  In the social media fallout of the first event, a classic quote from Fred Rogers began to circulate, one which may also be applied to the tragedy in Texas:

"When I was a little boy, and something bad happened in the news, my mother would tell me to look for the helpers. 'You'll always find people helping,' she'd say.  And I've found that that's true. In fact, it's one of the best things about our wonderful world."

So what do we do when the "something bad" happening in the news is an action taken by the people put there to help us?

We find new helpers.  In fact, we have the power to do that.  It's another one of the best things about our wonderful world.