Tom Diaz

Tom Diaz is an American writer, lawyer, and public speaker on the gun industry and gun control issues. He was formerly senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center and is one of the more prominent advocates for gun control in the United States of America. Quotes 1999 The gun industry has deliberately enhanced its profits by increasing the lethality -- the killing power -- of its products...The industry might have chosen to develop safer firearms, but gun-industry executives deliberately chose to take exactly the opposite direction. Tom Diaz Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America 1999 The New Press 9781565844704; Butterfield Fox To Rejuvenate Gun Sales, Critics Say, Industry Started Making More Powerful Pistols The New York Times February 14, 1999 It's an area of writing that is superbly uncritical. It's hypermarketing, and Guns & Ammo is the 500-pound canary. On firearms periodicals (Kuczynski Alex Guns and Prosperity The New York Times August 23, 1999 October 6, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/23/business/media-guns-and-prosperity.html). The smart gun is a hoax. It's a very seductive hoax, but nevertheless it's a hoax. At bottom, this is a ploy, a very clever ploy, by the gun industry to use your tax dollars and my tax dollars to expand its markets. You'll never be able to come up with a system that's going to make handguns safe, to make handguns go away, until we say, 'We've got an industry that pours onto our markets millions of deadly, lethal killing instruments. And we've got to stop that.' I feel that the smart gun ultimately will take more lives…than it will save. Development Of The Smart Gun November 2, 2018 October 7, 2018 CBS News 60 Minutes w:Vicki Mabrey Vicki Mabrey https://www.cbsnews.com/news/development-of-the-smart-gun/ It's an assault pistol. It was designed and basically advertised and used for exactly the kind of thing that was done in Littleton: It's to spray a lot of bullets over a wide area very quickly. On the TEC-DC9 used in the Columbine High School massacre (Tom Diaz Loved Guns. But a Lot of Little Reasons Changed His Mind Frey Jennifer The Washington Post May 4, 1999). My book argues that the gun industry is purposely making guns sexier in terms of their killing power in order to rejuvenate the market. What I'm saying now is that in terms of our country, and in our times, there are guns out there whose harm far outweighs their utility. And I want somebody in government to say: 'Don't make them. Don't have them.' On his book Making a Killing (Tom Diaz Loved Guns. But a Lot of Little Reasons Changed His Mind Frey Jennifer The Washington Post May 4, 1999). 2000 You have drastically increased the ability to inflict death and injury. That means you can shoot more rounds faster and easier, what they call spray and pray. On the semi-automatic firearms used by rampage killers (Fessenden Ford They Threaten, Seethe and Unhinge, then Kill in Quantity April 9, 2000 October 6, 2018 The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/09/us/they-threaten-seethe-and-unhinge-then-kill-in-quantity.html). The gun industry offloads tremendous costs onto people who don't use its products, like a polluter dumping on a city, so it's good to force people to realize what these costs are. Butterfield Fox 2 Economists Give Far Higher Cost of Gun Violence The New York Times September 15, 2000 2002 Given the development of a whole sniper culture over the past 10 years, it was almost inevitable that some deranged person or a terrorist was going to be drawn in to acting out the sniper mentality. The sniper's motto is, 'One shot, one kill.' That's what this guy has been doing right here around our nation's capital...In order to rejuvenate its sales, the gun industry has gone out and marketed sniper rifles. After the D.C. sniper attacks (Butterfield Fox Subculture of Snipers Disowns a Marksman The New York Times October 11, 2002 October 6, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/11/us/the-maryland-shootings-gun-owners-subculture-of-snipers-disowns-a-marksman.html). I was shocked at what I found. The sniper's motto is 'one shot, one kill.' There are schools that teach civilians how to do this. After the D.C. sniper attacks CBS News CBS Evening news Jaime Holguin October 28, 2002 October 7, 2018 Learning How To Be A Sniper https://www.cbsnews.com/news/learning-how-to-be-a-sniper/ 2003 This is not just a gun control issue. It's a national security issue. On .50 caliber rifles (Wald Matthew L. Citing Danger to Planes, Group Seeks Ban on a Sniper Rifle The New York Times January 31, 2003 October 6, 2018). Okay, so you're an hour outside New York City in Danbury. What does that mean? Do you think an army of terrorists is going to come rampaging out of New York? There are some suburban and rural communities where fair-minded analysis would say this is ludicrous. The likelihood that these kinds of incidents are likely to occur is nil...Most rounds miss the target. That's an established fact. More bullets are going to fly where they weren't intended, and they're going to go farther and strike with a greater impact. S.W.A.T. and sniper teams are highly trained and selective enough to use these weapons. But if I were putting them in every patrol car in the jurisdiction, I would be very concerned about the amount of firepower. On the role of AR-15 style rifles in local law enforcement (Holtz Jeff For the Police, a Move to More Firepower The New York Times November 2, 2003 October 6, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/02/nyregion/for-the-police-a-move-to-more-firepower.html). 2005 These are ideal weapons of terrorist attack. On .50 caliber rifles (Civilian Sales of Military Rifle Raise Concerns about Terrorism The New York Times November 28, 2005). This gun is designed and built to smash things up and to set things on fire. It`s a battlefield weapon, and yet it is sold as freely on the American civilian market as a .22 bolt action rifle...I think it`s a great thing on the battlefield. I just think that there are certain occasions when we say in our society, this product is such a threat to our health and safety, and in this case, our national security, we will not allow it...it is a gun that is unparalleled by any other small arm available to civilians. We control every other kind of weapon of war you can think of -- machine guns, plastic explosives, rockets. This thing has flown under the radar for about 20 years...If you go through virtually any industrial state, you`ll see right off the highways all kinds of highly-toxic and/or flammable materials stored in big tanks. These are ideal targets...The point is that you can plan your attack from a longer distance. It`s the combination of range and power. On .50 caliber rifles (w:Ed Bradley Ed Bradley 60 Minutes CBS News January 9, 2005). 2009 If you wanted to create a system that is basically legal but designed to facilitate gun trafficking, you couldn't have a better system than you have here. On the flow of guns from the United States to Mexican drug cartels (McKinley , Jr. James C War without Borders: U.S. Stymied as Guns Flow to Mexican Cartels The New York Times April 15, 2009 October 6, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/us/15guns.html; Diaz Tom Quotation of the Day The New York Times April 15, 2009). 2011 Enhanced lethality, that's what we are talking about. Lethality increases when you have larger bullets, more ammunition and the guns are easier to operate. That's the contribution Glock and others have brought to America. After the 2011 Tucson shooting (Martin Andrew Tucson Shootings Add to Glock's Notoriety The New York Times January 15, 2011 October 6, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/business/15glock.html). It's clear that the militarized stuff is the stuff that sells and is defining the industry. On the growth of the civilian market for military-style weapons (Singer Natasha The Big Shot The New York Times November 27, 2011 October 6, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/business/how-freedom-group-became-the-gun-industrys-giant.html). 2012 The Bushmaster a variant of a type of gun called the AR-15 ... which was designed and developed for military use roughly during the Vietnam War period. It is one of a variety of assault rifles that militaries of the world developed when they realized that most soldiers do not — when they're engaged in combat — do not take accurate aim, do not fire at long distances, but rather just spray bullets in the general direction of the enemy at short to medium range. When the military accepted this as a fact — that soldiers are not marksmen, and they tend to just fire in bursts at ambiguous targets, and in fact most battlefield injuries are the result of just being where the bullet is and not someone actually aiming at you — the militaries of the world said, 'OK, we need a type of gun to give our soldiers that will do just that.' ... This was the genesis of the assault rifle. The first one was developed by the Germans in 1944. It was called the StG-44. The Soviet army quickly ... made a design similar to it, which is called the AK-47, probably the most widely used rifle in the world. On the Bushmaster XM-15 used in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting (Assault-Style Weapons In The Civilian Market December 20, 2012 October 5, 2018 Fresh Air NPR https://www.npr.org/2012/12/20/167694808/assault-style-weapons-in-the-civilian-market). What the gun industry has done is sort of appeal to the inner soldier, the insurrectionist feelings and high-tech desires to market these military-style guns. Now, they don't call them assault rifles. They have a couple of terms they use. They call them tactical rifles. They call them modern sporting rifles. I personally don't care what you call them; they are basically assault rifles, and their purpose is to kill people. Assault-Style Weapons In The Civilian Market December 20, 2012 October 6, 2018 Fresh Air NPR https://www.npr.org/2012/12/20/167694808/assault-style-weapons-in-the-civilian-market The people we’re talking about, once they get into ‘I want to kill a lot of people,’ it’s not a leap for them to see that these guns are made and designed for war. And if you look at the industry advertising, that is a consistent theme. Rifle Used in Killings, America’s Most Popular, Highlights Regulation Debate Erica Goode December 16, 2012 October 5, 2018 The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/us/lanza-used-a-popular-ar-15-style-rifle-in-newtown.html; There is no reason mass killers can still legally buy their weapon of choice in America The Washington Post Editorial Board June 13, 2016 October 5, 2018 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/there-is-no-reason-mass-killers-can-still-legally-buy-their-weapon-of-choice-in-america/2016/06/13/2cde7084-319b-11e6-95c0-2a6873031302_story.html They translate the industry's needs into less crass, less economically interested language -- into defending the home, into defending the country. The industry needs a veneer of respectability. On the National Rifle Association (Weissmann Jordan Whom Does the NRA Really Speak For? https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/whom-does-the-nra-really-speak-for/266373/ October 6, 2018 The Atlantic December 18, 2012). 2013 When the military switched over to this assault weapon, the whole context changed. The conversation became, ‘Is this the kind of gun you want in the civilian world?’ And we who advocate for regulation say, ‘No, you do not.’ The New York Times Even Defining ‘Assault Rifles’ Is Complicated Erica Goode January 16, 2013 September 5, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/us/even-defining-assault-weapons-is-complicated.html The AR-15 is, essentially, a gun that was designed to inflict maximum casualties, death, and injury, in close to medium range. That's what it does. The real problem is that we allow that kind of firepower to come into a theater or into a first-grade class. The names you see now are 'modern sporting rifle,' 'tactical rifle.' Those are all just euphemisms for 'assault weapon.' They're being very rational as marketers and as businesses—and as industries. They're only doing what cellphone companies do to make cellphones look different and be more attractive. The difference is what they're selling is lethality. Run on Guns: AR-15s Sales Soar Meghan Lisson April 25, 2013 October 5, 2018 CNBC https://www.cnbc.com/id/100673826 It speaks to the fact that there are a lot of young men in the U.S. who will never be in the military but feel that male compulsion to warriorhood. Owning an assault weapon is a passport to that. The Most Wanted Gun in America Natasha Singer February 2, 2013 October 5, 2018 The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/business/the-ar-15-the-most-wanted-gun-in-america.html Those design features in a civilian market have horrific consequences. So you can call it whatever you want — tactical rifle, black rifle, assault rifle, modern sporting rifle. It has the capability that the military wanted for warfare...It's just a fact that hunting has been in serious decline, so those kinds of guns just don't sell as well. Well, you're in business, you got to sell something. These assault rifles — these military-style rifles — appeal to a broader range of people. Why The AR-15 Is More Than Just A Gun June 24, 2013 September 3, 2018 Morning Edition NPR w:Ailsa Chang Ailsa Chang https://www.npr.org/2013/06/24/194228925/why-the-ar-15-is-more-than-just-a-gun It's just a fact that hunting has been in serious decline, so those kinds of guns just don't sell as well. Well, you're in business, you got to sell something. These assault rifles — these military-style rifles — appeal to a broader range of people. Why The AR-15 Is More Than Just A Gun June 24, 2013 November 7, 2018 Morning Edition NPR w:Ailsa Chang Ailsa Chang https://www.npr.org/2013/06/24/194228925/why-the-ar-15-is-more-than-just-a-gun I think that in the long term, the nation is going to reject this unbridled kind of gun culture. But I think it's going to take a long time. Colorado is a true test for those actually in the trenches, but it might also be a wake-up call -- nothing is easy, and pouring money in from Bloomberg is not a magic solution. After the 2012 Aurora shooting (Goode Erica In Gun Debate, Divide Grows as both Sides Dig in for Battle The New York Times September 16, 2013 October 6, 2018 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/16/us/in-gun-debate-divide-grows-as-both-sides-dig-in-for-battle.html). The industry has changed. In terms of what sells and what is marketed most successfully, we’re now talking about guns that are derived directly from military design. Rolling Stone The NRA vs. America w:Tim Dickinson Tim Dickinson January 31, 2013 October 7, 2018 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-nra-vs-america-105280/ If you wanted to know how many Bushmasters have been used in what kinds of crime for the last five years, that information is in ATF’s files. But it can’t be released because of the Tiahrt Amendment. Rolling Stone The NRA vs. America w:Tim Dickinson Tim Dickinson January 31, 2013 October 7, 2018 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-nra-vs-america-105280/ There is not a middle ground with the NRA. Rolling Stone The NRA vs. America w:Tim Dickinson Tim Dickinson January 31, 2013 October 7, 2018 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/the-nra-vs-america-105280/ We have spent more than $1 trillion on homeland security since Sept. 11, 2001, yet have withheld annual funding of less than $3 million for research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on gun violence.Why are the First, Fourth and Fifth amendments subject to erosion in the name of homeland security, but the Second Amendment is beyond compromise in the name of saving innocent lives?...Our perception of the relative dangers of terrorism and gun violence is distorted....If we are to protect the homeland, we must also protect our children and all innocent citizens from the epidemic of violence inflicted by military-style guns. Tom Diaz Guns kill more people. So why does terrorism get all the attention? March 1, 2013 October 18, 2018 The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/guns-kill-more-people-so-why-does-terrorism-get-all-the-attention/2013/03/01/49eee202-7f8e-11e2-8074-b26a871b165a_story.html Quotes about Tom Diaz Instead, the gun was mainly sold to law enforcement and other narrower demographics -- notably, "survivalists" who imagined they would one day face combat situations in an apocalyptic future, according to Tom Diaz, a gun expert and author of "Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America." How an 'ugly,' unwanted weapon became the most popular rifle in America David Heath Elise Hansen AJ Willingham CNN December 14, 2017 October 5, 2018 https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/14/health/ar15-rifle-history-trnd/index.html Many invoke what Tom Diaz, a top expert on gun violence, calls “the portentous scenario.” February 22, 2018 All-American Killer: How the AR-15 Became Mass Shooters’ Weapon of Choice w:Tim Dickinson Tim Dickinson Rolling Stone October 5, 2018 https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/all-american-killer-how-the-ar-15-became-mass-shooters-weapon-of-choice-107819/ The Orlando massacre and the San Bernardino, California shooting in December by a couple inspired by Islamic State captured the attention of the American public in a way previous mass shootings have not, said Tom Diaz, a former member of the National Rifle Association gun rights lobby who now backs gun control.“They’ve changed the dynamic of this whole issue,” said Diaz, an author and expert on terrorism and the gun industry. June 18, 2016 October 5, 2018 Democrats' new line on gun control: Do it for national security Richard Cowan Doina Chiacu Reuters https://www.reuters.com/article/us-florida-shooting-guns/democrats-new-line-on-gun-control-do-it-for-national-security-idUSKCN0Z40AA External links Category:Lawyers from the United States Category:Living people