What’s Love Canal Got To Do With It?
What’s Love Canal Got To Do With It?
A precedent for holding the gun industry financially accountable
Love Canal resident, 1978 (via Tufts Digital Library)
By: Penny Okamoto
The History of Love Canal
The neighborhood of Love Canal, located near Niagara Falls in New York State, was originally intended to be a hydroelectric power plant. In the 1890s, William T. Love began excavating the original canal, but abandoned the project. Then, from 1942 to approximately 1953, Hooker Chemicals & Plastic Corp. (now Occidental Chemical Company) used the area as a landfill, disposing of an estimated 21,000 tons of chemicals and hazardous waste including at least twelve that are known carcinogens (halogenated organics, chlorobenzenes, and dioxin among them).
A community of homes was built on and around that hazardous landfill, but the information was not shared with the residents of Love Canal.
Residents first began reporting odors and residues at the Love Canal site in the 1960s. In the 1970s, groundwater contaminated with more than 80 industrial chemicals — including heavy metals, pesticides, and dioxin — had migrated through sewers and creeks and began seeping into people’s properties. Several Presidential emergency declarations were issued, and approximately 950 families were evacuated from a 10-square block area surrounding the Love Canal landfill.
The Federal Response
The United States government demanded that the chemical companies who recklessly disposed of the toxic waste that was now poisoning families take financial responsibility for cleaning up the byproducts of their actions.
As a result, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) — commonly known as Superfund — was enacted by Congress on December 11, 1980. This law created a tax on the chemical and petroleum industries, and provided broad Federal authority to respond directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment.
Over five years, $1.6 billion was collected, and the tax went to a trust fund for cleaning up abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA):
Established prohibitions and requirements concerning closed and abandoned hazardous waste sites.
Provided for liability of persons responsible for releases of hazardous waste at these sites.
Established a trust fund to provide for cleanup when no responsible party could be identified.
The chemical industry is now required by federal law to clean its own waste.
The Superfund trust fund receives money from three major sources annually:
$553 million from petroleum excise taxes.
$273 million from chemical feedstock excise taxes.
$504 million from environmental income taxes.
How does Love Canal and the Superfund set a precedent for firearm industry accountability?
Just as the chemical industry allowed improper regulation of its products to harm people, the firearms industry has allowed the improper regulation of its products to harm people, and created a huge financial burden for all taxpayers. The firearm industry, however, still passes the post-shooting costs to the taxpayers.
In 2023, approximately 43,000 people died from gun violence in the United States. Of these deaths, about 56% were suicides, 35% were homicides, nearly 4% were unintentional shootings, 3% involved police shootings, and 2% were mass shootings. Among the total gun deaths, about 24,080 were suicides. More than 84,000 people were injured by gunfire in the same year.
These statistics highlight the significant impact of gun violence in the United States, affecting both those who die and those who survive with injuries.
Some people tend to think that firearms “fall into the wrong hands” without considering how that happens. The term “fall into the wrong hands” is used to gloss over the weak laws that allow people with violent histories to access firearms.
Laws fail to regulate many aspects of firearm transfers and ownership including private sales, trafficking, unsecured guns, and standards for gun ownership. Guns don’t “fall into the wrong hands” — weak laws allow guns to be legally sold to people with criminal intent, or to be easily stolen from unwitting gun owners.
The firearm industry is responsible for weak laws and easy access to firearms because the arms dealers’ lobbyists — including the National Rifle Association and the National Sports Shooting Foundation — block laws that increase regulation of gun sales and standards of gun ownership.
The gun industry’s failure to regulate the sale, transfer, or access to their lethal products creates a dangerous environment throughout the United States, but increases the gun industry’s profits. Meanwhile, our families are bearing the cost of the devastation on the wrong side of the gun barrel.
Taxpayers bear the financial burden incurred because almost all shootings require the response of medical professionals, police, medical care from Medicaid or Medicare, prosecutors, district attorneys, judges, jail, and some even require the rebuilding or repairing of schools and classrooms when shooters target our kids.
The cost to tear down Sandy Hook Elementary School and erect a new school after a gunman fatally shot 20 first-graders and six educators was $48,000,000 — paid for by taxpayers.
The cost to pay for rebuilding Robb Elementary School — the scene of a mass shooting that stole the lives 19 students and two teachers and left 17 others injured — has been estimated at $51,000,000.
None of the cost of this rebuilding and repair will be paid by the firearm industry.
The economic cost of gun violence extends far beyond cleanup though. Taxpayers, survivors, families, and employers pay an average of $7.79 million daily in health care costs, including immediate and long-term medical and mental health care, plus patient transportation/ambulance costs related to gun violence. And they lose an estimated $147.32 million per day related to work missed due to injury or death. American taxpayers pay $30.16 million every day in police and criminal justice costs for investigation, prosecution, and incarceration. Overall, it’s been reported that gun violence costs the U.S. around $557 billion annually, or 2.6% of gross domestic product.
All of these costs pale in comparison to the pain of the death or injury of a loved one from gun violence.
What would a “Taxpayer Relief from Firearms Expenses Superfund” cover?
The firearm industry reaps profits from the public sales of firearms and ammunition, but dumps the costs and burdens of gun violence onto the United States taxpayer. So, the firearm industry would be held accountable for the havoc created by its products including:
The cost of replacing, repairing, and cleaning public buildings that were the locations of shootings.
Reimbursement of costs to Medicare and Medicaid for medical expenses including emergency care, hospital care, and long term care for gunshot injuries.
Lead waste at shooting ranges, both indoors and out.
The cost of securely disposing of unwanted firearms and ammunition.
Federal, state, and local agencies could recoup these expenses from the firearm industry by charging Taxpayer Relief Fees for all firearm, ammunition, and firearm accessories sold.
With Love Canal, the chemical industry recklessly discarded its waste and thousands of people were sickened or killed. The gun industry has left tens of thousands dead or injured in just 2023. Gunshot death is now the leading cause of death for kids and teens in the United States.
If guns protected us, the 400,000,000 guns in our country would make us the safest country on the planet. Instead, we are awash in guns and blood, with the taxpayer footing the cost.
The gun industry must pay the real cost of guns in the United States. It’s time to create the Taxpayer Relief from Firearm Expenses Superfund and hold the gun industry financially accountable instead of the taxpayers.
Penny Okamoto is Executive Director at Survivors Empowered.