A rant on Gun Control.
First, an article.
Updated to reflect the 2011 Tuscon shooting.
I'm posting this not to stir up controversy (though I realize that's a futile goal with this subject), but rather because I want to address what I feel is a larger issue, one that the notion of Gun Control does not fully resolve. For further clarity, I am using the term Gun Control as a proper noun to represent the various laws and sentiments towards restriction of citizens possessing firearms. I am aware that there are no codified tenets of Gun Control, such as there are with institutions like Christianity or the Democratic Party, and as such I will speak specifically to ideas that I feel fit this umbrella term.
Let's get this out of the way: Guns are not the problem.
Homicide is a concept that has existed for at least as long as humanity has been around, and it certainly exists in other species. Historically speaking, humans have figured out a multitude of ways to kill other humans with a variety of implements, some natural (rocks, high cliffs), some manufactured (swords, guns). There are also many reasons for committing homicide, but they usually break down into the following groups:
1. Resources
2. Mating partner
3. Emotional response to a situation
4. Some form of antisocial disorder
5. Adherence to a law/doctrine's codes
6. Incidental (not technically homicide by US law, but still relevant)
There are also more extreme reasons, but these stray from the main subject.
For the reasons mentioned, it can be argued that guns have made these easier. The theory stands that guns also exacerbate and accelerate problems that would not otherwise exist without guns. Examples of this would include gang violence, armed robbery, and, well, murder by shooting. This is false as these crimes existed prior to the invention of firearms, and some of these crimes are actually easier to commit or safer for the perpetrator by using other weapons, ones that perhaps don't make noise, leave material evidence, or host a finite supply such as bullets. In the example of incidentals, such as the article I linked above, I have an entirely different bone to pick.
My problem with guns is the same problem I have with problems of upbringing, such as addiction to fast food and soda, gambling, drug use, perpetuation of a cycle of abuse, etc. etc. etc. These are problems of parenting, all solvable by paying further attention to one's children, teaching them the dangers and proper uses of all of these (should those exist). As an example, one of the, if not the, first rule of safe gun operation is to not point a gun at anything you don't want to shoot, regardless of whether it is loaded. Is a rule like this something a child can be taught to abide by? That depends on whether your child can learn the alphabet, addition and subtraction, how to dress themselves and tie their shoes, or any number of tasks more mechanically complex than properly handling a gun. In addition, most children love their parents, at least enough to not want to kill them, meaning instances where this is what happens, it's an example of an incident that could have been avoided with proper gun instruction.
I'm going to make an analogy I've never heard before, so apologies if this is trademarked or something because goddammit it should be: Misinforming or keeping your children ignorant about the proper use of guns is 100% as negligent as misinforming or keeping your children ignorant of safe sex. Even if you don't own a gun, or are less thrilled about their existence than most, put that bleeding heart where your mouth is and at least teach your kids about the uses and dangers of something you're afraid is going to end the world one day.
You know how many millions of people die in gun-related incidents? As of 2004, the United States is fourth place in gun-related deaths vs. death percentage per capita, with the total death rate of Americans via guns at somewhere between 10.2 (2004) and 15.22 (1993) per 100,000; shocking is this: 7.07 of those were homicide, and 7.35 were suicide. At that rate, with a population of 308,745,438 as of the 2010 census, that's 31,492 gun deaths total in 2004. For AIDS patients, it's somewhere in the ballpark of 17,000 to 18,000, which is lower than the overall average: Starting in 1981, AIDS-related deaths account for 597,499 people, or 19,916 people each year over 30 years. Antiretroviral medication wasn't put into full use until 1996, meaning people carrying HIV had no viable method of treatment from 1981 to 1996, or 15 years.
Notice a parallel?
As soon as society has a grasp on the situation and had viable treatment methods, real healing work could be done and we could take steps toward eventually beating HIV. You know what isn't helping? A failure to disseminate information to help keep people from becoming infected. It's difficult to contain any kind of epidemic without the proper information. Hence, so-called "moral" advocacy groups, like abstinence-only organizations, Planned Parenthood protesters, et al are all directly contributing to the continued existence of HIV/AIDS as a threat to life for humans on this planet. What is clearly immoral is the lack of interest in the rest of humanity by helping make our species more ignorant to dangers that face them. This is in no way different from gun violence: while there are those who would not take accountability for having HIV and passing it on to other people deliberately, due to some sociopathy, selfishness, etc., there are those who would use a firearm to inflict harm on another human for the exact same reasons.
Each of these dangers have their own sense of responsibilities and social accountability, and each one, today, can be stopped dead in its tracks with proper information and a conscious decision for each one of us to agree to be responsible in these areas. If everyone agreed and abides not to murder someone else with a gun for just one day, that day we would have exactly zero gun deaths. If everyone with HIV agreed and abides to not put other people at risk by having unprotected sex with them, for just one day, that day would have zero new infections. Simple fact.
The point is this: social ills in general are symptoms of a lack of information and responsibility, not the problem itself. While my personal stance on guns is not a positive one, in that I support them in ideal only, I do believe that dangerous materials can be severely mitigated through proper education and social responsibility, and that these are things that happen not on a global level (i.e. everyone wakes up one day and decides to stop shooting each other), but on an individual level. I believe this because we already do it; kids learn things and carry those things with them into adulthood, and the range of topics that we hold on to throughout our development extend into far more complex subjects, for example religion and its weight on one's worldview. I do also believe that there is a responsible way to use guns, much unlike my belief in there being a responsible way to use cigarettes (in that there is no inherent safe manner by which to use cigarettes, and that use of a dangerous substance in a dangerous manner is not inherently responsible). This is an argument that's been repeated in favor of gun ownership, but to compare and contrast by measure of which is deadlier is moot. The fact is, guns can kill instantly, cigarettes take years of use. Instead, I make the comparison because they have the same root: ignorance and negligence.
As an aside, I argue in favor of gun ownership in that I argue in favor of personal liberties. My argument is the same as that for legalization of marijuana, or defense of religious establishments, or abortion: it's your life, and until something is identifiable as having zero value to society or an individual, it should be your choice. I am not personally a gun owner nor do I have any plans to be one, and I am married to a staunch gun opponent. I do however believe that things we identify as having "no value to society" should always have the opportunity to be reclassified later -- see: marijuana's status as a Schedule 1 controlled substance.
Going back to the main article, these are my arguments given the above: I disagree that the child in the article I linked should have access to or ownership of guns as he would not otherwise be able to purchase them himself. Obviously there are layers upon layers of complexity to this situation, including what the family setting was like, what training the child went through before being given a gun, etc. which we may never peel back, but I do find the major failing here to be that the kid had access to the gun in the first place. This, however, does not mean that people should not have the right to own guns, but as I've explained, this instead means that there was a connection between how that child was raised and his eventual actions, and considering the amount of gun owners in this country that have children versus the (comparatively) tiny number of gun homicides in this country, the gun being available is not the core of the issue: were it not a gun, it would be some other implement.
This is statistically backed: the United Kingdom, which has a population of around 60 million, or five times less than we do, reported 22,000 knife incidents on average, which includes stabbings that are not fatal. While not impressive on its own, consider that in the US there were 1,408,337 violent crimes against 308,745,438 citizens, treated separately from murders, for roughly a .46% of crimes vs. citizens. As for the UK, they check in at 1,045,369 violent crimes, or 1.74% rate of crimes vs. citizens, or 3.78 times more crime overall.
If we decide as a nation that we're too stupid to have the Second Amendment anymore, by all means get rid of it, since that's how a democracy works. Until then, quit blaming the wrong thing. We can't fix the problem if we can't identify it.
Update: I'll be brief about my feelings with the 2011 Tuscon shooting. I change none of my views, as guns and access to are still not the problem. Some examples:
Tokyo sarin attack perpetrated by Aum Shinrikyo.
Akihabara massacre.
My point: Crazy people will commit atrocities with whatever they have access to. Arguably guns make it easier, but clearly lack of access to guns did not stop either of these things from happening. The (excuse my macabre-ness) kill count in the two events most analogous, Tuscon vs Akihabara: 20 injured, 6 killed in Tuscon, 10 injured, 7 killed in Akihabara. You tell me.
Updated to reflect the 2011 Tuscon shooting.
I'm posting this not to stir up controversy (though I realize that's a futile goal with this subject), but rather because I want to address what I feel is a larger issue, one that the notion of Gun Control does not fully resolve. For further clarity, I am using the term Gun Control as a proper noun to represent the various laws and sentiments towards restriction of citizens possessing firearms. I am aware that there are no codified tenets of Gun Control, such as there are with institutions like Christianity or the Democratic Party, and as such I will speak specifically to ideas that I feel fit this umbrella term.
Let's get this out of the way: Guns are not the problem.
Homicide is a concept that has existed for at least as long as humanity has been around, and it certainly exists in other species. Historically speaking, humans have figured out a multitude of ways to kill other humans with a variety of implements, some natural (rocks, high cliffs), some manufactured (swords, guns). There are also many reasons for committing homicide, but they usually break down into the following groups:
1. Resources
2. Mating partner
3. Emotional response to a situation
4. Some form of antisocial disorder
5. Adherence to a law/doctrine's codes
6. Incidental (not technically homicide by US law, but still relevant)
There are also more extreme reasons, but these stray from the main subject.
For the reasons mentioned, it can be argued that guns have made these easier. The theory stands that guns also exacerbate and accelerate problems that would not otherwise exist without guns. Examples of this would include gang violence, armed robbery, and, well, murder by shooting. This is false as these crimes existed prior to the invention of firearms, and some of these crimes are actually easier to commit or safer for the perpetrator by using other weapons, ones that perhaps don't make noise, leave material evidence, or host a finite supply such as bullets. In the example of incidentals, such as the article I linked above, I have an entirely different bone to pick.
My problem with guns is the same problem I have with problems of upbringing, such as addiction to fast food and soda, gambling, drug use, perpetuation of a cycle of abuse, etc. etc. etc. These are problems of parenting, all solvable by paying further attention to one's children, teaching them the dangers and proper uses of all of these (should those exist). As an example, one of the, if not the, first rule of safe gun operation is to not point a gun at anything you don't want to shoot, regardless of whether it is loaded. Is a rule like this something a child can be taught to abide by? That depends on whether your child can learn the alphabet, addition and subtraction, how to dress themselves and tie their shoes, or any number of tasks more mechanically complex than properly handling a gun. In addition, most children love their parents, at least enough to not want to kill them, meaning instances where this is what happens, it's an example of an incident that could have been avoided with proper gun instruction.
I'm going to make an analogy I've never heard before, so apologies if this is trademarked or something because goddammit it should be: Misinforming or keeping your children ignorant about the proper use of guns is 100% as negligent as misinforming or keeping your children ignorant of safe sex. Even if you don't own a gun, or are less thrilled about their existence than most, put that bleeding heart where your mouth is and at least teach your kids about the uses and dangers of something you're afraid is going to end the world one day.
You know how many millions of people die in gun-related incidents? As of 2004, the United States is fourth place in gun-related deaths vs. death percentage per capita, with the total death rate of Americans via guns at somewhere between 10.2 (2004) and 15.22 (1993) per 100,000; shocking is this: 7.07 of those were homicide, and 7.35 were suicide. At that rate, with a population of 308,745,438 as of the 2010 census, that's 31,492 gun deaths total in 2004. For AIDS patients, it's somewhere in the ballpark of 17,000 to 18,000, which is lower than the overall average: Starting in 1981, AIDS-related deaths account for 597,499 people, or 19,916 people each year over 30 years. Antiretroviral medication wasn't put into full use until 1996, meaning people carrying HIV had no viable method of treatment from 1981 to 1996, or 15 years.
Notice a parallel?
As soon as society has a grasp on the situation and had viable treatment methods, real healing work could be done and we could take steps toward eventually beating HIV. You know what isn't helping? A failure to disseminate information to help keep people from becoming infected. It's difficult to contain any kind of epidemic without the proper information. Hence, so-called "moral" advocacy groups, like abstinence-only organizations, Planned Parenthood protesters, et al are all directly contributing to the continued existence of HIV/AIDS as a threat to life for humans on this planet. What is clearly immoral is the lack of interest in the rest of humanity by helping make our species more ignorant to dangers that face them. This is in no way different from gun violence: while there are those who would not take accountability for having HIV and passing it on to other people deliberately, due to some sociopathy, selfishness, etc., there are those who would use a firearm to inflict harm on another human for the exact same reasons.
Each of these dangers have their own sense of responsibilities and social accountability, and each one, today, can be stopped dead in its tracks with proper information and a conscious decision for each one of us to agree to be responsible in these areas. If everyone agreed and abides not to murder someone else with a gun for just one day, that day we would have exactly zero gun deaths. If everyone with HIV agreed and abides to not put other people at risk by having unprotected sex with them, for just one day, that day would have zero new infections. Simple fact.
The point is this: social ills in general are symptoms of a lack of information and responsibility, not the problem itself. While my personal stance on guns is not a positive one, in that I support them in ideal only, I do believe that dangerous materials can be severely mitigated through proper education and social responsibility, and that these are things that happen not on a global level (i.e. everyone wakes up one day and decides to stop shooting each other), but on an individual level. I believe this because we already do it; kids learn things and carry those things with them into adulthood, and the range of topics that we hold on to throughout our development extend into far more complex subjects, for example religion and its weight on one's worldview. I do also believe that there is a responsible way to use guns, much unlike my belief in there being a responsible way to use cigarettes (in that there is no inherent safe manner by which to use cigarettes, and that use of a dangerous substance in a dangerous manner is not inherently responsible). This is an argument that's been repeated in favor of gun ownership, but to compare and contrast by measure of which is deadlier is moot. The fact is, guns can kill instantly, cigarettes take years of use. Instead, I make the comparison because they have the same root: ignorance and negligence.
As an aside, I argue in favor of gun ownership in that I argue in favor of personal liberties. My argument is the same as that for legalization of marijuana, or defense of religious establishments, or abortion: it's your life, and until something is identifiable as having zero value to society or an individual, it should be your choice. I am not personally a gun owner nor do I have any plans to be one, and I am married to a staunch gun opponent. I do however believe that things we identify as having "no value to society" should always have the opportunity to be reclassified later -- see: marijuana's status as a Schedule 1 controlled substance.
Going back to the main article, these are my arguments given the above: I disagree that the child in the article I linked should have access to or ownership of guns as he would not otherwise be able to purchase them himself. Obviously there are layers upon layers of complexity to this situation, including what the family setting was like, what training the child went through before being given a gun, etc. which we may never peel back, but I do find the major failing here to be that the kid had access to the gun in the first place. This, however, does not mean that people should not have the right to own guns, but as I've explained, this instead means that there was a connection between how that child was raised and his eventual actions, and considering the amount of gun owners in this country that have children versus the (comparatively) tiny number of gun homicides in this country, the gun being available is not the core of the issue: were it not a gun, it would be some other implement.
This is statistically backed: the United Kingdom, which has a population of around 60 million, or five times less than we do, reported 22,000 knife incidents on average, which includes stabbings that are not fatal. While not impressive on its own, consider that in the US there were 1,408,337 violent crimes against 308,745,438 citizens, treated separately from murders, for roughly a .46% of crimes vs. citizens. As for the UK, they check in at 1,045,369 violent crimes, or 1.74% rate of crimes vs. citizens, or 3.78 times more crime overall.
If we decide as a nation that we're too stupid to have the Second Amendment anymore, by all means get rid of it, since that's how a democracy works. Until then, quit blaming the wrong thing. We can't fix the problem if we can't identify it.
Update: I'll be brief about my feelings with the 2011 Tuscon shooting. I change none of my views, as guns and access to are still not the problem. Some examples:
Tokyo sarin attack perpetrated by Aum Shinrikyo.
Akihabara massacre.
My point: Crazy people will commit atrocities with whatever they have access to. Arguably guns make it easier, but clearly lack of access to guns did not stop either of these things from happening. The (excuse my macabre-ness) kill count in the two events most analogous, Tuscon vs Akihabara: 20 injured, 6 killed in Tuscon, 10 injured, 7 killed in Akihabara. You tell me.