Ban Human Nature

This piece, from Ace, sums up why I think most "gun control" advocates are either naive or dishonest. 

As Ace points out, the only realistic way to stop gun violence is to prevent anyone anywhere from having a gun.  That means police and the military, too.  As long as guns exist, there is the possibility bad people will get them and do bad things with them.  So the only plausible "gun control" that could prevent mass gun violence is an absolute ban on guns. 

Now, Ace's point is primarily the dishonesty with which gun control advocates routinely act.  He points out that they claim not to want to "ban guns," and yet, logically, that is the only policy they can pursue.  I have a different point.

The only way to stop tragedies like what happened in Newtown, CT is to ban human nature.  That's it.  The only thing that could have stopped this particular tragedy, or any of the others before, is to lobotomize the entire population.  Sure, it's the "nuke the site from orbit" form of deterring violence, but there's a reason that quote ends with "it's the only way to be sure."

Do gun control advocates believe that murder didn't exist until the 1364?  Do they believe that people have not been wreaking violence against each other since before recorded history?

Here, they will often fall back on the dishonest line of argument that "guns make murder easier."  That is, as far as it goes, a true statement.  It is much easier to shoot someone with a handgun than it is to stab them with a knife.  What it misses is the amount of effort these mass killers go to.

They often purchase semi-specialized equipment.  They usually purchase special magazines and a fair number of them.  They purchase ammunition, sometimes for weeks or months before the actual atrocity.  Many of them map out exactly what they're going to do, and even have a plan for how to deal with the police (it usually involves shooting themselves, but it's still a plan).

Yet, for all this effort, we're supposed to think they would be deterred just because they could "only" use a bow or crossbow?  Or are gun control advocates actually seeking to ban all projectile weapons?  Well, I guess no one could possibly use an axe or a hammer to kill someone.

The fact is that people have been killing each other for as long as there have been people.  You're never going to stop it, either.  Indeed, what makes it so easy to commit these kinds of acts is not the existence of guns, but human nature.

See, everyone wants to feel safe.  Weapons, by definition, are not safe (there is no such thing as an unloaded gun).  Therefore, people tend to want to avoid weapons.  In most cases, if you got people to sit down and think through it, they probably wouldn't be afraid of the weapons.  They wouldn't even be afraid of some unknown assailant having a weapon.  Their problem would be, I believe, that weapons make them realize how dangerous the world is in general, and they don't want those reminders.  No one wants to be forced to realize, every single minute of every single day, how fragile life is.

So most people avoid weapons.  My mother grew up on a farm in Western Texas.  Her daddy required that she and her sister be familiar with how to shoot.  Nevertheless, she's not particularly comfortable around guns.  She doesn't particularly like them.  In a life where guns were just a fact of life, and were used to save lives both human and animal on more than one occasion, she still would rather avoid them.

The problem with "most people" avoiding weapons, and wanting others to avoid weapons, is that it means the bad guys are more likely than the average person to have a weapon.

Imagine if this young man had walked into that school with an axe, or a sword.  With the possible exception of the specific body count, do we really think the outcome would have been much different?  No one there could defend themselves.  To the extent they could, it would have been because they could have met him on some kind of equal footing; say, by grabbing a baseball bat from the P.E. closet.

You're never going to stop this kind of violence.  It has been with us since the first caveman realized it was easier to kill Grog and take his stuff than to barter with Grog for Grog's stuff.  It will continue until the race of Man is gone.

It's simply human nature.

Let's Be Honest

There's a problem in our country.  It's a deep sickness that affects everything we do, or see.  It's called "politics," and I don't believe it has a cure.

On Friday, the the town of Newtown, CT was the scene of a terrible act of evil.  A young man, apparently mentally ill, took a veritable arsenal to a school, after having already killed his mother, and killed over two dozen people.  He then took his own life.  This is a senseless act of mindless violence.

"Senseless": It has no sense.  No amount of rational thinking will ever allow us to understand what was going through that young man's head.

"Mindless": He wasn't using his mind.  Perhaps he was incapable of using his mind.  Someone thinking clearly doesn't target innocent children in some random act of violence.

As a nation, we all feel wounded by the events that unfolded.  Some of those wounds will close quickly.  Some of those wounds will never close.  The only thing we should be worrying about is how provide some measure of comfort and compassion to the survivors of Friday's attack.

Yet, for some reason, people believe politics must be brought into the discussion.

One professional political pundit, I can't even remember which one, remarked that 2nd Amendment advocates would probably be calling for "arming kindergartners," before we even knew all the victims.  See, it was important to get it on record immediately that more people having guns wouldn't have stopped this attack.  Never mind that he's wrong.

In what was supposed to be a prayer service for the victims and their families, the President decided to make a call for increased gun control.  On the other side of things, 2nd Amendment advocates were pre-politicising the event, since history says that exactly what did happen (increased call for gun control) would happen.

Now, those are things that can certainly be discussed.  It is in our nature to want to avoid this kind of pain and monstrosity.  When something like this happens, we rightly review to see what, if anything, could be done to prevent future recurrence.  So I don't have a problem that it's being discussed.  I do have two problems with the discussion, however.

The first, and most important, is the timing.  The political discussion was occurring, on both sides of the aisle, by around 1 PM CST, if not earlier.  The President politicized a prayer service.  It seems little or no consideration was given to the grief of those affected.

The second reason, however, is that the discussion is not honest.  As Ace so correctly pointed out on Friday, whenever Liberals say they want to have a "discussion" about guns, what they really mean is they want to demonize them and push for more gun control.  They're just smart enough that they know they can't say that out loud.  For the gun rights advocates' part, they seldom mention the shear danger involved with a totally armed populace.

Today there will be more posts from me.  I've been out since last week with a bad back, and today is the first I can even really use my laptop while laid out on the couch.  I hope to avoid some of the dishonesty in this discussion.  Most of all, I hope that we can all be honest about our goals, and see the facts for what they really are.