The Problem or the Solution?

Two Sides of Gun Control

This is not meant to be a commentary for or against gun owners or the Second Amendment. But one week after the Sandy Hook tragedy, on a day when the nation stopped to mourn the victims and three more people were gunned down in Pennsylvania by a rampaging shooter, one of them in a church, the National Rifle Association finally went public.

Wayne LaPierre, the organization’s executive vice president and public presence, opined that the only way to deal with our epidemic of mass violence is through more guns. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre commented. He may actually be right in certain circumstances, but in a way that the Cold War arms race was “right”: the concept of disincentive through mutually assured destruction.

Still, I wonder if even that would work. They must have had plenty of armed, trained shooters at Fort Hood in 2009 when U. S. Army Major Nidal Hassan went on an anti-American rampage that killed thirteen decent, valuable people and left another twenty-nine wounded. In Columbine High School in 1999, there was one armed guard on premises and another close by. And yet Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold managed to kill fifteen and wound twenty-three.

But that’s not the main point, I don’t think. What has occurred to me in the last week as I listened to all of the vehement arguments on both sides is that the unbending gun advocates – and by this I mean people like Mr. LaPierre and the National Rifle Association who refuse to give an inch on the totally unrestricted right to own and bear any firearm they wish – are ducking the issue.

Mr. LaPierre lashed out at violent video games, saying, “And here’s another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal. There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people. Through vicious, violent video games with names like ‘Bullet Storm,’ ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ ‘Mortal Combat,’ and ‘Splatterhouse.’” He went on to decry violence in music and other forms of media.

Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee stated that the violence stems from a lack of religious education.

Others say we don’t do enough with mental health screening. And you know what? I think they’re probably all correct.

But have you noticed, the one factor these people all seem to leave out in discussions of gun violence is: guns. Everything else is to blame except guns.

I am sick and tired of the bromide, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” Of course people kill people. And they do it with guns, knives, baseball bats, ropes, chains, hammers, and even their own hands. But make no mistake: every object we own changes us, alters us, transforms us. Guns don’t make non-killers into killers. They just make those who want to kill into bolder, more empowered, more efficient killers.

So in the discussion of America’s unique problem with repeated mass gun murders, let’s think about all the things we can do to cut down on further tragedies. But as we do so, let’s not leave guns themselves out of the equation.

That’s the weasel’s way out.

POSTSCRIPT: One of our correspondents called our attention to the following comment from President Dwight Eisenhower.

“It’ll be a sad say for this country if children can safely attend their classes only under the protection of armed guards.”

President Eisenhower, who certainly knew his way around firearms, was referring to his order for the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957, when African-American students had to be protected from a hateful mob. But like much of what Eisenhower said, these words are becoming sadly and eerily predictive.

•