The Understandable vs. The Reasonable

Usually, after incidents like the one recently, where a gunman (why are they never referred to as "gunperson"?) kills people in a gym, a shopping mall, school, etc., there is clamor for more gun control and restrictions. Outrage is an understandable response in the wake of a terrible shooting, but seldom a reasonable one. Why is it that after reading a report about a traffic pile up that kills several people on a highway, or an errant truck driver killing a family, there is no clamor for restricting or banning cars and trucks? Because this would be an unreasonable outrage. If a truck driver falls asleep and runs his truck into a school bus and kills twenty children, there will be horror and shock, but no calls to ban trucks; toughen restrictions and tighten regulations perhaps, but not to ban them. This is because trucks are necessary and useful and banning them (or cars for that matter) would do more harm than good. Therefore, the question of whether to ban trucks is an understandable one, but not a reasonable one.

The argument to ban guns after some outrage is an understandable one. But the debate to tighten gun control laws, or simply ban them entirely, should be a reasonable one. A reasoned discussion over firearms and their regulation or prohibition would not be a bad thing. Reasonable discussion is never bad thing.

But reasonable discussions are difficult to hold in the wake of an outrage or tragedy. This is inevitable. As are the demands of the outraged and aggrieved that something be done to prevent similar tragedies from ever happening again. There are calls that the offending product or activity or be banned or severely restricted. This is understandable. But something being understandable does not make it reasonable. The desire to ban guns in the wake of a terrible shooting is an understandable response. But the belief that banning guns would stop violent crimes and murders is unreasonable. It might reduce them as those criminals who decide to obey guns laws search for alternative weapons and methods, and upset spouses mull over their choices, but it will not stop them.

The understandable might be reasonable, but then again, it might not.