Mexico's president recently chided the U.S. for the prevalence of weapons in Mexico. If America did a better job controlling its guns, many of them might not wind up in the hands of Mexican drug dealers and gangsters. Gun control has long a controversial subject: at least in modern times. Many decry the violence of American society and lament the casualties due to fire arms. They blame fire arms as if fire arms were the cause of the rising violence and death over the years and not the people who wield them. Yet the difficulty in the call to eliminate fire arms is they have legitimate uses. It is only when guns are misused that violence erupts. They can be used for sport or safety. Some people even enjoy collecting them: much to the chagrin of those absorbed by hatred for guns of all sorts.
Baseball bats kill people. Cars kill people in astounding numbers. Yet we often provide them to teens, along with the cell phones they talk on while driving. Knives kill people but we find them in abundance in every home. We are even provided with knives when we dine out: very sharp ones at some restaurants. Baseball bats are provided in to our youth despite the danger they pose in the wrong hands. The reason we allow knives, cars, and bats, but forbid hand grenades, machine guns, and bazookas is because there are reasonable uses for knives, cars, and bats. Driving, eating, and playing baseball are all respectable, even enjoyable, activities. Bazookas, grenades, and machine guns are another matter entirely. There is no reasonable need for a person to own a bazooka or a machine gun. We do not have to assault pill boxes or defend roadblocks. The Army does. That is why they have them.
Significantly, the thing that perhaps causes the greatest death, damage, and mayhem in our society is perfectly legal: automobiles. In California, there were 3,995 gun homicides in 2008. There were 34,000 trafic deaths reported in Califonia in 2009. A drunk driver that kills a family is a tragedy. A Wife killing her husband by driving over him will be well covered on the local evening evening news. Indeed, the story might be interesting enough for networks news to pick up. (For some reason, there is a comical aspect to a jilted or spiteful lover running over her ex.) But neither story will occasion a discussion about the need to regulate or control automobiles. Even the most horrendous traffic accident will not provoke a discussion over car ownership. Stabbings can be alarming, even painful, but no one will ever argue that knives should be banned.
America is obsessed with guns. Some devote their lives to banning them. Others endeavor to collect them. To some, guns are symbolic of freedom. To others they are emblematic of crime and murder. But at the bottom of the debate, guns are simply things, dangerous perhaps, but things nevertheless. Guns do not shoot people. People shoot people. The problem is not that people use guns to shoot other people. The problem is that people want to shoot other people.
As for U.S. guns winding up in Mexico, or anywhere else for that matter, the United States is a capitalist country populated by entrepreneurs. If there is a demand for guns in Mexico you can count on Americans to try and meet that demand. Perhaps Mexico should step up security on its side of the border.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Ban Knives?
In the last two weeks, 8 people have been killed and 41 injured, some seriously, by knife attacks in China. One had his hand chopped off. All the victims were either teachers or students. Many in China are alarmed at the attacks. So far, one of the attackers has been sentenced to death. Despite the violence, there has been no effort in China to ban knives and cleavers. It can be assumed that if the men had owned guns, those would have been used rather than knives and cleavers. As it was, the attackers relied upon the weapons at hand: knives, and cleavers.
This is something that should be borne in mind by those alarmed at similar attacks here in the U.S. where an assailant attacks multiple victims. Unlike the case in China, the weapons of choice in the U.S. are firearms. After each attack there has been an outcry against guns and efforts to ban them. The assumption is that banning guns would prevent such attacks. Even if guns were banned, it is unlikely that violence would cease: it would simply become more problematic as attackers searched for alternative weapons. There have already been incidences of mass attacks were vehicles were used.
Whatever the merits of gun control, and there are some, it should not be assumed that violence would cease where it is adopted. It wouldn't. Deranged attackers, disgruntled employees, unhinged postal workers, and jealous spouses would still plot and scheme. They would simply resort to different weapons. Perhaps they would push people out of windows or throw them under trains. Vindictive spouses might have to return to poisoning each other.
What lay behind attacks such as recent violence in China and the outrage at Columbine has nothing to do with guns or meat cleavers. It has everything to do with people. Restricting guns is an obvious first step, but it is only a stop gap. Law abiding citizens would have a harder time purchasing fire arms, but criminals would only be slowed down. They will still be able to acquire guns, despite laws against it. Criminals rarely have qualms about breaking the law. That is why they are criminals to begin with.
The use of violence to spectacularly lash out at coworkers, students, and society in general is a disturbing trend, but it is a recent one. Violence and murder have always existed, and they always will exist, just rarely at the level we experience today. If we really want to address the issue, we need to examine and try to understand what lay behind it. We must examine the alienation, frustration, and anger that permeates our society. We must seek to determine what it is about our society today that causes such outrages. People don't just attack students because they hate children. They attack students because it is spectacular. It is the result of a deranged mind seeking retribution and notoriety. Guns are no more behind attacks such as Columbine than meat cleavers are behind the attacks in China. The attack at Columbine was just more effective. If they had to, the attackers would have used baseball bats and sharp sticks. That might be of solace to some, but it shouldn't be.
The issue behind the attack in China is not about meat cleavers. It is about a man who attacked people with a meat cleaver. The issue behind gun violence in the U.S. is not about guns. It is about why so many people are willing to use guns.
This is something that should be borne in mind by those alarmed at similar attacks here in the U.S. where an assailant attacks multiple victims. Unlike the case in China, the weapons of choice in the U.S. are firearms. After each attack there has been an outcry against guns and efforts to ban them. The assumption is that banning guns would prevent such attacks. Even if guns were banned, it is unlikely that violence would cease: it would simply become more problematic as attackers searched for alternative weapons. There have already been incidences of mass attacks were vehicles were used.
Whatever the merits of gun control, and there are some, it should not be assumed that violence would cease where it is adopted. It wouldn't. Deranged attackers, disgruntled employees, unhinged postal workers, and jealous spouses would still plot and scheme. They would simply resort to different weapons. Perhaps they would push people out of windows or throw them under trains. Vindictive spouses might have to return to poisoning each other.
What lay behind attacks such as recent violence in China and the outrage at Columbine has nothing to do with guns or meat cleavers. It has everything to do with people. Restricting guns is an obvious first step, but it is only a stop gap. Law abiding citizens would have a harder time purchasing fire arms, but criminals would only be slowed down. They will still be able to acquire guns, despite laws against it. Criminals rarely have qualms about breaking the law. That is why they are criminals to begin with.
The use of violence to spectacularly lash out at coworkers, students, and society in general is a disturbing trend, but it is a recent one. Violence and murder have always existed, and they always will exist, just rarely at the level we experience today. If we really want to address the issue, we need to examine and try to understand what lay behind it. We must examine the alienation, frustration, and anger that permeates our society. We must seek to determine what it is about our society today that causes such outrages. People don't just attack students because they hate children. They attack students because it is spectacular. It is the result of a deranged mind seeking retribution and notoriety. Guns are no more behind attacks such as Columbine than meat cleavers are behind the attacks in China. The attack at Columbine was just more effective. If they had to, the attackers would have used baseball bats and sharp sticks. That might be of solace to some, but it shouldn't be.
The issue behind the attack in China is not about meat cleavers. It is about a man who attacked people with a meat cleaver. The issue behind gun violence in the U.S. is not about guns. It is about why so many people are willing to use guns.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)