Before you read further or anything else anyone else is saying about this topic, realize that talking about it at all is a new thing and it's a very
good thing. Violence of all forms has been dropping. Not just in the US; worldwide.*
Sudden, organized violence and mass invasions by smelly strangers wishing to do us harm is something that most people, in most places no longer need prepare for.
In the United States, when the Second Amendment was written**, it was very much a fact of life and had been a fact of life for as long as history had been recorded. It was also a very important step - an affirmation that citizen-individuals did not simply have to put up with being caught in the middle of the board when the Sport of Kings was being played. And as a result of that and many other small awakenings and progress, things are much, much better in the blink of a historian's eye.
It's as if we are slowly awakening from a horrible nightmare and now having to confront the vomit and mess that points to some horrifying binge. But in many ways, that's the hard part. Bear that in mind as you read.
I have been waiting for someone to address the elephant in the room - and no, I don't actually mean "Republicans." They aren't helping much, but neither are the Democrats; in fact, the argument they are having is serving as a smokescreen for the issues that are not being talked about at all.
That is because the current gun-control debate to the south of us is focusing on everything but the actual issues.
The discussion is circling around HOW people kill one another. The real question should be WHY they are killing each other. Instead, people simply shrug and dismiss them as "crazy," "deranged," perhaps "unhinged."
Well, no
doubt, but if you stop to think of it, that's not much of an answer
either. WHY did they snap? For that matter, why doesn't it happen more often? Because, well, see the first paragraph.
While violence has become a more and more remote likelihood in our lives, our culture insists that it's a very real, common thing that we must all gird our loins to face. Our culture is in denial about a very GOOD thing - and that's kind of strange when you think about it. One usually thinks of denial in regard to bad things - STD's, Alcoholism, pollution, etc. We can all mostly expect to die in bed at an advanced age and that that is true even of many who are well below the poverty line. That is a very good thing.
It goes completely unremarked. And as if to compensate, the hysteria surrounding any given incident of violence seems to have been kicked up a notch or seven. There are other oddities that cause me to wonder aloud if there is a huge fraction of the population who simply cannot cope with a self-concept that doesn't include a large aspect of controlled violence with the associated need to prove that capability in war or by looking for trouble in dark alleys.
I wonder because there are many obvious and inexpensive ways to reduce violence on every scale, but if you suggest them aloud, it's met with derision and reflexive outrage, even though these are strategies that are proven to work and indeed HAVE worked to reduce violence to the levels we now enjoy.
It's simply not done to consider the motives of a violent criminal in the United States, and to a lesser but large extent, Canada.
Considering it at all brands you as a "liberal," even when the motive is critical to preventing future incidents. It won't win you any popularity contests to suggest aloud that while this
particular so-and-so might well "deserve" to be hung by his toes over a slow fire, it might possibly behoove us all to consider the making of such monsters so there might be less of a need for firewood.
And so the circle of abuse continues, because while there are simple things that can be done if a nation is willing to do them and ample evidence that they work well, statistically, the evidence is angrily dismissed or studiously ignored.
You see, you might think that Canada is gun-averse. Nope. We are averse to stress, and noise and rude people; we dislike horrifying surprises, we maintain a culture that suppresses people who advocate and celebrate violence and intolerance by custom and design. But when it comes to guns... we have lots of them, we celebrate them, we have a lot of fun with them, some of us practically
fellate them.. .and by and large, it's not an issue.
It's about as difficult to maintain your ownership of a gun as it is to maintain your ownership of a car. I don't think they require separate liability so on the whole, if you can afford a cheap car, you can afford a damn
nifty weapon. All for the price of being willing to swear and affirm that you aren't any more likely to kill someone than you are with that legally parked second-hand pickup.
By and large, it works. By and large, our gun violence arises from
illegal weapons. That is rather handy when prosecuting offenders - it adds a gigantic pile of consequence. But at the same time, our laws are not so very difficult to comply with, our cultures not so very different, our police are hardly omnipresent - so I for one would expect rather more violence than there is if gun control were the only factor in play. There's more to it than access to weapons.
People who WANT to kill people are the people who kill people.
THAT'S what you need to address because there is no shortage of pressure cookers.
In that sense, gun advocacy people are right - first, if people can't get guns legally, they will get them illegally. Or they will just make guns. Which, you may be surprised to know, mostly isn't illegal at all and all too soon with emerging technology will be something any idiot can do in their home fabrication shop.
Gun control laws discourage those who have a passing impulse and that is a very good thing; it achieves a huge drop in unplanned, impulsive misuses of guns. It does nothing about those who really, really REALLY want to kill one or more people and the common wisdom is that you really can't. But that's true of any crime and from a social point of view, as long as you keep the isolated incidents isolated, it's only an individual tragedy.
Any idiot can make a bomb and if they can follow the sort of directions needed to assemble an Ikea table, they
probably won't blow themselves up in the process. Poison never ceased to work and it's commonly available. A garrotte is both efficient and easily disposable. If you are not squeamish, a pocket-knife will certainly do the trick.
So this bears thinking upon, for as badly sabotaged and generally useless as US Gun Control has been made at the behest of the National Rifle Association and the members of it, it seems that the small barriers of access, money and time are enough to keep the rioters out of the streets.
With guns so easily available, people haven't thought much about what they might have if they were to throw caution and regard for the law to the wind. If you can build a bomb - you can build a mortar. If you can weld, you can build a really GOOD mortar!
I'm not going to go into detail, but even rocket science isn't rocket science these days.
Law or no law, those barriers will vanish - and indeed, they were mostly non-extant anyway. For those who are not fixated upon the symbolism of gun ownership - which seems to be both sides - it's pretty much beside the point.
People kill people.
Guns are used to kill particular people because that's usually the best tool for the job. If you have a sudden impulse to kill; the sort of fit of anger that might otherwise result in a fist-fight and a shameful appearance before a justice of the peace after a night in county lockup - you really do not want to have a loaded weapon in easy reach. This is - or should be - plain common sense. While almost everyone thinks they are perfectly capable of controlling themselves, and almost everyone is
mostly correct on that point it ain't predictably true for
anyone.
Trust me on that point.
But of course the worst and most troubling statistics are not crimes of passion, nor are they even the tragic accidental shootings. No. It's
suicides.
If people try to kill themselves with means other than a gun, they mostly fail. Given a gun, they mostly succeed. While you may shrug and consider that their inalienable right to choose - a right I would argue in favour of,
in extremis - I still think it should be something one should ponder a bit. Particularly given the fact that some poor bastard has to clean up the mess.
*Leaded gas linked to rise and fall of violence in the 20th Century.
**They were concerned with slave insurrections for the most part.
