In the wake of recent atrocities, most notably the despicable massacre of children in Connecticut, calls for gun control and limitations on gun ownership have become ubiquitous. In support of such calls, facts and figures suggest that gun violence has increased, while the prevalence of gun ownership is down. If violence has increased and ownership is down, perhaps guns are not the sole agents of this violence. Isn’t it time we looked for reasons that such violent actions are on the rise instead of thinking we can merely outlaw the tools these miscreants misuse (if I am not mistaken, the Columbine massacre occurred while the "Federal Assault Weapons ban" was in force)? Are there other changes over the past several decades that should be examined? As with the war on drugs, we, as a society, find it much more palatable to blame the means as opposed to the milieu which has bred this behavior. We are a culture in which violence and images of violence are everywhere, in movies, video games, music, our evening news; a tragedy like this gets wall to wall coverage on 20 networks, making a posthumous (anti)hero of the perpetrator, giving other wayward, hopeless, invisible youth an opportunity to die a television star, to go from suffering in obscurity to fame in a blaze of glory. We did not ban air travel or box cutters when terrorists used those tools to kill thousands, but condemned an ideology, a distorted and inhuman way of thinking. The issue is not the how of the killing, but the why. The gun is not why this happened; suppose Lanza had driven a car into the school and emerged with 10 gallons of gasoline? Where would we focus then?
It is a great abdication of responsibility to think that addressing the hard issues of our time, the economic, social and mental health issues, is less crucial in this than denying rights to the many because of the actions of a few. Thus, from the other side of this argument, the pro(gun)-choice side, the sanctity of the personal rights enumerated in the constitution is asserted. Reflecting the polarized nature of our society, what is not recognized is the fact that accusations about the evil of guns and their owners are an insult to every gun owner who follows the law and abhors such violence. It merely makes the violence itself appear to be a tool to be used for some gain. Is it a coincidence that such events occur in places where it is virtually assured that no law-abiding person will be armed to defend themselves and that law enforcement personnel appear after the fact (in Newtown, the shooter killed himself at the approach of the police – they ended it merely by showing up, not by taking any decisive action). They prevent nothing and protect little - through no fault of their own - yet in the absence of the legal means to protect ourselves, they are our only recourse.
How disingenuous it is for liberal commentators, when discussing issues like gay rights, to assert that polls and votes do not matter – that we should not allow the citizenry to vote on individual inalienable rights – but then turn to polls to justify gun control. How disingenuous it is for gun control advocates to propose widespread, far-reaching, anti(gun)-choice, alarmist limitations of gun ownership rights because of the death of 20 children, when they argue in favor of choice in abortion rights, a process that one (anti-choice advocates) could say preemptively ends the lives of so many more on a regular basis. A women’s right to choose, as protected by Roe v. Wade, has no more sanctity than the right of any individual citizen to bear arms. Losses associated with both are a tragedy and can be addressed without the need to limit rights in either case, by addressing the true shortcomings of our culture.
Bad, deranged, evil people do despicable things with a variety of tools; they drive cars into crowds, bomb federal buildings, they use knives and other means to kill and maim - sometimes they even use drones that then kill innocents. These are our terrorists, our suicide bombers, the malcontents and maladjusted that we have bred who come to wreak savagery on our society. The twisted, the torn, those in need of help and without hope. Those who would go into a school and commit such an act are, by their very nature, not concerned with law, which is a social covenant they do not recognize. The law prohibited the carry of firearms into this school – and those who obeyed the law died at the hands of someone who did not. Do we then believe that a new law will change this? Law only affects the behavior of those who obey it.
I am a citizen who exercises my right to bear arms and protect myself. I abhor the violence I have seen perpetrated in the last year, committed using a tool that I myself choose to own and be proficient with. But I am not a murderer and would not commit such violence and I resent the implication that anyone who owns guns is a potential threat to society. It is my right to protect myself – and it probably would have gone differently in Newtown had it been the right or responsibility of someone on the school grounds to protect themselves and innocent life there. Is it the best answer? I do not know, but it is an answer. If it were, two adults would not have had to die trying to rush an armed madman but instead could have engaged him from distance. Yet this is the guidance we see in most educational institutions - legal carry is outlawed and we are told to hide, cower or throw things at an armed assailant. Well, in this case, law-abiding citizens followed the law and did not carry weapons into a place where they were prohibited – unfortunately Adam Lanza did not obey the law, as well. I know, I teach at such an institution and during a lock-down students looked to me to protect them. Had it been necessary I would have died trying, albeit it in a woefully ineffective manner.
Armed citizens, gun owners, do need to take responsibility for securing their weapons from theft or from unauthorized use by others. A parent of a child like Adam Lanza, with the history this case seems to portray, must know better than to leave weapons where they can be easily accessed. A locked safe is a requirement for any gun owner and gun owners should be held responsible for the actions of those they allow – even via theft – access to their firearms. The vast majority of guns used in crime is not legally purchased by the user, but are stolen property.
I will not be giving up my firearms or my right to have them, law or not. I simply refuse to let the misdeeds of others – no matter how grievous – besmirch my own reputation and limit my rights. I will not be defenseless waiting for the authorities to come and investigate the crime when I may be able to prevent it myself. I refuse to join the chorus who prefer to hide their head in the sand about our culture’s role in creating such animals, who think that if only there were no guns, evil would not happen. So it seems that the desire to expand laws in the face of such atrocities, to use such catastrophes to achieve long-desired ends, will expand the borders of law sufficiently so that, at last, it will make a criminal of me through no action of my own. I never thought I would say it "But when guns are outlawed..." rings true.
Let us do all we can to prevent such atrocities in the future. However, it is unclear to me how laws against firearms will prevent murder when laws against murder do not. Where does this trip down the rabbit hole end?
