(Thanks to David Flanders for the graphic and the idea. By the way, the conclusion is wrong. Clearly, it’s the lack of gun stores that causes murder.)
I understand that gun control, like many issues we face today, doesn’t lend itself to an easily arrived at, universally agreed upon solution. Good people can, and do, disagree…and crazy, unhinged people can, and do cling to their guns with a devotion they wouldn’t expend on their children. You’d think that somewhere in the middle there would be a place where we could arrive at a compromise. I’m willing, and I know many on the Left are. Unfortunately, the NRA and the gun nuts it represents refuse to countenance anything they perceive as reducing their gun “rights” even one iota.
How do you conduct a reasoneable and rational discussion with people who refuse to even contemplate compromise and threaten violent revolution if their “rights” are reduced even to the slightest degree? How do you negotiate with people who refuse to negotiate?
The problem from my perspective is that we’re a nation awash in guns. If it’s true that “more guns = more safety and security,” then America should be the safest and most secure country on the planet. We all know that nothing could be further from the truth. Because of this, I want to take your guns. There, I owned up to it. If Canada, England, and Australia can do it (and violent crime is relatively rare in all three countries), there’s no reason why American shouldn’t be able to do the same thing…and be safer for it.
Having said that, I recognize that it will never happen…and so we need to discuss how to make us safer from the weapons so many gun nuts rabidly cling to.
Then there’s the argument that we need to be able to protect ourselves from violent criminals. Despite the perception that crime is rampant and on the rise, violent crime has declined by something like 70% since 1996. The argument, of course, will be over the factor(s) primarily responsible for the decline, and there are a few possibilities:
- Better, more thorough, and more efficient policing
- Better education
- More and better economic opportunities, making crime less lucrative and therefore less attractive
- Better security options (video cameras, alarm systems, etc.)
- More guns
- Good karma
I’m not in the business of throwing around (lies, damned lies, and) statistics. Numbers in too many cases can be massaged and manipulated in order to buttress whatever your argument happens to be. The truth is that no one can really say with any degree of credibility and/or authority why violent crime has decreased over the past 17 years. What I will say is that I don’t believe guns are the reason, even minimally. Even with all of the research I’ve done on the subject, I have yet to run across anything that convincingly makes the case that in America more guns translates to more safety and security. The just isn’t a correlation to be made.
I suppose what I’m trying to say is that if you insist on using the “more guns = more safety and security” argument, I’m going to laugh you out of the room. There’s simply no credible evidence to support that assertion. While it’s possible that it could be true, I don’t believe it to be, and all available evidence points to more guns meaning more danger, more friendly fire casualties, and more injuries and fatalities from accidental discharges.
The truth is that we need to be able to talk about gun control openly and factually without the discussion devolving into shouting and recrimination. When more people favor universal background checks than favor baseball and apple pie, you need to recognize that Americans support sensible gun control. No one’s going to take your guns (much as I might like to see that happen), but we do need to reduce the likelihood of another Sandy Hook. Or Aurora. Or Columbine. Or Red Lake. Or…well, you get the point.
How many more innocent children and civilians will we have to bury before the gun nuts and their acolytes recognize that the tide of public opinion isn’t on their side? They can either participate in the discussion…or they may wake up to discover that the issue has been decided for them without their input.
