After Aurora
I cried this morning when I read in the newspaper about a 25 year old mother who is slipping in and out of consciousness in a hospital. In her moments of lucidity, she keeps asking for her daughter, who died in the Aurora shooting. How do we process this pain? How do we heal from such a tragedy? How do we help those directly affected?
Once we answer those questions, we must then ask ourselves: how do we make things better? How do we mend a culture where an individual can walk into a movie theater with an automatic weapon and kill people?
Simple: we make it harder for people like James Holmes to get automatic weapons.
A friend of mine on Facebook posted this quote from Charlton Heston: "There are no good guns. There are no bad guns. Any gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a decent person is no threat to anybody--except bad people." Philosophically, he is correct. A gun is a tool, and as such can be used for a variety of purposes whose morality depends upon the intention of the person wielding it. So yes, this is a valid philosophical point.
It's also completely irrelevant to the question of gun control. Gun control is about restricting the availability of guns so that dangerous people are not able to easily obtain methods of killing people. It is not about restricting the freedoms of law-abiding citizens.
There have been polemics and exaggerations on either side of the gun control issue. Let me share my perspective. I have no interest in banning all guns or taking away the guns of law-abiding citizens. I grew up in Montana, and while I never hunted myself--nor have I fired a gun that wasn't of the plastic or squirt variety--I have friends and relatives who have hunted, and I agree that hunting is a perfectly valid culture, where guns are used for sustenance.
But today I am talking about automatic weapons and assault rifles. No one sane would use an automatic weapon or assault rifle while hunting. For one thing, firing 50 to 60 rounds per minute into a deer isn't going to leave much to eat. And since the Zombie Apocalypse is NOT actually going to happen, I can't think of a good reason why any civilian would need to have an assault rifle sitting around their house.
Another fact: assault rifles sold in the US have found their way to Mexico, where tens of thousands of people have died because of the drug cartels. Doesn't that sound like a good reason to be more restrictive on the sale of guns?
The NRA has long supported gun rights and freedom. They should also want to support a safe gun culture. They should want to promote better gun control legislation to prevent people like James Holmes or the Mexican drug cartels from getting their hands on these weapons.
Is it possible to legislate away all risk of gun violence? Of course not, but that doesn't mean we don't have an obligation to try.
I've heard people say, "It would have been different if a law-abiding citizen in the theater had been packing." That's ludicrous. For one thing, name one time, one incident, where a mass shooter has been stopped by a random citizen. I understand the impulse behind saying that, I do. We all like to imagine that we could make things right, that we could save the day if we had been there. We want to do the right thing.
But I'll tell you, unless the law-abiding citizen is in law enforcement or the military, I'm not sure I want them to start pulling out guns and returning fire. If I'm trying to get away from a shooter behind me, I'm not sure it is going to be reassuring to see someone in front of me commence firing back in the other direction.
If you want to use these weapons, enlist in the military or go into law enforcement. I haven't heard any rational reason why gun control should not be pursued, and the case of the Aurora shooting gives so many examples of reasons--both rational and emotional--why controlling our gun culture should be supported by everyone.
Once we answer those questions, we must then ask ourselves: how do we make things better? How do we mend a culture where an individual can walk into a movie theater with an automatic weapon and kill people?
Simple: we make it harder for people like James Holmes to get automatic weapons.
A friend of mine on Facebook posted this quote from Charlton Heston: "There are no good guns. There are no bad guns. Any gun in the hands of a bad man is a bad thing. Any gun in the hands of a decent person is no threat to anybody--except bad people." Philosophically, he is correct. A gun is a tool, and as such can be used for a variety of purposes whose morality depends upon the intention of the person wielding it. So yes, this is a valid philosophical point.
It's also completely irrelevant to the question of gun control. Gun control is about restricting the availability of guns so that dangerous people are not able to easily obtain methods of killing people. It is not about restricting the freedoms of law-abiding citizens.
There have been polemics and exaggerations on either side of the gun control issue. Let me share my perspective. I have no interest in banning all guns or taking away the guns of law-abiding citizens. I grew up in Montana, and while I never hunted myself--nor have I fired a gun that wasn't of the plastic or squirt variety--I have friends and relatives who have hunted, and I agree that hunting is a perfectly valid culture, where guns are used for sustenance.
But today I am talking about automatic weapons and assault rifles. No one sane would use an automatic weapon or assault rifle while hunting. For one thing, firing 50 to 60 rounds per minute into a deer isn't going to leave much to eat. And since the Zombie Apocalypse is NOT actually going to happen, I can't think of a good reason why any civilian would need to have an assault rifle sitting around their house.
Another fact: assault rifles sold in the US have found their way to Mexico, where tens of thousands of people have died because of the drug cartels. Doesn't that sound like a good reason to be more restrictive on the sale of guns?
The NRA has long supported gun rights and freedom. They should also want to support a safe gun culture. They should want to promote better gun control legislation to prevent people like James Holmes or the Mexican drug cartels from getting their hands on these weapons.
Is it possible to legislate away all risk of gun violence? Of course not, but that doesn't mean we don't have an obligation to try.
I've heard people say, "It would have been different if a law-abiding citizen in the theater had been packing." That's ludicrous. For one thing, name one time, one incident, where a mass shooter has been stopped by a random citizen. I understand the impulse behind saying that, I do. We all like to imagine that we could make things right, that we could save the day if we had been there. We want to do the right thing.
But I'll tell you, unless the law-abiding citizen is in law enforcement or the military, I'm not sure I want them to start pulling out guns and returning fire. If I'm trying to get away from a shooter behind me, I'm not sure it is going to be reassuring to see someone in front of me commence firing back in the other direction.
If you want to use these weapons, enlist in the military or go into law enforcement. I haven't heard any rational reason why gun control should not be pursued, and the case of the Aurora shooting gives so many examples of reasons--both rational and emotional--why controlling our gun culture should be supported by everyone.
posted by Devin at 8:26 PM
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