First off, I get it. It is a tragedy that young men and women go out of the house in the morning and don't return home alive. The point has been made that more children go off and die in texting accidents than from school shootings, and that is true. To the parent, the effect is the same - a life gone, a love gone. But to society they are different because one death was intentional and the other was not. Whether people admit it or not, intention matters.
Secondly, I get it. School shootings are likely, by common sense, to be more deadly than school stonings. The very thing that makes guns effective for self defense is that they can kill more effectively than a rock or a knife.
But let's look at causes, and solutions, that work. And let's consider all the causes. Would the Parkland murders still have happened if the murderer had used a different weapon? Yes. Would more student have died? Maybe. Although a rifle is deadly, so is a car driven through a group of students as they leave the building, or a gallon of gasoline and a match, or a machete. Any of those weapons, and many many others, could have killed 17 people (or more) in 7 minutes.
A number of "solutions" have been proposed to the problem of school murders, some of which make sense, but the vast majority of which do not address the problem at all, and many would exacerbate the problem. Here are some of them [N.B. it is telling that in a google search for the data for this article I was unable to find sources and methodologies, as they were hidden by page after page of anti-gun propaganda. As usual, I have done my best to provide data that is backed by an original source and a known methodology rather than just a claim].
I had intended this to be a single article, but it turns out that I have more to say than I thought, so I will make a series of posts, each discussing one of the proposed solutions, weighing the pros and cons. First of all, a few points that will be common throughout.
1. There is evil in the world. Any claim that if we got rid of guns people would stop killing people is at best naive, and probably disingenuous. History has shown that banning guns does not reduce murders, but increases them. This may seem counterintuitive, but consider that the strong will prey on the weak. The weak, even if they want to, cannot prey on the strong, as they lack the means. A gun is an equalizer, in that a 90 pound 70 year old woman can use a gun as effectively as a 300 pound 25 year old man. Take away the gun and the 70 year old has no defense.
2. There are more "good" people than bad people. By good people I don't mean people who never sin, but rather people who have a moral compass, people who would rather not harm another person. Thus, if everyone were equally strong and equally capable, there would be more people who would stop violence than would start it. "But we're not all equally strong," you might object... see point 1, above.
3. You need to use your brain. The media, Hollywood elite, big business, and incumbent politicians all have an agenda, and that agenda right now is to perpetuate their power. Part of that is making sure nobody else has power, and the best way to do that is to take away the rights of people who don't agree with them. I don't just mean second amendment rights. I mean all rights. Like making sure certain viewpoints aren't allowed on Youtube or carried by cable companies. Like using the IRS and banks to target the finances of organizations with certain viewpoints. Like selectively enforcing laws against people with certain viewpoints. You get the point yet?
4. Why don't we treat this topic like any other topic. When bees are dying do we listen to children who have been stung by bees? No, we turn to bee keepers. When we are worried about the climate, do we listen to children who have been in floods? No we turn to climate scientists. The point is, in every crisis there are experts who should have a say, yet the whole impetus has been to shut out the voices of gun owners and listen to people who have a heartfelt desire to can guns, but know nothing about what guns are, how they work, or what they do.
Case in point, the NRA. Let me tell you about the NRA, then about what's been going on with respect to the NRA.
The NRA, or National Rifle Association, is a civil rights organization, one of the oldest in the United States. It was formed in 1871 by two Union generals. They realized that the war to abolish slavery would have been quicker and less bloody had their soldiers been better with a rifle. From the beginning of the organization, it's main emphasis was on the protection of the Constitution, and that meant promoting the rights of blacks to defend themselves against the Ku Klux Klan.
The NRA is also the largest organization in the United States to support civil rights. It has over five million members. It has always promoted the safe ownership and use of arms for defense, but only got involved in politics in the 1970, after the government began infringing on our rights in a big way. Even so, the organization is non-partisan, supporting both Democrats and Republicans. It is a single issue organization, and its members fall all over the map on other issues.
The money that was spent by the NRA in the last few years on non-partisan lobbying dwarfs in comparison with the amount spent lobbying by Planned Parenthood, big pharma, or even just google in the same time period. Any political clout that the NRA has comes not from money but from the votes of its members.
The NRA does not sell guns, nor promote the sale of guns, but focuses on education and safety. It's programs, such as Eddie Eagle for children, and programs for youth, sports, recreation, hunting and law enforcement, are designed to promote safe and legal use of firearms.
How is the NRA connected to mass shootings? To my knowledge, no NRA member has committed a mass shooting (and I imagine if there were such a person there would be headlines about it). On the other hand, in 2017 the Sutherland Springs church mass shooting was ended when Stephen Willeford, NRA member and instructor, used his personal AR-15 to neutralize the shooter. In the recent Parkland shooting, Coach Aaron Feis gave his life to shield students, putting himself in between them and the shooter. Although the NRA doesn't disclose it's members, Feis was at least a fan of the NRA, and was running an NRA sponsored group at the school.
As a result of all this, the NRA has been demonized, had its partner companies harassed, its members attacked, had its voice in the public square squelched, and more. How is attempting to shut down a gun safety organization supposed to make people safer?
To find the posts in this series click here.
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