Comments on the True Nature of Gun Control

These comments were sent to me by James Crockett:

 

Thoughts on America's response to Virginia Tech:

The whole Virginia Tech affair is crazy.  I can't imagine what a situation like that must be like.  The media is all over it, and the various special interest groups are probably already using this to pad their causes. 

 

I really don't like how America usually reacts in situations like this.  First, there is public outrage.  Then the question is asked:  "How did this happen?"  Invariably, the answer is, "Someone broke the law," but that seems to always be ignored.  So what do we do to fix it?  Pass more laws. 

 

Events like this are tragic, and beyond horrible.  But they are also outliers.  No amount of law or legislation will prevent people from committing evil.  The idea of trying to prevent evil by setting up a horribly rigid structure had its origins in the preexistence, but continues here on earth whenever this type of event happens. 

 

Our legal system is reactionary:  when someone breaks the law, we punish them.  We try to impose penalties that are severe enough that criminals will think twice before committing a crime.  But these random shootings almost always end with the gunman dead.  What prospective punishment will deter a psychotic individual who intends to take his own life at the end of his killing spree?  A reactionary legal system will not deter someone who does not consider, or does not fear the consequences of his behavior.

 

America's response to tragedies, or the response of most Americans, makes no sense to me.  Our idea of national defense is to disarm, withdraw, and trust the enemy not to attack.  Our idea of law enforcement is to disarm the nation's citizens, and trust the criminals to obey the law.  Their response to school shootings is to prohibit firearms within a certain radius of schools and trust that killers will comply. 

 

But this type of response has a blind spot:  What if someone breaks the law?  How do you handle (hypothetically speaking, of course) a foreign country or a hostile group that wants to see Americans killed?  What do you do when a student or disgruntled employee disregards the law, pulls out a gun, and starts shooting?  Such a gunman began shooting in a Salt Lake City mall not long ago.  What stopped him?  Was it peace activists chanting mantras?  No.  It was an off-duty police officer with a gun.  A gunman opened fire on an elementary school a few years ago.  Was he stopped by diplomacy?  No, he was stopped by an assistant principal who (illegally) had a gun in his car.  Even events like Columbine and Virginia Tech are ultimately stopped with bullets.  Sometimes the bullet is fired by the criminal, sometimes it's fired by law enforcement, but invariably the violence is ended by a gunshot.