.To my buddy, Zonker:
The gun debate is one of those problems that seems to be impossible to fix.
There are supposedly over 200M guns in a bunch of someones' hands in America. And since the expiration of the assault weapons ban, an increasing share of purchases are high velocity, rapid-fire weapons coupled with high capacity magazines. Heck, refresh my memory, but didn't the Colorado theater shooter have a 100 round magazine drum?
That many guns out there would be impossible to do anything about without a consistent and ongoing multi-generational effort. Even if by some miracle, you spiked the water on Capitol Hill and Congress voted to ban all guns (except for single shot, barrel-loaded muskets consistent with an originalist reading of the Constitution), and having banned all guns, tried a mechanism to round them up from the public, how long would it take till they were out of circulation?
Those who blame the plethora of other things: movies, video games, lack of religion in society, etc. Even if there were a clear path forward to fixing those things, it would take years....generations to fix and change. And I'm not convinced a centralized effort to change culture ever works efficiently or effectively. I don't get Jersey Shore, baggy jeans, the million different Vampire movie series, Gangnam style, and a jillion other things. But they exist, get popular, and move culture by the force of their own will and the aggregate of millions of individual minds.
I do know this:
-- We accept gun violence too readily. Nick Kristof did some research and came up with this: "More than twice as many preschoolers die annually from gun violence in America as law enforcement officers are killed in the line of duty." IN total, 11,000 people die via gun violence per year. Imagine if any other product in America killed that many people. Gun supporters like to cite cars (you gonna ban cars?) to which I reply: Corvair. We should not accept this many people dying.
-- Facts are elusive. The gun lobby in Congress has prevailed in banning agencies from merely collecting data about guns and gun violence. That's shameful. But the lack of statistical evidence is a great state of being for the gun manufacturers. If we want to address the problem, we need to understand it factually, not emotionally.
-- The pro-gun culture is nuts. Enough already with pushing pro-gun laws. To carry them into preschools. To let college kids carry guns into bars (gee, what could possibly go wrong). Or the absolute worst: To allow people to have guns even on property where the property owners don't want guns. (Link:
http://is.gd/Dk7p66) Really, gun nuts. Just stop it already.
Zonker, my friend, I feel your pain. The events in CT struck home because many of the victims were similar in age to my little girl. I don't know anyone who did not feel bad for the tragedy associated with such violence (well, except Wayne LaPierre at his press conference). But dude, this is not going to be solved in our lifetimes. Particularly when Congress is either scared or bought off. When limited data exists to help make an anti-gun case. When entrenched attitudes exist that won't be changed in anyone's lifetime.
But guns will eventually be banned. In total. There will be a tipping point. That tipping point will eventually come after enough people are killed for no reason. It's like, eventually there will be too many surviving relatives and friends of gun victims to ignore. At that point, long after millions of additional guns are in circulation...only then, will we do something about it.
Hang tough, my friend,
Pine