Over the past few days, I have surveyed an array of different perspectives on this event in particular, gun control in general, and what the real root cause(s) might be, and what effective preventative measure(s) could possibly be taken. The different perspectives were captured on three different Facebook posts (listed below). On each of these posts, I made my best effort to not show any particular bias and to moderate the threads allowing people to post their perspective with no debate.
- parents and teachers
- people that were either not born in or do not live in the U.S.
- U.S. citizens that self-identify as ardent supporters of gun rights.
As an INTJ, my primary concern is naturally the root cause(s) and preventative measure(s) of these tragedies. Before we get to that, a few random thoughts on the 2nd amendment and gun control...
The Second Amendment
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
- Consider the primary intent of 'the security of a free state' and the public's resistance at the time to both a standing army and an armed, professional police force.
- Armed militias were, in part, the solution in lieu of a standing army and police force.
- We now have both a standing army and an armed, professional police force.
- One might argue this modern reality slightly diminishes the need for citizens to be armed.
- The second amendment was not necessarily intended to let every citizen have an expansive arsenal for little valid reason.
- One argument I have consistently heard is that we, the people, need to be armed in order to ensure our ability to overthrow a tyrannical government. Let's be completely honest here. If you ever needed to overthrow a tyrannical U.S. government, you would need the help of the U.S. military. Why? Because whatever "arsenal" you think you have at home is a collection of peashooters compared to what we arm the military with.
- I concede that our government, if tyrannical, should fear that they could be overthrown.
- However, if an overthrow of the U.S. government was ever necessary, I expect that it would come to pass by a bloodless revolution with mass protests and/or a military coup.
- If the executive and legislative branch(es) became truly tyrannical, it is up to the military to remember the "domestic" part of the oath: "...that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic..."
- The founding fathers could not have conceived of our modern weapons. In the late 18th century the common rifle was a front-loaded musket, taking 90 seconds to reload. Now we have high-powered rifles with high-capacity clips, armored tanks, armed UAV's, suitcase-size nuclear bombs, etc... Which of these would we prefer to sell at Wal-Mart to individuals with mental illness and/or a criminal record of violent offenses?
- As wise as they may have been for their day, our all-white-male slave-owning founding fathers were far from perfect. Likewise, the U.S. Constitution is also not perfect, and they knew it. That's why they gave us the ability to improve it.
Gun Control
- There's a big elephant in the room of gun control, and that is technology. (Damn mechanical engineers...)
- Coming soon to a hobby shop near you...AR-15 receivers made with 3-D printers.
- You can just print out the receiver and buy every other part easily (barrel, stock, clip, etc...).
- If I'm a crazed degenerate, and have a 3-D printer, it makes no difference what gun control laws you pass. But at least in the short-term, the adoption and usage of 3-D printers is fairly minimal compared to gun stores, gun shops, etc...
- You're right...guns DON'T kill people, but let's be honest...they make it pretty damn efficient.
- There's the saying "Right tool for the right job." If I was a crazed degenerate and wanted to go on a killing spree, what do you think is my weapon of choice: a minigun, or a billy-club? Likewise, you can do a lot more damage with an AR-15 versus a semi-auto pistol. Let's keep it real, people.
- I think 'Gun Free Zone' signs presented to would-be killers make as much as sense as 'Car Alarm Free Zones' to would-be car thieves or 'Home Security System Free Neighborhood' to would-be burglars.
- To the whole "criminals" will just get their guns on the black market argument...where do you think those guns come from? There isn't some super-secret underground Willy Wonka gun factory. The gun still ultimately came from a source that legally procured them.
Random Thoughts on Violent Crime and Homicide Statistics:
- Rates of violent crime have been steadily decreasing for a couple decades now...so people that feel they always need to be packing heat are a tad paranoid.
- If we consider all of gun-related homicides in the U.S., you should really consider the statistics by circumstance.
- Last year there were an estimated 14,612 homicides in the U.S. Only 26 such deaths were in a mass-shooting scenario.
- While events like the recent shooting(s) are undeniably tragic, they represent a negligible percentage of homicides.
- I bring up this point so people at least recognize that most gun homicides occur in different scenarios (one-on-one arguments, gang shootings, etc...).
- Considering that violent crime is continuing to decrease, are we subconsciously allowing the nature of these tragedies to instill a knee-jerk reaction and a false impression of escalated danger?
Root Cause of Such Tragedies
First and foremost, I feel we need a current comprehensive study into the psychology, lifestyle, and personal circumstances of prior perpetrators in an attempt to find common factors. If someone can recommend such a recent unbiased study, I would be happy to review it. Until such a study is completed/updated/reviewed/etc...and actually trusted and utilized, we can do some armchair speculation...
- What is it about the person that makes them want to go on a killing spree?
- Mental Health Issues?
- Effectiveness and negative impacts of psychotropic drugs?
- Difficulty/cost of obtaining mental health services?
- Sense of Personal Responsibility, or Lack Thereof
- At some point, we need to consider how children are being raised.
- Shitty people might make shitty parents. However that cannot be, and is not, the whole story.
- I recommend reading the article 'Thinking the Unthinkable' at anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com'.
- Desire for Infamy?
- Sensationalist Media Partially to Blame?
- If It Bleeds, It Leads.
Politics is the art of the possible. It is simply not possible to implement idealist solutions, so I will waste close to zero "ink" and brain cells on them. We will never live in a community with zero homicides, zero guns, zero mental illness, perfect parenting, etc...
While speculating on what we might find from an accurate and current study into root cause...
- Minimize the Recurrence of Such Events
- Improve access to mental health care?
- So who's on board for single-payer health care...at least for mental illness services?
- Minimize Ease of Access to High-Effect Weapons
- National standard waiting period.
- Seriously, you can wait 30 days for your Glock so we can make sure you are not a prior violent felon nor have a history of mental disorder, etc...
- Psychological examination requirement to purchase
- It's just a simple, albeit imperfect, fail-safe.
- New standards on how such events are covered by the media?
- Basic journalism (documentation of events to a broad audience) has some benefit to society, even when those events are sickening. Besides, as long as we're stating our "favorite" amendments to the U.S. Constitution:
- "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." - First Amendment
- However, these sick bastards are seeking infamy...and we are giving it to them.
- Can we somehow report on these events to the extent that we are providing a public service, but keep the perpetrator(s) names and faces confidential to keep them from getting what they sickly desire?
- Minimize the Damage When Such Events Occur
- Allow for some solution for bystanders/victims to stop the perpetrator.
- In grade schools, perhaps we could allow a limited number of teachers to carry firearms. This, however, should be a debate for parents and teachers to have.
- Perhaps if a teacher desires the ability to incapacitate a perpetrator and is not comfortable with a firearm, s/he could be provided with and trained to use a Taser or a tranquillizer gun?
- If not teachers, or perhaps in addition to, we could have some armed security presence. A couple professionally-trained police, or former military could suffice. The candidate pool could even be parents or grandparents.
- But to what extent do we want this? Police at every school, every shopping mall? This is but a band-aid deterrent and does nothing to mitigate the root cause.
- New non-lethal options to incapacitate the perpetrator - portable sonic weapons?
- Maybe it's the enginerd in me...but this would be rad.
- The following measures might only be effective until 3-D printing is very commonplace.
- Ban high-capacity magazines
- Recall that the perpetrator who attempted to assassinate Congresswoman Giffords was taken down while he was switching high-capacity (30 round) magazines. If he did not have easy access to such magazines, then he would have had to switch magazines earlier and potentially some life(s) could have been saved.
- Re-enact ban of high-effect assault weapons
- The .223 Bushmaster was used in the Newtown shooting, and it was procured legally by the shooter's mother.
Guns are not the cause of homicides, but they are an efficient and effective tool for killing, and they are not all the same. You cannot honestly say that there is no difference in effectiveness of different guns. If there was no difference, we would still equip the U.S. military with muskets. There IS a difference; we migrated from the M-1 Garand to the M-16 for a reason.
Let us get an updated, accurate consensus on the cause of mass-killing tragedies. Let's trust the conclusions of unbiased experts and implement their recommendations.
Let's end the costly and ineffective drug war. We will effectively eliminating the black market for drugs, minimize drug-related violent crimes, and increase tax revenue (and late-night pizza delivery revenue).
Let us also determine the cause of the decades-long decline in violent crime so we may best ensure this trend continues.
Sincerely,
TMFR
