Thoughts on The Fury and Delusion Surrounding Gun Control
Every time there is a mass shooting in the United States I am reminded of many things that are unique to the American experience. Part of that experience is that as an American, you are uniquely placed to become a statistic at any time. Subject to random acts of violence in a culture that claims itself to be cooperative and non-violent. Subject to actions of overt hate by others using instruments of warfare claimed to be for sport and defense.
When it comes to freedom, there is a certain group that believes any attack on freedom is inherently unamerican and therefore not a valid use of democratic effort. I do not subscribe to this group. We as Americans temper freedoms all the time. You cannot for instance go to a supermarket and buy a person. As for me, I don’t see gun control debates or any surrounding debates to be something we can vote our way out of. As with a deadly virus ravaging our populace, we can’t simply propose legislation that fixes the issue of frequent and highly destructive mass shootings.
First, all gun control creates inequity. The current state of affairs is a product of a country built upon inequity; power for some, and oppression for others. The political state is that of determining who has access to firearms and who can use them as equivalent to who the Constitution works for and who it doesn’t. To seek reform in gun control requires certain tempered attacks on the Constitution and on legislation that is seen within certain groups as unamerican. We’ve been aware for centuries that deciding who has access to firearms plays a part in defining social power, and in many places, gun control is historically rooted in racism. If I’m right then the gun control debate from a political standpoint usually turns to restrictions on the firearms themselves rather than on the people that own them. The ban on “assault weapons” doesn’t stop mass shootings, but then again neither do universal background checks. Restricting high-capacity magazines plays no part in who has access to a firearm, nor does outlawing fully automatic guns. These political diversions we hear every time we witness a tragedy are aimed at dancing around the issue of restricting freedom for individuals.
If we understand guns and freedom in this way, we might wonder why certain measures haven’t been proposed that break us of this false dichotomy. the problem might be that we have a poor conceptualization of how guns relate to public responsibility. I have pitched a thought experiment designed to highlight the issues with gun ownership. Ban access of firearms to those with a college degree, stable employment, and a lack of criminal record. The positive part of this solution is that it excludes a majority of Americans we’d see as problematic. But, it runs afoul of the same issue I brought up earlier: it creates inequity. If minorities had issues with gun ownership before they definitely would under this plan. Not only that, but it would create a new nightmare of only the elite having access to firearms. I use this example to highlight an issue with how we conceive of gun ownership. We can ask who we want to have guns and because of Constitutional limits the answer must be “all, but not some”. This is of course a logical issue. The constitution, vaguely written, says everyone is entitled to firearms ownership. But we know that some people should not have them. Therefore, we must find some way to restrict firearms access for some but leave the entitlement for all.
Without a proper conceptualization of how guns play a part in civic responsibility, I believe we’ll never be able to prevent mass shootings. I see the talks around emphasizing mental health to be diversionary. We have those discussions because the common factor in all shooters is some type of mental health issue that we look at in hindsight. The shooting would have been avoided had they just visited a psychiatrist. But I would propose there are many people who own firearms (and probably shouldn’t) that have a serious mental issue but don’t go around shooting people. So, the problem can’t be mental health alone. The question then becomes what kinds of mental health cases are acceptable for gun ownership and which ones are not and there are some ways in which this discussion would be absurd.
So, here is what I’d call a “radical moderate” approach to gun control that tries to take into account all of the issues I’ve outlined above.
(1)Store legally purchased firearms in community armories instead of in homes.
(2)Require a college degree (Associates or higher) to purchase (not own) a firearm.
Neither of these solutions addresses the mass shooter part. They address the “who may own” part.
Hopefully, we will come to understand that gun control talk is rooted in unequal practice with the ultimate goal to be the disarming of certain peoples. My heart goes out to all who have lost anyone to gun violence and the survivors that have to depend on political rhetoric to provide solutions rather than tangible action.
