Guns and the Culture of Violence We’re Not Considering
We could be asking ourselves: Why the violence?
Gun violence is top of mind these days as we continue to receive reports of mass shootings. The latest being two teenage brothers and a third man shooting up an Alabama sweet 16 birthday party, killing four and injuring 32. The reports are tragic and agonizing to hear and we are left with a national debate over the second amendment and gun control. But when it comes to gun violence, I find myself disagreeing with both liberals and conservatives.
Conservatives wave the flag of the second amendment as a sacrosanct principle upon which the U.S. of A. was built. Except that when the second amendment was written guns didn’t exist. We had muskets. Long weapons requiring skill and time to reload. You had one shot and then hoped you could reload faster than your enemy, or that pissed off bear you just tried to shoot doesn’t kill you first.
Automatic weapons didn’t exist then. Rocket propelled grenades didn’t exist then, surface to air missiles, and ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) didn’t exist then. The hydrogen bomb, with the ability to obliterate millions of people and make an area 60 miles in radius uninhabitable for at least the next six decades, had not been conceived of when the second amendment was written. Not to mention the fact that the framers of the constitution wrote extensively about the imperfect nature of the document and its need for revision as times change. So when we say, “the right to bear arms,” what arms are we speaking of specifically and where do we draw the line on what individuals ought to be able to own?
Liberals on the other hand seem to believe that guns kill people. As if inanimate objects can point themselves and pull the trigger without any help from their human owners. It’s like saying hammers build homes instead of the carpenters who wield them. Yes guns are dangerous and powerful weapons, but it’s human aggression that makes them kill. While I agree that we need sensible gun control laws we can’t assume that merely passing stricter legislation will solve the root of the problem, which is human aggression.
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