Its owners should not appoint themselves as God with the right to take life in just any circumstance, or even take humankind's laws into their own hands. The gun must not be worshiped.
Here are a few (what I hope are) reasonable rebuttals to many who do just that.
"Abortions kill 730,000 a year! Guns only kill 15,000!"
I'm against abortion, but I know that it's impossible for a woman to enter a school and abort twenty-six people in less than five minutes. The two are completely different and must be looked at and assessed differently. Social media posts using the "other things kill people too" argument also use cancer deaths, suicide rates, car accidents, and drug overdoses, comparing the numbers with those of gun deaths, and implying that gun violence should not be such a concern because abortion deaths are higher in numbers.
"Abortions kill 730,000 a year! Guns only kill 15,000!"
I'm against abortion, but I know that it's impossible for a woman to enter a school and abort twenty-six people in less than five minutes. The two are completely different and must be looked at and assessed differently. Social media posts using the "other things kill people too" argument also use cancer deaths, suicide rates, car accidents, and drug overdoses, comparing the numbers with those of gun deaths, and implying that gun violence should not be such a concern because abortion deaths are higher in numbers.
This is flawed logic, and an example of "whataboutism." By this argument's own admission, cancer isn't as serious as abortion because there are fewer cancer deaths than abortions; likewise, suicide shouldn't be such a concern because there are less suicides than cancer deaths, at least according to the skewed use of such numbers.
One such post used the Bath School Disaster as its example; in 1927, a madman named Andrew Kehoe blew up a school in Bath Township, Michigan, killing a total of 44 people (38 of them children) and injuring at least 50 more; "not one gun was used!" the image boasted, thereby implying that, because people can use other things than guns to kill people, gun control must be nonsense. But, in 2017, Stephen Paddock used guns to kill 58 people and injure hundreds in Las Vegas. So, by the above logic, Paddock's rampage via gun somehow negates Kehoe's murders via dynamite, again making guns a more serious issue than bombs, and proving gun control is not nonsense.
Of course, that's a flawed way to look at the situation; each tragedy by any means must be looked at in its own context, its own circumstances, its environment and surroundings, etc. They should not be compared to other unrelated tragedies - like car accidents - as ways to dodge the issue.
"This isn't a gun issue - it's a mental health issue!"
Mental illness is absolutely a serious and poorly addressed issue in the United States. But, before you shift the blame to bad mental healthcare, don't use your vote and voice to endorse politicians or parties whose budgets slash mental health funding, as was done by President Trump just last month. And, unfortunately, many politicians whose voting records reflect this are also politicians whose voices for 2nd amendment rights are loud clear; perhaps if those voices were just as loud for better mental health funding, things would be different.
"It's violent video games!"
In 1949 in Camden, New Jersey, Howard Unruh shot and killed a dozen people; in 1966 in Austin, Texas, Charles Whitman shot nearly 50 people. Both rampages were pre-GTA. Both rampages were even pre-Pong.
One such post used the Bath School Disaster as its example; in 1927, a madman named Andrew Kehoe blew up a school in Bath Township, Michigan, killing a total of 44 people (38 of them children) and injuring at least 50 more; "not one gun was used!" the image boasted, thereby implying that, because people can use other things than guns to kill people, gun control must be nonsense. But, in 2017, Stephen Paddock used guns to kill 58 people and injure hundreds in Las Vegas. So, by the above logic, Paddock's rampage via gun somehow negates Kehoe's murders via dynamite, again making guns a more serious issue than bombs, and proving gun control is not nonsense.
Of course, that's a flawed way to look at the situation; each tragedy by any means must be looked at in its own context, its own circumstances, its environment and surroundings, etc. They should not be compared to other unrelated tragedies - like car accidents - as ways to dodge the issue.
"This isn't a gun issue - it's a mental health issue!"
Mental illness is absolutely a serious and poorly addressed issue in the United States. But, before you shift the blame to bad mental healthcare, don't use your vote and voice to endorse politicians or parties whose budgets slash mental health funding, as was done by President Trump just last month. And, unfortunately, many politicians whose voting records reflect this are also politicians whose voices for 2nd amendment rights are loud clear; perhaps if those voices were just as loud for better mental health funding, things would be different.
"It's violent video games!"
In 1949 in Camden, New Jersey, Howard Unruh shot and killed a dozen people; in 1966 in Austin, Texas, Charles Whitman shot nearly 50 people. Both rampages were pre-GTA. Both rampages were even pre-Pong.
"It's violent movies and TV!"
Unless Charles Whitman was motivated by a particularly bloody episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, this makes as much sense as the video game argument.
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| image by Donna Grethen |
I'm sure they would. Even I want people to be "allowed to have guns." But in Washington's day, it took several minutes to load and fire a single shot from a musket. These men would not be impressed with an AK-47 or an AR-15 - they would be scared out of their minds. Thomas Jefferson would have wet his pantaloons at the blast of a semi-automatic rifle, while Paul Revere would have cried, "'Tis witchcraft! Everyone flee!" (As long as we're imposing what we insist the Founding Fathers "would have" done or said, based on our own various beliefs.)
"It's disrespectful to the victims if we politicize shootings!"
That's not quite the mindset every time a Muslim fanatic drives a car into a crowd of people. Incidents like that become an instant source of argument for stricter immigration laws. We also don't mind "politicizing" the issue of abortion. (But, I suppose that's a bit of whataboutism, which always puts any health discussion to a grinding halt.) Also, the issue of gun control is not a political issue, at least until it becomes distorted into one by politicians. A political issue is a proposed railroad tariff or a trade deal with Portugal. Public safety, ignorance, and murder are human issues, dehumanized when canned rhetoric from politicians makes the victims an afterthought and all logic and reason follows.
If I die of something completely preventable, you have my permission to "politicize" it if your voice and actions could prevent it from happening to someone else.
"We don't blame the knife when someone is stabbed to death, so why blame the gun?"
I don't know any gun law reformers who "blame the gun." The words "blaming the gun" don't apply to the majority of people who are zealous for new gun laws. What they "blame" is the irresponsibility, negligence, and sheer foolishness that has allowed such weapons to be used in these killings.
"What about my hunting rights?"
Weapons like ones used by modern infantry or in the Rambo sequels shouldn't figure into a "hunter's" argument, unless the game they're hunting is a giant mutant deer high on PCP.
"Arm the teachers! Arm the citizens!"
Having a gun does not make a human being any less prone to error, bad judgment, bad aim, mental illness (since that's the true issue here, remember?), or just generally being an evil person, and it certainly doesn't make them a hero. In fact, the armed resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida didn't even enter the school for several minutes during the shooting. He resigned his position afterward. "All it takes to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun!" Unless that "good guy" is, like I would have been in the situation, incompetent and scared.
(Edit, 5-28-22: This past week's massacre of 19 children at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas saw 19 police officers inside the school fail to stop the shooter for 45 minutes before he was finally killed. In fact, a young girl inside the school called 9-1-1 several times, despite officials being just outside and apparently doing little to nothing to stop the shooter.)
"Then we won't arm people with criminal records!"
Many of the deadliest or most notorious mass shooters in United States history have had no criminal record. If they did, many of them were minor or misdemeanor offenses. This includes the aforementioned Unruh and Whitman, as well as James Huberty (shot and killed 21 people at a San Ysidro, California McDonald's restaurant in 1984), Patrick Sherrill (shot and killed 14 coworkers at a post office in Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986), George Hennard (shot and killed 23 people at Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas in 1991), Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (shot and killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999), Seung-Hui Cho (shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia in 2007), Nidal Hasan (shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009), James Holmes (shot and killed 12 people at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in 2012), and Adam Lanza (shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut).
Lindsay Lohan has a longer rap sheet than all of these men combined.
(EDIT, 3-7-18: It is worth noting, however, that Huberty and Whitman had histories of domestic violence; Huberty's wife even filed a report after an incident, though Whitman's wife did not.)
New gun laws, no matter how well written and reformed, will not stop gun violence. But the right legislation and proper dialogue on the matter can greatly reduce these killings. We have no right to do little or nothing simply because the problem will never go away. The problem, at its core, is human beings and the evil of which we're capable. But because there is no solution to this does not give us license to be idle, to beat our breasts but do nothing. Mortality itself has no solution, but we still care for our bodies and our health - though with the way we've put off this discussion and dismissed the blood of the victims, our inaction belies that we care for anyone's well-being at all.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results."
"Then we won't arm people with criminal records!"
Many of the deadliest or most notorious mass shooters in United States history have had no criminal record. If they did, many of them were minor or misdemeanor offenses. This includes the aforementioned Unruh and Whitman, as well as James Huberty (shot and killed 21 people at a San Ysidro, California McDonald's restaurant in 1984), Patrick Sherrill (shot and killed 14 coworkers at a post office in Edmond, Oklahoma in 1986), George Hennard (shot and killed 23 people at Luby's cafeteria in Killeen, Texas in 1991), Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold (shot and killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999), Seung-Hui Cho (shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia in 2007), Nidal Hasan (shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009), James Holmes (shot and killed 12 people at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado in 2012), and Adam Lanza (shot and killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut).
Lindsay Lohan has a longer rap sheet than all of these men combined.
(EDIT, 3-7-18: It is worth noting, however, that Huberty and Whitman had histories of domestic violence; Huberty's wife even filed a report after an incident, though Whitman's wife did not.)
New gun laws, no matter how well written and reformed, will not stop gun violence. But the right legislation and proper dialogue on the matter can greatly reduce these killings. We have no right to do little or nothing simply because the problem will never go away. The problem, at its core, is human beings and the evil of which we're capable. But because there is no solution to this does not give us license to be idle, to beat our breasts but do nothing. Mortality itself has no solution, but we still care for our bodies and our health - though with the way we've put off this discussion and dismissed the blood of the victims, our inaction belies that we care for anyone's well-being at all.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results."
