"As I have walked among the desperate, rejected, and angry young men, I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask--and rightly so--what about Vietnam? They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today--my own government."
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Beyond Vietnam--A Time to Break the Silence," April 4, 1967
"This is, as I said and believe, a book about Heaven, but I must say too that it has been a close call. For I have wondered sometimes if it would not finally turn out to be a book about Hell--where we fail to love one another, where we hate and destroy one another for reasons abundantly provided or for righteousness' sake or for pleasure, where we destroy the things we need the most, where we see no hope and have no faith, where we are needy and alone, where things that ought to stay together fall apart, where there is such a groaning travail of selfishness in all its forms, where we love one another and die, where we must lose everything to know what we have had."
-Wendell Berry in Jayber Crow
It's true that handguns and cars are more responsible for more murders in the U.S. than are semi-automatic guns. I'm also not one that believes guns are the "cause" of violence in the United States, but I am to the point--even as one who hopes for a small government and places little hope in laws to solve our problems--where I'd gladly concede that it would be a good thing for our society to rid ourselves, as much as possible, of semi-automatic guns, much like we did with automatic guns. (And while we're at it, our government and others ought to decrease their ridiculous nuclear weapons stashes.)
What are the purposes of a semi-automatic gun? Admittedly, I own no guns myself, so it's possible that I'm missing something, but best I can tell, the purpose definitely is not for hunting. I get the sense that it's not self-defense either.
What are the advantages to our society of having them? Certainly, the guns are selling, which means there are jobs and livelihoods at stake, which I definitely don't want to belittle. I suppose this is at least part of why the NRA is such a powerful lobby. But I don't think the economic element is enough to keep going the way we're going.
On the other hand, what do we have to lose? A bunch of tragic deaths?
Gun advocates would certainly (and rightly, to some degree) point us to the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights. But if we take away the rhetoric and irrationality of the conversation, what does it actually say? The exact wording is as follows:
But this is where, as the cliche tells us, we do not have to throw the baby out with the bath water. I think we can honor the Second Amendment while also outlawing AK-47s and the like. It says, justifiably I think, that our right to bear arms cannot be infringed. But like Rick Reilly, I think we could continue to allow people their single-shot handguns (for self-defense in the home) and shotguns (for hunting game, which seems to me a healthy alternative to a toxic, corporate food system).
Even if we head in this direction, which I hope we do, it's important for us to be honest about a few things. Obviously, a black market of sorts would develop, and besides, there are plenty of other ways to kill people, masses even. We are not solving the problem; if anything we are mitigating an effect of the problem(s).
If we're going to rage against machine guns and the Adam Lanzas, it might be time to acknowledge that violence, destruction, and exploitation thread through so many of the practices we tolerate and even actively condone. The cars we drive pollute the air we breathe. We destroy land in the name of "development." We rape mountaintops in order to extract resources that will surely run out one day. We poison our food to make it "cheaper" to produce. Many of us rely on substances that poison our bodies in order to get through the day. We slaughter babies that don't fit into our plans. We accelerate the deaths of sick elderly people and our more extreme criminals. Our solution to disgruntled poor people and minorities that lack literacy skills seems to be mainly continuing to bloat our prison system. Our corporations outsource its real work to countries with more lax labor laws so they can treat them and pay them as slaves. Our government invades countries that act against our (mostly selfish) national "interests." Perhaps worst of all is our possession of weapons that can obliterate whole cities in a matter of minutes. We've even used these weapons that make machine guns look like toys. No, the violence of Newtown is not an isolated incident, and in fact, it is plenty learned.
Why are we so violent? Why is it so hard to love each other? Why are so many men (and people) reaching this point of hopeless desperation? Why, in the words of a Walker Percy book title, are so many of us "Lost in the Cosmos"?
I suspect that the real tragedy lies beneath the behavior we're seeing in events like Newtown. But is there a way forward? I tried to get at some of that in a post for Front Porch Republic this week, but some of the answer is that there is no easy answer. We have created this society, though; this isn't just something that's "happening to us." And it all runs so much deeper than gun laws.
Questions for the reader: Can we honor the Second Amendment while regulating certain kinds of automatic weapons? If not, would it be worth the process of changing? What are some of the root causes of this pattern of school shootings?
5 comments:
Eloquently written, Chris. I agree completely that we should outlaw many types of guns and ammunition, including certain ammunition clips. But I also agree that we'd have trouble pointing the finger at any one person or group. As a nation, we have supported and engaged in violent acts: massacring Indian tribes, enslaving people and beating them, killing each other in a bloody Civil War that could have been prevented, attacking other nations (such as Mexico) for our own selfish reasons, engaging in imperialism (what we did in the Philippines, for example, horrified Mark Twain), lynching people and refusing to outlaw lynching for decades, developing and USING nuclear weapons, ignoring the Holocaust for years when we could have tried to stop it, tolerating police brutality, allowing inhumane conditions in prisons, mental hospitals, and schools--the list goes on. Until we work together for peace, justice, and community, we will suffer, separately and together.
Thanks for reading, Steve, and for your thoughtful response. Oh, how I wish that everything you said wasn't true!
My understanding is that "machine guns" -- fully automatic firearms -- are already essentially outlawed in the USA; the permit process is almost impossible. What you are referring to is more specific: semi-automatic weapons that are under-powered for hunting and routinely used with large-capacity magazines. They are also, incidentally, under-powered for self-defense.
The United States has outlawed machine guns. The civilian registry for fully automatic weapons was closed in 1986 and there have been no legal civilian sales of such weapons since then. Fully automatic firearms are still used in crimes, of course, because it is still possible to use them illegally. I am not sure how to pass a law to prevent people from breaking the law.
Most rifles and handguns purchased legally today by U.S. citizens are semi-automatic. Every time you squeeze the trigger, a round is fired. Semi-auto is useful because it is possible to miss. People purchase AR- or AK-derivative rifles, which are universally semi-auto and not fully-auto in the legal civilian versions, not primarily for hunting but for self-defense. These rifles have several properties which lend them to such use.
They are semi-auto. This means that if, in your haste and understandable nervousness when regarding, bleary-eyed at 2AM, the meth-crazed gang member breaking down your door with an axe, you miss, you have the opportunity to try again before he chops your head off.
They are designed to make use of extended magazines. Since it often takes 2,3, or 11 shots to stop an attacker, it is helpful to have plenty of ammunition. Especially since you are likely to miss a few times.
The Scary Black Rifles also have parts - the ones which are not metal - made of cheap black plastic. Which is why they look the way they do. Nicely antiqued walnut stocks and shiny brasswork come with a cost which not everyone can afford. Furthermore, cheap black plastic, unlike wood, doesn't rot, mold, split, or get eaten by termites. Since many people do, in fact, use their black rifles for hunting, rather than spending extra money on an additional tool, it is helpful to have something serviceable that one doesn't have to worry about destroying when tripping into a puddle.
I found the rest of your post, here and on FPR, interesting and insightful: a valid viewpoint even if I might not completely agree that the reason for mass shootings is that "we" are violent. I tend to suspect the reason for mass shootings is that crazy people sometimes do bad things, which is I think something you may personally understand. What I can't understand is how anyone could rationally believe that it is possible to prevent crazy people from doing bad things occasionally simply by passing a law. It seems to me that crazy people and criminals don't tend to consider the finer legalities of their actions. I think you have perhaps hit on a good idea, that social problems must be solved socially, meaning by each of us as members of a society, and not by delegating our social health to government bureaucracies. I don't see how banning any sort of weapon has any kind of social benefit. If you don't trust your neighbor with a firearm, the problem is either you or your neighbor, not the gun. Gun control seems to me to be a typical non-solution proposed by lazy modernists who do not want to assume any real responsibility for the present or future state of the society they have inherited.
Be that as it may, I thought you deserved a response which corrected your misconception regarding "machine guns" (which are already illegal in the U.S. for civilian use) and AK-47s and the like (which are not machine guns).
To "Chevalier" and "Not a Wine Critic," thank you for responding and for making the important distinction. As I admitted in the post, I am not much of a gun person myself. But you will now see in the post that it reflects the language you have used, and I think it is more accurate after the change. And thanks for the rest of your commentary, which is certainly important, too. I think we agree more than we don't.
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