Let’s Not Talk About Gun Control

It’s uniquely terrifying to consider the absurd extent to which many gun people are willing to suspend reason just so they can remain armed and dangerous. It’s like they are all in abusive relationships and every time there’s another shooting, they show up at work the next day with a black eye and a split lip. And they say, “You don’t understand. My guns LOVE me. They’d never do anything to hurt anyone. It’s the rest of the world that’s wrong.”

I am a gun owner.

I inherited five antique rifles from my father, a WWII vet and lifelong liberal, including an M1 Garand that’s pretty danged impressive. I keep them safely locked away and don’t have any ammo. I’ve done some shooting at the range and am a pretty good shot. I don’t believe for a moment that having these weapons in my home makes my family safer, nor do I believe I will ever use them to protect me or my family. In fact, my biggest worry is that someone will try to steal them, as a couple of them are rather valuable, or that they will be stolen and used to harm someone. I have tried twice to register these rifles officially. But, because I live in Virginia, I’ve been told it’s unnecessary. One of those handy loopholes. I’ve been able to buy ammo and go to shooting ranges without ever showing an ID. But I can’t buy Sudafed without one.

In the 90s, my wife was a reporter for WDBJ-7, a fine news organization that is now most famous because two young journalists were gunned down on live television while they were simply doing their job. The assailant had a long history of work turmoil and mental illness. A few months prior to the shooting, he was able to walk into gun stores and buy two handguns legally. Before that the only scrape he ever had with the law was some traffic tickets. He was a law-abiding citizen.

Until he wasn’t.

I live 45 minutes from Virginia Tech and know several people who were directly affected or involved in the massacre there. My fifth grade history teacher was accidentally shot and killed on a hunting trip when I was still his student. I have several friends in law enforcement and the military, several friends I consider to be reasonable gun owners, and several friends I would classify as gun obsessed. I’ve had many, many conversations with many people of every stripe about the issue of guns and gun control.

Pretending that this is an issue of race or privilege or the fault of the media or [most insanely] an indicator that more people need to be armed is flat-out crazy. The reality in just about every single mass shooting in the last couple of decades is that a person with one or more diagnosed mental disabilities was able to legally purchase an arsenal of weapons, spend days or weeks or even months planning an attack, and then strike seemingly “without warning.” Except that typically there has been plenty of warning.

There are lots of carefully crafted, even clever arguments against gun control. They typically start with the Founding Fathers and statistics about other factors involved in gun deaths. Factors like mental illness, drugs, the media, race, man’s inherently violent nature — and that I’m just some kind of “fucking idiot.”

What I propose to do here is take down every one of these arguments, one by precious one. There are plenty of places online with prolific data showing the value of effective gun control. But data and facts and the lessons of history only work when people are willing to listen. We are, after all, talking about a large group of people who put more faith in information provided by organizations created to help industries like energy, firearms, insurance, or tobacco capture more profits than they do in more objective areas like scientific consensus, public education, and well-regarded news sources.

So, I’ll briefly present some familiar, often frustrating arguments against gun control measures, and provide what I believe are reasonably sound rhetorical arguments to dismantle them.

But, what should we do?

So, here’s what I think in a nutshell:

1. I think it should be much harder to own a firearm, whether a purchase, gift or inheritance.
2. There should be a permanent national registry of every firearm in the country. Just like there is for cars.
3. There should be far deeper background checks before anyone purchases a firearm, and these background checks should be kept on file. This should include a report from the potential buyer’s family physician or a psychiatrist reviewing that person’s mental fitness to possess a firearm. Anyone wanting to purchase a firearm should forfeit any privacy regarding diagnosis and treatment of any mental illness, history of domestic or workplace violence, etc.
4. There should be stricter limits on the type and capacity of firearms an individual can possess.
5. There should be stricter limitations on open and concealed carrying of firearms.
6. Everyone who owns a firearm should be licensed to do so, just like car ownership is. That license should require training and a qualifying exam.
7. Basically, potential gun owners should have to prove they are not dangerous to themselves or others before they are allowed to purchase a gun. Not the other way around.
8. There should be a single, robust federal agency dedicated to guns, gun sales, and gun safety. They shouldn’t have to spend their time worrying about tobacco or alcohol.

But, aren’t you saying you want to take all our guns away?

Notice that nowhere have I mentioned taking everyone’s guns away.

But, but, but …

This is the old “How can you say THAT is a problem when I say THIS is a problem!?!” argument. Whenever we talk about saving lives, some people like to compare shooting deaths to abortions. Let me just say that I believe abortion is, in the abstract, an awful thing. But as many studies show, the alternative to having the legal right to terminate a pregnancy is far, far worse.

But I am asking you to consider making it harder for the wrong people to get their hands on guns and ammo by making it harder for all people to. And that’s because we all know that, when the smoke clears, it’s always about the guns.

If it’s about mental illness and not about guns, fine. Let’s make it harder for the mentally disturbed to buy guns and ammo by making it harder for everyone to buy guns and ammo.

If it’s about prescription medications for people with depression and not about guns, fine. Let’s make it harder for depressed people taking prescription medications to buy guns and ammo by making it harder for everyone to buy guns and ammo.

If it’s about violent movies and video games and not about guns, fine. Let’s make it harder for people who watch movies and play video games to buy guns and ammo by making it harder for everyone to buy guns and ammo.

If it’s about illegal immigrants or MS-13, fine. Let’s make it harder for immigrants and MS-13 to buy guns and ammo by making it harder for everyone to buy guns and ammo.

If it’s about deranged killers who will kill you with whatever they can get their hands on and not about guns, fine. Let’s make it harder for deranged killers to buy guns and ammo by making it harder for everyone to buy guns and ammo.

If it’s about Godless heathens or the gay marriage and not about guns, fine. Let’s make it harder for heathens and gays to buy guns and ammo by making it harder for everyone to buy guns and ammo.

If it’s about scary rappers and gangbangers, fine. Let’s make it harder for rappers and gang members to buy guns and ammo by making it harder for everyone to buy guns and ammo.

If it’s about drug addicts and not about guns, fine. Let’s make it harder for drag addicts to buy guns and ammo by making it harder for everyone to buy guns and ammo.

If it’s about white supremacists or Muslim terrorists and not about guns, fine. Let’s make it harder for nazis and ISIS to buy guns and ammo by making it harder for everyone to buy guns and ammo.

But, if it’s just about your precious, precious freedoms, not fine. The current trend of violent gun deaths in mass shooting scenarios pretty much proves that Americans can’t really handle that kind of “freedom.”

It’s about the guns.

But, the Second Amendment and Freedom!!!

For some reason, strident gun advocates appear to be terrified of these simple measures I’ve outlined. They start talking about a police state and “the founder’s intent” and panting a lot. Basically, when the Second Amendment gets talked about, it feels like the only part I hear is “well regulated” while the only part they hear is “shall not be infringed.” If there was ever a good use for a time machine, it would be to go back to when they were scrawling this incomprehensible passage and ask, “What you talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” We’d also have to explain about “Different Strokes” and television and the end of slavery and stuff, so we might want to pack a few sandwiches. Also, we should mention that, in the not too distant future, you can own a gun that will kill 20 school children in a minute or so.

If you believe that the Second Amendment is the only thing preventing tyranny in the US, then you don’t believe in the rest of the Constitution. It’s that simple.

And how about this? What if gun owners are the oppressors? Like right now? What if their open-carry show of force is actually changing the mentality, the hopes and dreams, the freedoms of everyday American citizens?

I know a great many people who already feel like they are. The survivors in Florida and Las Vegas and Kentucky, for instance. They feel oppressed. By gun owners.

I’ve heard it said, as some patriotic sentiment, that “guns make good people strong.” I see. And what oppression? When have good, armed people of the United States of America ever risen up against oppression in our country?

I find nothing less comforting — absolutely nothing at all — than knowing that there are tens of thousands of redneck prepper militia wackos, armed with AR-15s and beef jerky and Bibles, strewn all around my country, ready to fight whatever they think is “oppression.” There is literally nothing more terrifying in this world to me than that.

And it makes me wonder, how have the British and Australian and French citizenry and so on fought off all the oppression they’ve had to contend with? “Guns make us free” is the biggest lie the NRA ever sold. And lo!, how they’ve profited from it.

In the end, the only difference between the US and all the other developed nations of the world is one sentence — arguably the single deadliest sentence ever crafted in the English language — the Second Amendment.

But, tradition!!

Maybe we Americans need to get a better grip on what exactly our “traditions” are. We have a tradition of marginalizing non-white people. We have a tradition of ignoring facts. We have a tradition of trying desperately not to offend the most offensive people in our culture. We have a tradition of celebrating white losers and demonizing black leaders. We have a tradition of making excuses for hatred.

We are a nation that “prays for the victims” over and over and over and over again, and then conveniently ignores everything that made them victims in the first place. We fight guns with more guns. Drugs with more drugs. Racism with more racism. We fight poor schools by taking money away from them. We fight poverty by screwing the impoverished. We fight inequality by reminding people that equality isn’t for most people.

We’ve become a preemptive, shoot-first, because-me-and-my-bible-said-so, asshole nation. America was a really good idea. But it has too many traditions for it to ever catch on.

But, mental illness!

This brings us to the mental illness can of worms, obviously an entirely new subject. But I think a start would be to ask potential gun buyers these questions: 1. Do you believe you will use this weapon to defend yourself against your own government? 2. Do you believe carrying this gun will make you safer or freer? 3. Do you believe you will use this gun to heroically protect your family from a deranged killer? 4. Do you believe you have actually heard Barack Obama say out loud that he wants to take your guns away?

I believe answering “yes” to any one of these questions makes one a candidate for mental illness. And this doesn’t even get into the whole “are you a loner with murder fantasies?” or “are you currently ingesting any illegal substances other than pot?” side of things. Or “do you have periods of rage?” Or “do you belong to a gang?” Or “are you afraid of people wearing hoodies?” Or “are you constantly being spoken to by a tall, dark-cloaked, hooded figure that no one else can see?”

Then there’s the argument offered up by some gun advocates that “man is by nature passionate and violent. If he doesn’t kill with a gun, he’ll just find some other way to do it.” Following this up with “so, everyone’s right to own an AR-15 ‘shall not be infringed'” sounds batshit looneyballs to me. “Killers gonna kill. So, let’s make it as easy as possible.” But that’s what they say.

Here’s the problem with the “it’s not the guns, it’s the mental illness” argument. You’re essentially saying that “People use guns to kill because they are mentally unstable.” But isn’t it also possible that some people who are mentally unstable are actually drawn towards guns — out of fear, revenge fantasies, or fetishism? And then, by refusing to consider stronger background checks, etc., you’re basically saying, “If you prevent the mentally unstable from getting guns, then I might not be able to get guns either!” That’s when you really need to ask yourself some hard questions. Or better yet, ask a therapist. You’re essentially taking the side that wants the mentally unstable — the very people who you’ve identified as the real danger — to be able to arm themselves, just to ensure that you can arm yourself as well.

Meanwhile, it’s becoming clear that the whole issue here stems from our attempts to compartmentalize our country’s problem with guns. Is it a gun thing or is it a mental health thing?

It’s obviously both.

There are people who can and do possess firearms and pose zero threat to others. But there are also those with marginal mental health issues who, when those issues are compounded with fear, depression, fixation or addiction, a kind of fetishism and/or fantasy world seems to drive some individuals from the mere possession and recreational use of many firearms to the desire to use them destructively.

There are ongoing studies seeking to determine the relationships between mental illness and easy access to powerful weaponry. There should be many, many more. To many of us, liberals and conservatives, studies of this nature are a rational course of action.

To the NRA, these studies are worse than a record-breaking mass shooting every couple of years. That’s why they have lobbied so hard — and successfully — to prevent government funding from supporting any such studies. If nothing else, this is proof that the answer to this horrendous and complicated issue involves reforms in mental healthcare AND much more robust restrictions and regulations on the sale and possession of firearms. People who insist it’s one or the other but not both are simply wrong.

Dead wrong.

And here’s the thing. You can be an insane killer or a hate-filled asshole or a politically motivated lone wolf or someone temporarily blinded by fury.

But without a gun, you’re nowhere near as dangerous.

But, law-abiding citizens!

I recognize that, in general, violent crimes have dropped dramatically over the last two decades, including gun crimes. I don’t think for a second this has anything to do with relaxed gun laws. The per capita gun crime rate in the US still far exceeds those in every other first world nation.

I am sick to death of the phrase “law-abiding gun owner.” The NRA and its disciples insist that stricter regulations like universal background checks and a national gun registry would infringe on the rights of “law-abiding citizens.” When I point out that Cho, Loughner, Lanza and Holmes owned their weapons legally, the advocates quickly explain that, because they used their weapons in the commission of a crime, they were no longer law-abiding citizens and therefore, could not own their guns legally. Seriously, I’ve had this conversation at least twenty times. What this twisted and dangerous “logic” does is conveniently nullify the issue of legal ownership and thereby remove the Second Amendment from its own defensive argument.

And ultimately, the fine line between a legal gun owner and an illegal one is where the barrel is pointing when it goes off.

But, only outlaws will have guns!

We’ve heard it a million times. Gun control measures are absolutely pointless because criminals have absolutely no respect for laws. This is true. Criminals have absolutely no respect for laws. That’s what makes them criminals. And yet, for some unknown reason, we have laws anyway.

“What’s the point of these Ten Commandments? Criminals are just going to break them anyway.” — NRA Moses

It’s true that a considerably larger number of homicides are committed by guns owned by people with criminal backgrounds and that they are likely to possess one or more firearms illegally. But, a significant number of gun deaths are perpetrated by people who are, up to the point of pulling the trigger, law-abiding citizens.

Making guns more difficult to purchase legally makes it more difficult to purchase a gun illegally. Demand drives up black market prices astronomically. Tighter scrutiny of gun sales in general makes it more difficult for legal weapons to enter illegal markets.

None of this would wipe out gun violence entirely. But, by simply making it more difficult for a person with a violent history, a criminal history or a history of mental illness to purchase a firearm is a start in the right direction. What’s wrong with that? And ultimately, if “only outlaws have guns,” wouldn’t that make outlaws easier to identify?

But, guns don’t kill people!

Gun fans like to portray a loaded weapon as an inanimate object that poses no threat in a restaurant or mall or church. It’s the “guns don’t kill people” argument. They accuse proponents of greater restriction of labeling these pieces of metal and plastic as “criminals.” The reality is that a loaded gun is dangerous and, by its presence in a restaurant, raises the risk of someone being harmed. If it didn’t, no one would carry a gun in the first place. The whole point of carrying a gun in this way is “personal protection” by way of making yourself more potentially dangerous to someone else. That, by necessity, makes you more potentially dangerous to everyone else within range. It’s a simple fact.

But, guns save lives!

Yeah? Then why can’t they also kill people? I thought they were supposed to be inanimate objects.

But, killers will just find other ways to kill people!

If you make it harder for people to buy guns, according to gun advocates, the criminally insane will simply find other ways to kill people. They’ll use knives or cars or baseball bats or swimming pools to murder with.

But look at the gun massacre in Las Vegas. When Paddock ultimately started killing random people, he didn’t rely on the bomb-making materials he had in his car. He reached for the easiest, most cost-effective way to kill 59 people and injure 500 more from a distance. He reached for the nearly 20 firearms he had in his room, firearms purchased legally and modified easily. And he loosed thousands of rounds of ammunition that, when he purchased in extraordinary numbers, apparently didn’t raise even the slightest suspicion among the people profiting off the sales.

This, in a nutshell, is America’s problem with guns.

But, car wrecks!

More people die in car accidents every year. So, shouldn’t they be outlawed too? Cars that are designed expressly for killing should definitely be outlawed. No question. Meanwhile, think about this: Cars don’t carry people great distances with little effort. People do! See? It’s not the same thing. So, let’s not muddy our discussion with false equivalencies.

But, abortion!

Here’s the thing. The vast majority of people who support a woman’s right to make choices about her own body ALSO support important programs that are proven to decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country which, in turn, are shown to decrease the number of abortions in the US.

Programs like free women’s healthcare and family planning, free prophylactics and other birth control methods, programs that help break the cycle of poverty, programs that help reduce hunger and poor healthcare in American families, programs that encourage women’s empowerment in the home, workplace and civic spheres, programs that facilitate adoptions of children into permanent loving families, and most of all real, common sense sex education for every young person in our country.

Pro choice liberals actually WANT to limit the number of abortions by working to eliminate the situations that lead to them. We vote, donate and volunteer to help with all of these goals.

Planned Parenthood. The United Way. School and church programs. There’s lots of ways to fight abortion without robbing women of their autonomy.

Now, what are you doing to reduce gun violence and the need for more guns in your country?

But, video games!

We hear it over and over from the pro-gun lobby. “It’s these violent video games and movies and stuff.” But by blaming video games, movies and the internet, firearm fetishists are naming the First Amendment as the cause of gun violence rather than blaming the Amendment that actually mentions guns.

This line of pseudoreason ignores the cold, hard, indisputable fact that the same video games, movies and internet are consumed everywhere else in the world, including Japan where annual gun deaths is in the single digits. Anything to avoid blaming the proliferation of gun violence on the proliferation of guns.

After each mass shooting in the US, it takes only a day or two for conservative leaders from around the country to start blaming gays and trans people, movies, music, video games, the Internet (which we’re on right now!), mental illness, abortion and birth control, medications, vaccinations and a lack of prayer in school — all conditions that exist in every other part of the world — rather than consider that the proliferation of mass gun violence in America might be due to the proliferation of guns.

The fact remains that these shootings don’t happen in other countries that consume the same things Americans do. Children everywhere have toy guns and watch violent movies. I’ve played many, many, many hours of Call of Duty, for instance. I grew up playing with GI Joes and cap guns and using pine cones for grenades.

And yet, I don’t want to kill anyone.

According to conservative sociologist Steven Pinker, there is evidence to suggest that the presence of video games actually helps the vast majority of young people act out competitive violent fantasies that are an innate part of adolescent behavior in a safe environment. Rather than encouraging more violent behavior, they release various endorphins and hormones and teach coping mechanisms for rage that include a form of mindfulness and self control.

Just like competitive sports, many of which are quite violent, but without the physical damage.

But, communist invaders!

Many gun folks believe that they will need their firearms to defend America against some foreign invaders. But, they haven’t so far.

In fact, in 2016 quite the opposite happened. The NRA and GOP has used the fear of tyranny to achieve the arguably tyrannical overthrow of the US.

Think about this. Since the 1970s, the NRA’s primary selling point for the looser interpretation of the Second Amendment — which guarantees a slurry of military assault-style firearms into the carefully lined beds of F150s around America — was that our nation’s humble and illiterate citizen militias must be heavily armed in order to repel the inevitable “liberal communist tyranny” that would undoubtedly infiltrate our democracy someday. This is a scenario they have spelled out time and time again. NRA spokes-hack Dana Loesch has made commercials expressly about this.

After the Helsinki Summit fiasco of 2018, it is absolutely clear that our government is being manipulated to some extent by Vladimir Putin, an actual tyrant currently in power in Russia, a country that was definitely communist until the early 1990s.

Meanwhile, according to the Mueller indictments and the allegations leveled at the Russian national Maria Butina, Putin gained his alarming influence over our government through various back channels created with the knowledge, support and efforts of members, candidates, staffers and legislators from the Republican Party. This was done in part with large amounts of money and influence flowing through the NRA.

In other words, over the past 40 years the GOP and NRA worked together to promote voting habits, legislation and gun sales through the threats of doomsday scenarios of communist infiltration into our government, and then they actually facilitated that infiltration scenario.

They used fear of tyranny and bullshit hero warrior fantasies to move their people to vote and then convinced them to vote for tyranny and put that tyranny in power over the United States.

So, why haven’t all our armed people risen up to drive them out of our country?

But, Hitler!

The “Hitler took everyone’s guns away” thing is a bit of a misrepresentation — thanks to the NRA. For instance, the 1938 law signed by Hitler that Wayne LaPierre mentions in his 1994 book “Guns, Crime, and Freedom” basically does the opposite of what he says it did. The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as well as ammunition. Meanwhile, many more categories of people, including Nazi party members, were exempted from gun ownership regulations altogether, while the legal age of purchase was lowered from 20 to 18, and permit lengths were extended from one year to three years.

But even more important, the remilitarization of Germany actually put quite a lot of firearms in the hands of millions of men and boys. Yet, rather than rising up against their government, they marched into Austria, Sudetenland, France, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Hungary, Russia, North Africa, Greece, Yugoslavia, and more.

Why?

Because they were so easily misled by a propagandist organization that knew the value of inventing and exploiting “demons.” Whipping up fear leads to simple-minded obedience. Even, say, the fear of having your guns taken away.

But, a good guy with a gun!

Mr. LaPierre [a Roanoke native] famously stated that “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” He said this after the Newtown massacre. And he appears to believe it. Since then we’ve seen dozens of active shooters disarmed by unarmed people. Yet, in his world the WDBJ journalists should have been armed so that, despite the fact that they did not see their assailant until he was shooting them, they could comprehend the situation well enough to unholster their firearms and kill the shooter. Or perhaps they should have had an armed guard. Ultimately this fantasy would require an armed guard wherever one or more American citizens are at any given time. On the plus side [for the NRA], this would mean the sale of a whole lot more guns.

But, Chicago!!

And here’s the problem with screaming “Chicago!” and the whole topic of legal guns versus illegal ones. “Chicago has the toughest gun laws in the country. And the most gun deaths.” In gang killings and such, we’re typically talking about a seriously illegal weapon or weapons. Where do they come from? Are they built in illegal, underground gun factories? No. They are manufactured legally by a legal manufacturer and sold to distributors, most of whom sell them legally but some of whom then sell them illegally. It’s pretty darned easy. Why? Because the NRA makes sure it is, that’s why. So when we wonder why there’s so many gun deaths in Chicago, with all its strict gun laws, it’s important to remember that the guns are still getting there, in part, because of lax laws and lax enforcement policies driven by the gun lobby. Keep in mind, there are a lot of places on earth with stricter gun laws than Chicago that have far, far fewer gun deaths. Those places typically aren’t surrounded by other places where you can buy several guns at a civic center.

Think of it this way: You have a stern “No Dog Shit In My Yard” policy. And your neighbors on both sides of your yard have a lax “My 20 Dogs Are Free To Roam And Shit Wherever They Want To” policy. How long do you think it’s going to take before you step in some shit? And when you DO step in that shit, will it be because you don’t allow dog shit in your yard or because your neighbors do in theirs?

But, blacks killing blacks!

The majority of African-American and Hispanic gun violence is gang-related. And gangs are essentially militias in that they are groups of like-minded individuals who have armed themselves so that they can protect themselves from rival militias and law enforcement — or rather, the government. Shouldn’t they be more well regulated?

What possible difference does it make what color a shooter or victim is? There are actually people who insist that if you removed all the black shootings from American gun death statistics, we’d be no worse than any other nation. But, they’re talking about black people who are American citizens — human beings — and are dying. If you don’t see them that way there’s really no point in talking with you about anything.

But, it’s already too late!

Gun apologists like to point out that, because the number of firearms in the US is enormous and many of these weapons are in the hands of warrior-zealots, confiscating some of the more dangerous guns would lead to civil war.

This is actually a really good reason to pursue meaningful gun control sooner rather than later.

But, the safety of my family!

Finally we come to the gun lobby’s crowning achievement — fear for personal safety. Gun advocates are terrified of rare, random events like home invasions, armed robbery, and the need to stand their ground against an armed assailant. They insist that in the twenty or so minutes it takes for the police to arrive [it’s always more than twenty minutes, according to them] they could unlock a hidden box, take out their weapon and blow the intruder away.

Let’s ignore the argument that a gun in the house is more likely to harm a resident — through accidental shooting, suicide, or domestic violence — because gun advocates are heavily armed with contradictory statistics of dubious origin, like “2.5 million defensive uses per year!” and won’t let them go. They are convinced that easier access to more deadly weapons will allow them to defend themselves against someone who should not possess these weapons but does. Look at their circular logic. A. Someone very dangerous has access to firearms. B. I should be allowed to protect myself against that person. C. Therefore guns should be made easily available to everyone.

This fever deludes them into thinking the founding fathers believed this absurd scenario. To this argument I simply point out that Adam Lanza’s mother was arguably the most heavily armed woman in Newtown. And she was the first to die.

© 2015 Chris Henson