Category: Politics

In his reply to my answer, Watts claimed that my “point is a black-and-white dichotomy, and it is a severely falsely dichotomy.” I must admit, however, that I am not completely clear exactly what point he was referring to, as his description does not match any of my views. I am certainly not against all gun control, nor of preventing those who are mentally unstable, or who have a history of violent crime from processing guns. If that were the extent of the gun control debate, I do not think there would be much of an issue. So I suspect that Watts is battling against a straw man here.
He claims of my position that my “first solution, that of more guns, flies in the face of wisdom, logic, and reality.” This is particularly puzzling in that I did not call for more guns. Sure, I argued against gun control laws, and even argued that “less gun control” may be more effective, but that is not quite the same thing as arguing for more guns. Others such as John Lott have made this argument and have amassed a great deal of evidence to support their view. Still, given that this issue is highly politicized, I think the best one can really say is that such claims are hotly contested and this renders such blanket statements such as Watts’, without specific support, highly questionable.
Watts’ analogy with AIDS was at best mystifying, as I do not see any correlation with guns. Give someone AIDS, and I think you can safely say that this is a bad thing. But unlike getting AIDS, giving a gun is, in and of itself are neither good nor bad. It is how the gun is used that determines whether or not it is good or bad. While the analogy fails, the equating of guns with AIDS does reveal the focus is on inanimate objects instead of the people that commit these crimes. Rather than deal with the criminals, the drive is to remove guns from law abiding citizens.
Watts mentioned Romans 13, and while it raises some very difficult issues, I do not see a prohibition against self-defense as one of them. Frankly, I see the claim that Romans 13 prohibits owning a gun to be about as valid as a claim that Luke 22:36 requires it. To allow citizens the choice to defend themselves is not the same thing as forcing them to become the police.
As to his arguments about separating guns and people, Watts argues against his own position with his examples. If we treated these example like we do guns, we would not go after the architect who designed the building we would ban others form doing architecture; we would not go after the doctor, we would ban others from being doctors. Thus with these mass murders, the focus is on keeping others from owning guns.
As for Watts’ claim that without guns there would not be mass murder, this is just historically false. Sure, the incidents he listed were caused by people using guns. But the New Life Church shooting I cited was greatly limited by that fact that someone besides the shooter had a gun and was able to stop him. In the Osaka School massacre the murderer used a knife. The worst school murderer in the U.S. killed 38 children and 6 adults, not with a gun but with a bomb in 1927. Now with the internet, chemical and biological weapons also become considerations. The point is that even if you could remove all guns, guns are not the real problem. People who want to murder are the problem, and they will, as they have, find other ways.
I was somewhat disappointed that Watts seem to skip completely over the three things I said should be done to begin to addressing this problem, and thus I do not know if he agrees or disagrees. Instead he skipped to my conclusion that mentioned sin. Frankly, I fail to see how, from the fact that I mentioned the reality of sin, Watts reached the conclusion that I was somehow saying sin is the total of human existence or nature.
I simply said that while there was a lot more that we could do, we will probably never be able to eliminate such murders. This is just like our laws against theft and rape have not eliminated those crimes. Still, went on to say that, “we could go a long way towards reducing them.” Watts labeled this as a “cop-out.” Yet in his very next line he said we could, “reduce it to the point where… it is a shock rather than just another occurrence.” Frankly I fail to see a significant different between these two statements, and thus, once again, it is hard to not see this, like so many of his arguments, as little more than a straw man.
Watts concludes by saying “we recognize a problem exists and it is our better human nature that will create a path to either fix the problem or to limit the issues giving rise to the problem” While I agree with this statement, we differ on the nature of the problem, and thus on how to address it.
I see the problem being with people who want murder others, not with the methods they choose to carry out their crimes. I want to focus on what in our society and culture produces such people and why, for example, our society fails to care adequately for the mentally ill. To me, talk of gun control is not only a distraction, it diverts attention from the real problems and thus hinders real solutions that could actually make things better.

Elgin is correct: the discussion usually revolves around the policing of either the item or the person. Yes, he is correct, partially, in pointing out the problems of enforcing any type of gun control. While his evidence is somewhat anecdotal, most evidences are in this regard. For instance, I know many, including myself, who use guns for nothing but hunting and would not think of stockpiling weapons in fear. Or, I know some people who have at one time or another suffered mental breakdowns and these people should never possess anything more deadly than a plastic straw. Unfortunately, Elgin’s point is a black-and-white dichotomy, and it is a severely falsely dichotomy.
Thus, his first solution, that of more guns, flies in the face of wisdom, logic, and reality. The best analogy to Elgin’s solution is this: to end AIDs, we give everyone AIDs instead of government programs designed at education and supplying protection. Or, with a more theological slant — to combat sin, we make everything sin so that no one recognizes the possibility of no sin. Are we supposed to carry guns in order to prevent the desperately few mental cases? This goes against the role of Government, the principles of “community,” and in many cases, would challenge economic and theological principles. Added to this is the Milgram experience whereby people are shown to be intrinsically open to suggestion and rather evil if they are convinced they do not have to suffer consequences.
Theologically, a vigilante populace, with the individual armed and ready to do battle, is against Scripture. In Romans 13, we are told that the governing authorities are the sword, the might. Elgin proposes that those carrying concealed weapons, against the sum total of human experience, would help to either defend or disarm shooters and wait for the police. This goes behind the duty of the individual to self-defense to co-oping the duties of the governmental sword. Further, this goes into self-offense. We need look no further than the excessive use of Florida’s “Stand your Ground Laws.” To force, under the banner of peace and safety, the citizenry to become the police is not something that we as a society are prepared for, or we as Christians should support.
One of the larger errors in my friends view is the idea that we can separate guns and people. We give soldiers guns to kill people; we arm police officers in the unlikely event they must shoot someone in the line of duty; and we would arm individuals by mandate with the intent to defend with extreme prejudice. If an architect designs a building that is faulty, we will blame not the building but the architect. If a doctor uses a medical procedure designed to kill people and succeeds, we will prosecute the doctor. The analogies are endless here, but can be summed up in this. We cannot easily separate the tools of destruction from the people who use them. Without assault weapons such as the ones used in Arizona, Colorado, and Connecticut, the murders if they would still be as such would not be mass murders. To pretend that some sort of separation exists between the person who pulls the trigger and the trigger connected to the hammer is to ignore an ontological reality, I fear.
My friend ends his statement by turning to the nature of sin in humans and, what is frankly, a cop-out. We can eliminate mass murder, or rather, reduce it to the point where we it is a shock rather than just another occurrence. Sin is a scar, but not the total of human nature. It is a sickness that can be contained by laws, but never cured. Our need to take, to kill, to enslave, to lust are things that can be limited through proper community responses, namely laws. We see this because we have ended slavery in this country, we have established property laws as well at anti-theft measures. We have put in place, in most places in this country, laws that will severely punish rape as well as have established educational programs on a national level that tackle the major issues of the day, such as rape, drunk driving, and a host of issues. Sin is not the totality of human nature — to strive for betterment is. Therefore, we recognize a problem exists and it is our better human nature that will create a path to either fix the problem or to limit the issues giving rise to the problem.

As I read Joel Watts’ answer, I first found a lot that I agreed with, but soon the differences emerged.  I agree that there is a significant social component to this issue.  What we do as individuals often impacts others.  But while I agree in broad concept, we will probably disagree over the details and specifics on this and many other issues.
I also found it interesting that both of us listed problems with our mental health system as the first of the three things that need to be done. While we would differ on some of the details, this is a very complex and complicated area, with a lot of room for improvement.
But that was pretty much where the agreement ended. While I agreed people are reluctant to say “anything or much of anything” until after a shooting, I do not think this is because people “shy away from seeing all lives in a community dependent upon one another.”  I find it far more likely that they shy away lest they be considered “judgmental.”  The problem in a culture that accepts pretty much anything is that the line between just another of many alternative lifestyles, and these murders, can become very fine indeed and the stigma against being judgmental is very high.
Of course then there is the problem of what happens if you do report someone. The answer is not much. A distressed mother who lives in fear of her child wrote just after the last shooting, that a social worker told her that the “only thing I could do was to get Michael charged with a crime.”  So we have a culture that punishes people for incorrectly reporting, but does very little if you do report.  Is it any wonder people are reluctant to report?
Not too surprisingly, the biggest difference occurred over the issue of gun control. Frankly I believe that movies that glorify violence such a “Django Unchained” and “Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D,” which for a time were the two most popular movies in the country, are a far more profitable area of focus. Still, I would oppose any government effort to “control” such movies.  But we should ask ourselves, why we as a culture celebrate them, “Django Unchained” being nominated for four Oscars, including best picture.
The greater problem is that not only has gun control not worked, it will not work, and if anything is counterproductive, as the biggest effect of all this talk of control is to spur the sale of guns. Thus with all the recent renewed interest in gun control, gun sales are at record highs.
One key question is, how is taking guns away from law abiding citizens supposed to make them safer?  Watts points out that Chicago has the highest gun murder rate in the country. It also has some of the strictest gun control laws, nor is this an aberration. Other contenders for this dubious honor also have very strict gun control laws.
The recent focus and been on clip size and ammunition purchases. Watt proposes weapons be limited to combined 15 rounds.  This would make it illegal to own two weapons that had 8 rounds clips. This is hardly practical. It is not uncommon for gun enthusiasts to own 8 guns.  More importantly, someone who is serious about guns can easily fire 1000-2000 rounds a month in practice.  Do we really want a system that makes it more difficult to practice so that people can handle their guns safely?
Finally, it is counterproductive in that it makes sensible gun control much more difficult.  For example, the biggest objection to registration is the fear that registration will make confiscation easier.  To this has been recently added the fear that your name and address will be published in an interactive map by a newspaper.
Not only do such actions make the whole discussion about legitimate controls more difficult, it is downright dangerous. For a time I worked as a teacher in Juvenile Hall, and my wife worked at a mental hospital.  At such places it is the norm to keep personal information to a minimum, particularly your home address for reasons of safety.  But if I were to have a registered gun, does that mean I have to live in fear that a newspaper will publish a map to my house because some editor did not like guns and wanted to punish gun owners?
Bottom line is that gun control is not the answer. More importantly, it focuses on things rather than people, and thus only distracts from what are the real problems.