The “Gun Control” Debate

My response to a fellow classmate I haven’t seen since high school (we were both in HS when Columbine happened) who commented on me wanting to arm the teachers in schools for defensive purposes. His original response I’m replying to is pictured below.
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Hi Neil,

It’s good to talk to you again, I hope you’ve been well too. No apologies are necessary, we all live busy lives and it takes time to sit down and compose such lengthy thoughtful responses. I’m glad to hear that you’re willing to have a open minded objective discussion on an issue we are apparently both passionate about. We both do desire safety for our fellow citizens. However, keep in mind that safety is a means to an end and not the end itself. If the utmost goal of our life on this physical plain was pure safety, then having everyone locked down and monitored in a prison type cell, or matrix type controlled sleep suspended animation system, would be the ultimate safety. Obviously, this is not an end goal of anyone’s human existence. So what is that goal?What is the point of life? Well ultimately, that answer is as varied as the number of stars in the sky as everyone has their own idea for what life is and how they should live it. What isn’t varied, is what is required in order for everyone to be able to pursue their own unique life. Our founding fathers, who were some of the wisest men in the history of our nation, deducted that we as conscious sentient beings primarily desired life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These traits are the back bone needed for all peoples to exercise their own unique expression of life.

There is risk in life, there are ways to minimize that risk but there comes a point where the minimization of risk comes at the cost of the all important first three principles needed to live life. The confusion lately (which is engineered by design) is to conflate the faulty notion that some of our rights, along with inanimate objects, are responsible for a lack of safety. In all actuality, it is the exact opposite. It is precisely our freedoms, and our ability to exercise them (IE ability to own all types of firearms) that allows us a greater degree of security than subjecting ourselves to the whims of others (individuals, gangs, governments, corporations, etc).

This is part of another larger discussion (check out the video I posted of Howard Stern’s view on gun control on my wall for more on that) but it is important to start off with to get the proper context and understanding of what the 2nd Amendment, and more broadly rights / freedoms are. The fact is that firearms, whether you like the technology or not, exist and the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun. Not to take the guns away from the good guys! About gun related deaths, it’s important to focus on the deaths statistics, and not get too caught up in the methods of deaths. For instance, the vast majority of gun related deaths in the US stem from suicides. The next largest reason for the deaths is gang related shootings. Actual homicides with firearms is a very small percentage, and the vast majority of gun related homicides are with handguns. The amount of people killed with rifles each year is very low, more people are killed with blunt objects than with long arms in this country!

Now, you’ll undoubtedly point out that various white western European countries have statistically low firearms deaths. However, there are a few things you’re not being told about by agenda pushers. Violent crimes and violent home break in robberies have actually went up quite a bit since guns were totally banned in the UK. Violent crime and murders are way up, all over Europe. They may not necessarily be doing it with a gun, but if you have an intent to murder, you will murder. If you want to kill a lot of people, it is easy to build rudimentary bombs that can do that. Or use a large truck or vehicle. A simple 4 door sedan is a 2 ton projectile capable of going 90 miles an hour and can be very deadly. One day after the school shooting in Florida, dozens were murdered in China from a man with knives!

Secondly, criminals, by definition, do not follow the laws, so gun laws only disarm the law biding citizen. If a criminal does want to obtain and kill with a gun illegally, he will and have easy unarmed pickings. Remember, the school shootings all happened in gun free zones. The “Assault Weapons ban” from 1994 – 2004 was extensively studied and shown to have no effect on crime in this country. The nation’s first mass school shooting took place under this ban too, Columbine. Do you think the shooters would have had the same success at a police station or at a gun rally? Why or why not?

Now, moving on from Europe, lots of third world countries have very high gun deaths even though gun ownership is illegal. Mexico has many more gun deaths than the US, and firearms are totally illegal there. The same with dozens of other South/Central American and African countries. By contrast, Israel and Switzerland, where a large percentage of the citizens are required to carry so called “assault weapons”, has very low gun crime. How do you explain this disparity? If it was simply the fault of the inanimate objects, the firearms, then why is the effect not consistent across the board? In fact, in our own country, as recently as 30 years ago, we had rifle teams in schools, and students rode to school with shotguns and rifles in their vehicles. If it was the fault of the firearms, then why were school shootings practically non existent then? What changed?

Do you know that almost all of the school shooters, starting with Columbine, were on psychiatric drugs? Do you know that out of 27 of the worst mass shootings in American history, only one was raised by their biological father?

About you wanting the CDC to study “gun violence”, like I said, an inanimate object is not a disease, nor does an inanimate object cause someone to change behavior. I have no problem with independent organizations studying murders and violent crime (remember, it’s the act itself not the tool or method used to conduct the act). You ask me, what I would think if the CDC concluded that I was wrong, what my view would be. I am not sure which of my views you were referring to since the original response had to do with arming teachers and how people can react under pressure. The conversation has shifted since then to firearms ownership and freedom in general. Regardless of what findings a certain group or groups said they’ve found, my views would remain the same. What constitutes good and evil do not change based upon statistics or behavior of others. Let me flip it around and ask if the CDC conducted a study that demonstrated through thoroughly conducted and scientific conclusions that blacks were responsible for high violence and crime rates, how would your views change and why? Would you be in favor of greater restrictions on blacks? Why or why not?

So back to our original course of discussion, let me ask you a question. If you and your family were being attacked by an armed intruder, would you rather face the intruder with a firearm or would you rather face the armed intruder unarmed? Why?