By Paul Craig Roberts
Gun bans are no more effective than banning drugs.
What explains school shootings and other mass shootings-the ones that are real?
The gun control lobby blames "gun violence." Gun violence is a non-sensical term. It attributes action and intent to an inanimate physical object as if the gun decides to kill people and moves around on its own pulling its own trigger. Clearly there is no such thing as gun violence. The reliance on such a nonsense term makes a person wonder what the real agenda is of gun control advocates.
People commit violence with guns, just as they do with bombs, Molotov cocktails, knives, baseball bats, tasers, rocks, slingshots, chainsaws, bows and arrows, cars, trucks, fists, and so on. How silly would you sound if you described American Indians' use of bows and arrows as "bow and arrow violence" or refered to Jack-the-Ripper as "knife violence."
Nevertheless, the nonsense term has been used by gun control advocates for so many years that people born to its use don't realize its absurdity. Students at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida told the media that they "have had enough of gun violence."
The term is not only nonsensical, it is malicious. It blames behavior on an inanimate object. Consequently, focus is shifted away from the causes of the behavior.
In my day most of us had guns. By the age of 10, 11, and certainly by 12, we had our first .22 rifle or 410 shotgun. None of us ever shot anyone. My uncle brought back from WW II a .45 pistol, a .30 caliber M1 carbine and ammunition galore. As soon as we were able to ride bicycles, my friends and I were at Granny's playing with the weapons, loading and unloading them. Granny wasn't the least bit worried. We knew everything about safe handling and never to point a gun at anyone, ourselves included. In the 1960s it was common for high school students in rural areas during deer season to take their deer guns to school in their cars and trucks. It was a commonplace sight to see a rifle or shotgun hanging across the back window in a pickup truck cab.
There were no shootings in those days. So what do we conclude? Do we conclude that guns just hadn't learned to move around on their own and pull their own triggers, or do we conclude that something has happened to people?
There are many explanations offered for the appearance of mass murders. One is behavior control drugs that some kids are on. Another is the extreme violence seen on TV and movies and practiced on video games. Yet another is the destruction of religious influence and the fear of Hell. GMOs and processed food are blamed by some who are concerned with the impact of diet on behavior and mental/emotional stability.
Something has erased in some people moral conscience and concern for others. We need to find out why our society is falling apart like this, not pass the buck to inanimate objects.
Meanwhile, as this Florida sheriff suggests, more guns might be the solution until we figure out what the problem really is and how to address it.
Paul Craig Roberts