[Xugumad]

Although I don't want to enter this argument for obvious reasons (despite assurances to the contrary, tempers are and will be riding high), I'd like to make two statements. Maybe it'll make some people think, maybe they are too tangential to the issue - make your own decision, as usual.

1. The genie can't be stuffed back into the bottle; gun ownership cannot be undone. Or can it? Britain outlawed all handguns and most rifles after a deranged man walked into an elementary school and indiscriminately shot about a dozen children about five years ago. There is some discussion whether gun-related crime has increased in the last few years, but it is certainly an incredible deterrent to 'random' gun-related murders and accidents.

The US isn't Britain, but to make a general statement that guns are here to stay is illogical: if there was a will, there'd be a way. The silent majority probably doesn't support giving any drug users in average higher jail sentences than rapists, but it happens anyway. Most people don't like the highway speed limits, but they are enforced anyway. Constitutional right or not - where there's a will, there is always a way. Freedom of speech is also a constitutional right, but it's being infringed upon and removed bit by bit as the pressure from authoritarians grows. (is the War on Drugs successful? Not really. Would a War on Guns ever be? Probably not; although - psychologically speaking - people want pleasure more than they need guns, the gun lobby is powerful enough to easily derail most anti-gun legislation)

2. If I am being attacked or robbed, with the assailant probably having to use a weapon in order to intimidate me (which is easily the most likely scenario if I was to be robbed), the attacker's default reaction if I were to go for a gun is to escalate the situation, and most likely either grievously injure me or kill me, in order to avoid getting shot himself. If I had a hip holster and publically displayed my guns, then maybe it would be a deterrent, since I could easily and quickly go for my gun. Maybe. But since the robber doesn't know for a fact that I am armed, he won't be deterred. Certainly, you can argue that robbery will descrease if everybody is armed, since most would-be robbers don't want to risk people pulling their guns, with the resulting consequences.

But that's nonsense. Theft and robbery will always exist, especially as a society's norms tend towards the violent and confrontational. If everybody was armed, robbery would become more violent, in order to forestall any retaliation. All that could be prevented would be an insignificant number of non-armed robberies. For a while. Until the escalation of violence would put citizens on the defensive, with no way of defending themselves.

Of course, I may be wrong, but guns seem on the most part to be a throwback to a society where violence escalation, not de-escalation, was the solution to its ills. The reality of everyday life may seem to demand protection, but should the solution not be in the enforcement of the social contract, rather than a throwback to an age where guns were necessary because they were the only realistic means of protection?

These days, it sometimes appears that guns are more a placebo, a comfort blanket providing protection from imaginary demons as much as real threats. There are quite possibly studies out there demonstrating that gun owners are more rarely the victim of robberies or violent crimes. Good for them.

But then I guess that every country in the world ought to have very short-range nuclear weapons as well. If another country abuses them, the neighbouring states can instantly destroy it.

What? You say that much evil can come of such weapons if placed in everybody's hands? You say that innocent people can be harmed by the actions of few?

I wonder what the shooting victims' families think of that.

X.