Fewer, not More

by Dan Masterton

When I discussed gun rights and gun violence with my high school students, I would often ask a big question: do you think gun violence is more likely to decrease with more guns or fewer guns?

Students’ answers varied, and I, as always, would reserve my personal opinions until the end, if I shared them at all. Some look to disarmament for peace while others seek to carry and self-ensure their own sense of protection. In this discussion, I would eventually share that I thought the solution to gun violence rested in decreasing the amount of guns in our society.

In an effort to bust American kids out of a narrow mindset, I would describe my year living abroad in Ireland. There, the police equivalent is the Garda Siochana, an Irish phrase that means “guardian of the peace.” Your typical beat cops and visible officers carried no guns, just a nightstick and pepper spray among their belt’s worth of equipment. In an extreme situation, they could call in tactical support with weaponry, but it was far from the default action, and a rare occurrence. Typically, this story was met with a combination of disbelief and skepticism.

We as Americans have an inherited deep entitlement to gun rights. Because of the context of our country’s founding, our early leaders enshrined a right to bear arms in our Bill of Rights. In the centuries since, I believe that concept has been warped, extrapolated, and placed on an undue pedestal.

When we are the only country in the world that faces mass shootings on a regular basis – avoidable tragedies that often kill not just adults but children – the root causes must be examined. While mental health, racism and racial conflicts, and other exacerbating factors are at play, we have to apply Occam’s Razor: it’s the easy access to very dangerous guns with little to no oversight that is the simplest explanation and at the heart of the problem. Guns may not kill people, but people with guns certainly do kill people. And guns provide an easy avenue by which white supremacists, racists, and vigilantes turn evil thoughts into profoundly evil actions.

I have never been more struck by an editorial board than when America Magazine came out with a profound suggestion for the plague of gun violence: repeal the Second Amendment. I think this approach would not necessarily have to zero out all gun rights, but it may be one of the only ways that reasonable gun control can have a chance. Even the consensus built in the wake of mass shootings has not been sufficient to force legislative leaders to pass basic common-sense moves like requiring background checks, limiting assault-style and high-capacity weapons, and cracking down on interstate gun traffic. Stripping away this amendment would force a reset in the foundational legal arguments in favor of gun rights and perhaps create a fresh chance at a new baseline for more limited, sensible gun rights. Ideally, this would be led by ideologically conservative Americans who are responsible gun-owners and gun-users who would rather start from scratch with better societal norms than allow “bad apples” to keep skirting laws and using guns to wreak havoc. Unfortunately, this essay is nine years old, and little has changed legally while mass shootings continue barely checked.

Click the link above and read the whole essay.

On a grassroots, cultural level, an un-nuanced gun-obsession mentality is toxic. Violence is a downward spiral; if someone believes they must have a gun to protect themselves from other people who may have a gun, then we end up with a lot of guns, a much greater likelihood for gun accidents, thefts, and misuses, and a society that’s just about a powder keg. Peace can be an upward spiral; if people can shift their attitude toward disarmament and relationship building, and entrust weapon-driven protection to a reasonable police and military force, we can have fewer guns and a more sure shot at greater peace. That latter path surely sounds naive and rosy, but it's the core of the better way.

A society that insists upon unregulated gun ownership as a fundamental right is a failed experiment, indicative of excessive individualism and an aversion to becoming and being neighbors. The seamless garment of the dignity and value of life demands greater peace in society, and that can only come with common-sense gun control and a solidarity that dares to trust in things besides weapons and their veneers of false masculinity or contrived self-defense. Putting one’s faith in fewer guns may feel risky or dangerous, but it is a lesser danger and a brighter path than whatever the hell we are on now.