working toward the world we wish to see

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This post is a response to my dear friend Mike Bennett’s response to my own “screw the second amendment” post.  Read it before reading mine if you have any hope of these next few minutes being beneficial.

Mike begins his critique with the following summary of my views: “even with the best intentions (those of protecting liberty, property, people, etc.), lax gun control will result in more violence as more lives will be lost to guns.  Banning guns will, in effect, send the message that it is not acceptable to use guns to harm other people, and further Christ’s non-violent redemption of humanity.”  I maintain that greater volume of guns in the public realm will result in higher incidence of violence.  However, I did not explicitly state that banning guns will send the right message.  I can see how it appeared to be implied, but that was not my intention.    As for furthering Christ’s non-violent redemption of humanity, this cannot be done merely by prevention, but through something like attitude and behavior reform.  My main point was to call into question our continued use of guns and violence as the means for solving some of our problems in this world.

Mike raises an excellent point to which I briefly alluded, that even in removing guns from the hands of the general public,  “violence will still be perpetuated, only without the means of combatting it.”  However, this seems to presuppose the method for combatting violence to be in itself violent.  Perhaps it is better to say that we would be left without the means to combat our assailants, those who wish to do us harm, rather than violence itself.  Or perhaps the violence toward violence is the way to bring an end to the whole system.  That question is still up for debate in my mind.  (If you have the answer, please share.)

Mike’s central point regards the legislation of such ideas, ideas which seem to be of moral character based on religious belief.  He is right to say that “we are not living in a theocracy” and “Christianity is not the state religion in the U.S., nor should it be”.  However, the apparent conclusion drawn from this is that “it is irresponsible for Christians to attempt to enforce any sort of belief on the legislation of our country.”  I take “belief” in this context to refer to those beliefs held exclusively by Christians, or those beliefs Christians profess by which non-Christians should not be forced to live.  While this seems only fair, this anti-violent jargon need not be seen as only a Christian principle.  Certainly I draw my own understanding of non-violence from the Christian story, but this is not to say that it necessarily proceeds from faith in Christ or is exclusive to those who call themselves Christians.

We have already legislated against violence in establishing a system of penalty for those who commit violent acts.  Perhaps this is because of some kind of moral compass which indicates that violence is wrong, or rather, that unjust violence is wrong (of course, this opens up another area of discussion entirely, which we will avoid for the time being).  Or perhaps this is because society can only function if violence is not rampant.  The point I’m trying to make is that non-violence or anti-violence need not be legislated on moral grounds, but rather on the grounds of working toward the state we wish to see.  It doesn’t have to be a religiously or morally charged issue; perhaps we could say that violence is detrimental to society, so let’s do everything we can to get rid of it.  We’re already doing this to an extent.  Of course, more can always be done.  The question is whether government legislation is the best or most efficient way to accomplish this.

Again, Mike is right to quote the NRA slogan “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  Yes, people kill people, but unfortunately they’ve been using guns to do so.  And yes, “even if all handguns on the earth suddenly evaporated, . . . murders in the U.S. would still continue”.  However, my hunch is that murder rate would drop dramatically.

Murder is not the only issue though.  What about violence people do toward themselves?  A recent article points to suicide as responsible for over 50% of handgun deaths.  This seems significant.  One would think that restricted access to guns would result in a lower suicide rate.  But maybe people would resort to other methods.  However, this article says that most other methods are far less lethal than guns.  It is difficult to draw sound conclusions from statistics alone, but it’s at least worth considering.

All this to say, I neither support nor oppose a gun ban.  Banning weapons will not put an end to violence.  As I concluded in my last post, ultimately it is up to us how we will proceed.  If we can teach our children that violence is not the way to solve problems, perhaps in generations to come this paradigm of violence can be phased out.  And no, as Mike says, the government cannot bear the responsibility of the parent and the public that of the child.  In the long run the correction of human behavior is far better than simple disarmament.  Unfortunately this takes an indefinite period of time.

Thanks for the thoughts, Mike.

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