Guns in the real and the bizarro world

August 25th, 2005 at 21:47 Björn Hallberg

Right Thinking, among others, are cheering over what they perceive as the end for gun control advocacy. Namely an article in the National Review by John Lott. Conservatives, conservatives. And when they’re finished applauding the efforts of the like-minded and complacently conclude that this means that they are now correct beyond a doubt, they turn to lambasting those that actually believe in gun control. That is the rest of the world .. including the half of America which believes that some sort of limitations ought to apply.

I guess there is nothing new under the sun so far. But I notice one thing that has changed. There is a new talking point in town. Because you know that once these conservatives find what they perceive as a new angle, they are never going to let go of it. No matter how stupid it is.

This new notion, old as it may be but fairly sensational to me at least and those of us that don’t live in bizarro land, is that guns rather than take lives actually save lives. It’s the old 360 approach. Once you’ve lost the argument, you point to something else. According to Lott, Canada’s rise in crime is in fact due to their gun-control measures. And even though he notes that it is criminal gangs rather than average Joes who make up the statistics, he thinks that arming these John Does would somehow make Canada safer. This is an awkward idea not just because it is unproven, despite Lott’s hilarious claims, but also because it falls into the conservative tradition of not wanting to deal with reasons behind crime. Lott asserts that the “states in the U.S. that have experienced the fastest growth rates in gun ownership during the 1990s have experienced the biggest drops in murders and other violent crimes” but fails to provide a source for that particular claim which is among the most spectacular in the story.

This is also in line with Larry Elder’s new movie Michael & Me, where the right-wing talk radio and the gun-lobby attacks Michael Moore, a couple of years late.

Larry wanted to ask him one basic question: “You tell us how many gun deaths there are in America, but how many Americans are alive because they were able to use a gun for self-defense?” Moore concludes that America has “too many guns.” But does it? Larry made this film in an attempt to answer that question. Political pundits divide the country into blue states and red states. The red states feel alienated by the likes of liberal demagogues like Michael Moore. Many Americans own firearms, don’t support additional gun control laws, live in one of some 34 states that allow citizens to carry concealed weapons, and support the Second Amendment.

You don’t have to go further than the description to realize the kind of innuendoes that are presented. I mean, how many Americans died because they caught friendly fire or someone losing his temper? Or were unprepared to use a gun properly thus upping the danger an already dangerous situation, with an armed criminal for instance. John Doe is hardly going to meet gang criminality. Just small time crime where perpetrators have it just as easy finding a gun as the would be victim.
And is it wise to recommend that people go head to head with sometimes hardened criminals? Isn’t that why we have the police? After all, most crime does not revolve around killing the victim. But when a gun gets in the picture, it could very well become a new objective. A poignant question is how many Americans that got hurt or killed trying to play hero but overextended themselves.
The real twister here is that there ought to be more guns. That is how they explain any hitches in the system as it is. If it seems that guns are a problem, it’s because some traitors don’t own guns. Or only have one gun that is actually locked in a safe place when it should be under the pillow. There aren’t enough guns! Guns, guns, guns. It’s the guns stupid! That if anything reveals how the right operates. On a similar note, I have seen globalization proponents use the same approach for explaining away the inherent problems of the capitalism. The answer according to them is that we need more capitalism. And then they turn to cherry-pick statistics and find a narrow enough perspective to prove their ideological point.

Well, correlation does not imply causality. In this case, it is likely that states that did encourage gun ownership also have the death penalty and harsher prison terms. Those ideals often go hand in hand. Could not that be the reason for the drop in violent crime? I’m not ready to accept that either, but it’s worth noting that there are further conservative options for why violent crime is down.

But it often seems logical for the feebleminded who are grasping for straws in a world that does not conform to their values. That is kind of always the thing with these conservatives. Always the bizarro approach that goes against all common sense. Guns are great because they save lives. Invading first is great because it saves lives. Evolution is not working because they have some other system which can only be believed in but never proven. It does get old and predictable after a while.

The author notes that “the solution to crime is often homegrown.” As is the cause. And granted the rise of crime in Canada may not be due to direct influx of people and weapons from the US. Canada is still dangerously close to one of the hotbeds of religious violence and bigotry that we have today. That has got to account for something. But aside from speculating, which I’ll leave to my conservative nemeses, one can conclude that there are many other reasons why crime fluctuates. And that America should tread carefully in this area as they have just as much to be proud of as they have to be ashamed of.

But, on topic, the issue of guns is actually really, really simple. Like anyone with a smidgen of psychological knowledge will be able to tell you, people aren’t comfortable around guns. Research has shown with ample clarity that subjects behave far more aggressively or attribute more aggressive characteristics and show aggressive attitudes in the presence of guns. Because we are all aware of what guns do. For that simple reason guns must not be allowed to set the agenda. Unless your idea of the perfect world is a scorched Mad Max scenery with every man for himself.

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