One Word: Guns!

This is off topic, but really?

One of the defining characteristics of the modern Republican party is its gun worship.  Any time we have a major crime involving shooting – which is far too frequent for an erstwhile civilized country – somewhere one of the Republican candidates for the presidency will pop up and argue how it would all have been so different had the kids in the classroom or their teachers, or the bystanders elsewhere, been armed to the teeth.

Because that makes so much sense.

I have no idea where this obsession with violence came from. I imagine it must be American history.

It makes no sense at all. None.

It takes about two seconds, maybe less, to realize just how stupid the idea is. Imagine the scene in the cinema where a recent shooting took place. The crazy gunman enters intent on mayhem. Do we seriously think that someone that deranged and irrational will suddenly stop at the door and turn away because of the possibility that someone inside has a gun on them?

Of course not.

The more probable outcome would be even more chaos and greater loss of life.

Why?

Because the kind of person who walks around with a gun is also someone who is inclined to use it. They are predisposed to violence. Why else own a gun? Even if they proclaim it is in self-defense, their predilection is clear: violence has to be met with counter-violence. What other calculus is there for owning a gun? After all, guns have one purpose: to do harm. So even by owning one you have declared your willingness to do harm. Any other reason you may come up with quickly resolves to this same answer: gun owners have declared their willingness to do harm.

So, what these crazy people who advocate greater gun ownership are really arguing is that they would encourage shoot-out justice. Like the wild west of yore.

This has always been true, but why are we afflicted with gun disease in particular presently?

Paranoia. Fear. Racism. And more fear.

Owning a gun to defend your home – think about the fear embedded in that statement – has been shown to be ineffective. It doesn’t stop crime and instead increases mightily your chance of doing self-harm via an accident.

Owning a gun in public is even more absurd. Think about it. Are you going to engage in a gunfight at the local mall? The local bar? In the classroom full of kids? No, you’re not. And if you are, then you are a potential criminal. What happens if you shoot the ‘wrong’ person? How do you know who to shoot? Would you be able to react properly? No. Of course you wouldn’t. As we know from the spate of police shootings here even the people we train to know what to do often screw it up. So why would an average gun-nut be better? They wouldn’t.

Then there’s the American urge to export its gun mania. This is even more parochial and stupid. Most countries have grown up beyond gun obsession.

Take Donald Trump. Please. His answer to the horrible terrorism in Paris is simply to say that if the people at the concert had guns it wouldn’t have happened.

As if terrorists would be put off by the thought of concert-goers armed to the teeth. These terrorists we looking for death and to cause the greatest harm along the way. What better way for them to go down but by taking a whole lot of gun toting concert-goers in a massive bloodbath of a shoot-out?

The whole idea is so ridiculous that it scarcely requires comment.

Except in America it has strong political traction on the right. Which is testimony to the depth to which American culture can descend sometimes. America has an exceptional attachment to violence. Which when stoked by demagogues and fear mongering can erupt into a very ugly and dangerous social cancer.

Exceptional indeed. An embarrassment certainly. And so few politicians want to stand up against it. So, instead, we have one word to say in times of crisis: guns!