Gunning For Change

From the Aurora Theater shooting to the horrifying Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy, the widely publicized mass shootings of 2012 provoke an important social question on whether or not the Second Amendment right to bear arms should be readdressed. In the wake of these tragedies, politicians and newscasters from President Barack Obama to Piers Morgan have declared their support of stricter gun control as a way to prevent further bloodshed. But in their desperation to prevent another year as rank with gun violence as 2012, many Americans, caught up in anti- or pro-gun rhetoric, have ignored statistical evidence. Furthermore, America’s growing association of guns with mass shootings has led many to declare them as inherently evil and dangerous weapons, when, in reality, they retain an important role in American society.

In 2008, offenders carried firearms in only eight percent of violent crimes in the United States (436,000), while civilian-owned guns were used in self-defense roughly 1,480,000 times, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Though these numbers account for extremely small percentages of the nearly 300 million firearms in our country, the fact that a handgun is three times more likely to be used in self-defense than in crime serves as a reminder that guns are multipurpose tools. Two weeks ago, a Georgia gun-owner shot, wounded and helped detain a crowbar-wielding robber after he broke into her house and threatened her two small children. Guns are not intrinsically evil objects, but rather tools that can be used for self-defense or evil, depending on the goals of the individuals wielding them.

From hunting rifles to the cap guns we played with as kids, guns play a huge role in American society, shaping our national identity and affording a sense of independent protection to each citizen. Today, more than 40 percent of American households contain loaded firearms. Due to their proliferation and perceived importance, guns are simply not disappearing. Strict gun control, therefore, doesn’t prevent access to guns; it merely prevents legal access to guns. Indeed, more than two-thirds of guns used in violent crimes are stolen or purchased illegally. In the 1970’s, when handguns were banned in Washington, D.C., the rate of firearm-related murders rose to average 73 percent higher than at the outset of the law, demonstrating the complete ineffectiveness of banning and restricting access to firearms. The idea that deranged individuals who ignore laws and morality to achieve murder, robbery, rape and assault will obey gun control laws or fail to carry out gun violence due to inconvenience is a ludicrous assumption. To quote conservative columnist Kurt Schlichter, “bad people are going to have guns. And if you’ve ever smoked a joint, you are disqualified from arguing that prohibition makes illegal things unattainable.”

Instead of addressing the inanimate tools used in these attacks, we must instead focus on the perpetrators firing them and what feelings of social isolation and detachment led them to commit such heinous acts. Instead of addressing gun proliferation, we must instead focus our attention on the lack of community and empathy that encourages our neighbors and compatriots to violently communicate their frustrations against society. We in the United States provide little sympathy to people who don’t “fit in,” who can’t deal with stress and who suffer from mental illness. As Americans become more distant from their communities and more pressured by society to be “normal,” individuals with social, economic or mental problems preventing their conformity are thrown to the periphery. For these outcasts alienated within their own nation, the sensationalism surrounding violence in American society convinces them that murder may be the only way they’ll be noticed.

Nevertheless, nearly all of the 16 mass shootings in 2012 were carried out with the help of semi-automatic weapons, guns designed explicitly to fire multiple, deadly shots without reloading. Semi-automatic weapons like those used in Aurora and Newtown are fundamentally different from the rifles or handguns many of us own; they are not tools of defense, but needless tools of destruction that present far too great of a risk for Americans, whether Republican or Democrat, to defend. Simply put, James Holmes and Adam Lanza would not have taken as many victims without semi-automatic weapons, and there is no justifiable reason why any American civilian requires one. While the National Rifle Association (NRA) has taken a stance against any and all forms of gun restrictions and regulations, I sincerely hope that politicians assert their independence from this over-powerful interest group and defend only the rights of Americans to possess handguns and rifles. Our Founding Fathers did not seek to defend the right to a semi-automatic bushmaster on your mantle in 1791. If gun owners want to successfully defend their Second Amendment rights, they must recognize that their greatest threat isn’t the liberal political machine — it’s the endless mass shootings carried out with the aid of semi-automatic weapons.