The fact that we want guns is.
America is paralyzed by debates on gun violence. Some arguments by politicians after a gun massacre about why we shouldn’t enact new legislation around guns boil down to the fact that gun control legislation X wouldn’t have stopped massacre Y.
This is probably true. The relationship between a piece of legislation and any specific massacre is tenuous at best. But the reason we have a gun violence problem in this country is not because of any one policy, or the availability of guns. It’s because we have a culture that values guns and actively sees gun violence as a solution to problems. You can see this in our media, you can see this in our politics, you can see this in gun rallies and open carry demonstrations.
The prevailing sentiment in some cultures is that we can work together through government to solve problems peacefully. The prevailing sentiment in America is that you may need a gun to protect yourself from your government.
“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.”
We’re not good in this country at seeing solutions that are a long way off. We want relationships between actions we take and solutions to be immediate. Gun legislation isn’t necessarily important in making changes that take effect tomorrow, it’s about reducing the prevalence and availability of guns, and reducing our cultural obsession with guns so that 20 years from now, our children will see the reduction in crime.
