My Thoughts on Gun Violence

As I was browsing through the book of faces this week, I found some funny memes about the fallacy of gun control.  One of my favorites was the man-bun wearing hippie saying that he was going to castrate himself to help prevent rape.  It got me thinking, again, about why someone that otherwise seems intelligent, would believe that we can legislate violence out of our society by infringing on the rights of the non-violent.  I understand that most fans of gun control legislation are motivated by emotion, but your emotion does not trump my right to defend myself and my family.  You will not move me on this, so I might as well say that right up front.  Despite my belief in my right to protect myself with the best tools I can muster, I am still interested in why we have problems with violence in this country, and what we should, or even could, do about it.

I am not naive enough to believe that I know all that there is to know about crime and what motivates people to prey on their fellow humans.  I have some ideas about all of it, and I'm not afraid to read or listen to opposing views.  I am not, however, patient enough to listen to the emotion-based rants of those that vilify me for being a gun enthusiast and a strong proponent of our individual liberty.  What follows are my beliefs, but I think that my beliefs are based on logic, the law, and facts.

We have a violence problem in America.  Like it or not, there are people in the country that will prey upon others and commit horrible acts of violence.  They will shoot, stab, bludgeon, or choke their fellow man for seemingly trivial reasons.  Why?  If you listen to the boob tube, it's because they have ready access to guns.  I know this to be false, but that doesn't answer the question of why so many people harm each other.  I believe there are multiple contributing factors.

Video games and movies teach children that violence is fun, while devaluing human life.  Some of the most popular video game titles are what's referred to as "first person shooters," where the game is seen from the perspective of the armed attacker, gunning down other players.  Children are rewarded for violence, with increasingly realistic visual elements, scores based on how many people they've killed, and catchy music.  Action movies show the hero shooting his way through an endless stream of attackers, getting shot himself, and just walking it off, or performing a home surgical procedure with supplies picked up at a gas station.  I firmly believe that video games and movies are contributing to the desensitization of our kids to violence.  The entire entertainment industry has driven a wedge between our traditional values and our youth. 

We are experiencing a moral decline in America.  "Get with the times, John!"  I know, I know, I'm very old fashioned.  I believe in crazy things like obeying the law, there are two genders, and God.  Those that would attack our traditional values are now in firm control of the media, education, and at any given time, roughly half of our nation's legislative mechanisms.  People are shouted down and labeled if they say that they believe in traditional family values.  During the recent outbreak of the Chinese variant of the Corona-virus, Walmart was deemed safe, but churches were declared off limits by blue state leadership (and blue cities).  Marriage has eroded, and more children are being raised without strong moral influences. In 1970 there were roughly 8.2 million children in single parent households; in 2015, that number was over 20 million (stats here).  Are single parents all bad?  Of course not, but the rise in numbers is a keen indicator of the direction our society is heading.

So, seeing these elements sheds a little light as to why there is so much violence in our nation, but what do we do about it?  Can anything be done about it?  Should we ban more firearms?  That hasn't really worked out so well for England.  Each time the Brits tightened their gun control laws, they saw an increase in violent crime.  Violence in England steadily increased after their handgun ban in 1997 (stats here).  FBI data has shown that in the U.S., strengthening gun control laws had no measurable effect on preventing violent crime. 

So, again, what do we do about violence?  I would argue that education is important, and shining a positive light on traditional family values is important.  Until we wrestle control of our media and entertainment industries from far left activists, we will continue to see a decline in the morals of our citizens, and the resulting violence that is tied to that decline.