It is hard to know what to think or say about the most
recent random shooting/slaughter of people in the USA. One can make all of the
usual sounds of sadness or empathy that are spouted out at these kinds of times;
one can express the shock of hearing the news and the frustration that these
events seems to happen without a rational (if the words random shooting and
rational can be used in the same paragraph) reason or explanation. But these
events happen with such frequency that the words have lost their value. How many
times can you say you are sorry that some stranger was killed before one becomes
numb to the events, the horror? How many time can you utter those platitudes
before one is just saying words that no one, for good reason, is listening to?
The pundits roll out their all-too-well worn phrases that
argue that we need to do more to stop these random types of killing but any
suggestion that they make has been made both made and ignored before.
Politicians will wring their hands, ask their God for blessings and support in
these trying times, and then not use what few god-given brains they have to
start to address the underlying problems. Only the most naive person would ever
assume that any of these words would have any effect; even the least cynical
among us will assume that it will happen again and again and again.
There will be, of course, a debate about gun control. The anti- gun lobby will demand
tighter controls on who buys guns, and what type of guns can be owned by
citizens; the pro-gun lobby will argue that guns don't kill people - people do .
The same lobby will argue that as criminals, who are by definition people who don't
follow the laws - will ignore the laws and that therefore the best protection
is for everyone to have a gun. At the end of this debate, if citizens of the
USA are lucky nothing will have changed - if they are unlucky the laws will
have changed - making it even easier to buy and carry a gun.
I understand that some of my neighbours to the south are
committed to their belief that their constitution guarantees them the absolute
right to own as many guns as they wish to. I do not understand that need - but
I accept it as their reality. I am quite sure that the vast majority of gun
owners in the USA - including those who own a large number of guns - are concerned
and alarmed at the number of people who are being killed by solo gunmen acting
out their own personal fantasies or nightmares. I am equally as sure that many
of those gun owners deeply believe that they are not part of the problem. And
for the most part they are not...except for the fact that they refuse to allow
their communities, including their politicians, to have the debate as to how to
resolve this ongoing issue of citizens killing other citizens for no apparent
reason.
As long as the debate is framed by the issue of what is or
is not guaranteed by the constitution, and that such rights can never be taken
away -it will be impossible to talk about insuring that people who do not need
guns, people who are struggling with mental health issues, people who are bound
and determined to force their values on to others and people who are afraid of
change do not have access to guns. The debate should not be framed as one where
some people want to take away rights from some other people (although lord
knows the USA does that fairly constantly), but rather ensuring that people are
safe from those who do not have the capacity to act in a safe and rational
fashion.
Owning a gun in the USA may be a constitutional right - but
surely along with all rights comes the moral and legal obligation to not hurt
other people. Gun owners need to get over their paranoia of being picked on by
a few liberal democrats and start to worry about the safety of themselves and
their children. If they joined the
debate - they might be surprised to find out that most in the anti-gun lobby
could not care less about how many hunting guns their neighbour had - as long
as they were locked up safely, but rather they just want to be sure that their neighbour
does have weapons whose only function is to kill as many people in the shortest
time possible or that that same neighbour harboured a deadly grudge against
society.
