Getting It Wrong

“A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.” Seneca

The violence over the last few months has been a dominant content of the news, the other being affordability; later regarding the latter. The victims vary; a corporate exec, evangelist, students, scientist, Hollywood icons, soldiers…what also varies are the weapons used, which really is the least important issue as Seneca points out in the opening quote, or as the police often say, “It’s never the gun, it’s always the gunman.”

The common sense about focusing on the human element and not inanimate objects gets lost in the political narratives.  In Australia, after the Bondi Beach Massacre, the Prime Minister goes on about more gun and speech controls to address violence, ignoring of course that criminals and terrorists are what they are because they live outside the law; such policies put citizens who obey the laws such policies create even more at risk.

Excluding self-defense, which is a moral imperative, violence is the greatest evil humans commit against each other. The choice of tools is ultimately irrelevant, and the progress of technology will always provide better tools. The fact that gun control laws do nothing about controlling guns except to limit the ability of the law abiding to protect themselves against the lawless, who always have access to guns because they do not live within the law.

The reality of life is that there are good people and there are bad people, and as Aristotle so wisely observed, “It is our choice of good or evil that determines our character, not our opinion about good or evil.” The role of the police is to preserve and protect. Once violence is committed, the weapon of choice can provide forensic information to help the police get the bad guys, but no longer prevents the violence already committed; for that to happen, defense falls on each individual, and for that very reason we have the second amendment.  

Those that think that gun control laws will prevent violence, or censorship can control hate are getting things all wrong; as if cars are the issue and not drunk driving, or pens misspell words and not illiterate people. Everything man can make is inanimate without the use of it by humans; divorcing humans from the equation is like transferring the responsibility of human action to things, instead of people taking on responsibility for their own actions. Government overreach on constitutional rights does not exactly endear us to their good faith in our wellbeing, contrary to the narrative spin.

“Never trust a government that doesn’t trust its own citizens with guns.” Benjamin Franklin