Is gun control the answer to rampant public violence?

In the beginning ,10 BC (Before Colt), gun control in America may well have been a good thing. However, the growing nation chose another way to cope with the violence that plagued its new frontiers. Lawmakers recognized that they were impotent to police the far-flung corners of the country and it would have to be largely left to the citizens themselves to protect themselves from the savagery that was rife in the new nation.

This idea of self-determination regarding personal safety was bolstered by the new Constitution that was drawn up expressly to ensure that an unjust government could be thrown out of office, by force of arms if necessary, by an aggrieved people.

Thus the concept of personal responsibility for ones own safety and that of ones own family was born. Almost anyone carried a gun and any outlaw was liable to have a short life and nasty end if he was too handy with his own weapon.

Samuel Colt’s masterpiece was his fabulously named Peacemaker. This large revolver was an assurance of peace in the valleys in which it was carried.

Delicate ladies suddenly became the equal of any beast of a man, merely by carrying small but high-powered handguns in their petticoats.

Sheriffs , Marshals and Texas Rangers became the hero’s of the day, hunting down and often shooting the outlaws who preyed upon the weak and robbed the banks of the rich.

And herein lay the worm in the bud. Many people began relying on the heroics of the lawmen to save them from the predations of the outlaws. First it was people disinclined to help themselves, or those of such a passive nature that they couldn’t conceive of themselves shooting a fellow human being. They began abdicating their responsibilities to themselves, their families and communities.

As far as these meek souls were concerned, guns were fine, but not really for them. Guns should be for lawmen and banned for everyone else.

It was now of course far too late. Pandora was out of her box and guns were everywhere. The state may be able to confiscate the guns from the law-abiding, but by definition, the lawless would pay any new law scant notice. So at best, the nation would have a fully armed criminal class and a fully armed police force with a helpless citizenry totally at the mercy of police efficiency and the whims of the criminal classes. Unless the citizenry were content with paying for a lawman for every criminal, violence was going to be the winner every time and the citizenry was going to be doing most of the bleeding.

So, here we are, fifteen years into the next millennium with America completely at odds with itself over the atrocious violence that appalls the nation on a weekly basis.

One side, the Abdicators, want guns removed from the citizenry and the other, the Responsibles, want everyone to carry a gun.

And no-one seems to think this strange.

This nation of lumberjacks are refusing to see the trees for the wood. The problem is not about how many or how few guns there are, it is about the quality of the people who are let loose on the streets.

America does a sterling job of controlling its criminals with one of the worlds highest prison populations. In America 724 people per 100 000 are in jail compared to the worlds next highest, Russia, with 581 per 100 000.

This means that America is very good at catching people who have committed a crime and putting them away.

The problem with the random massacres dotting the nations malls and schools is that they are usually one-time crimes and the perpetrators have seldom done anything to attract the attentions of the police prior to their random violent final acts.

Police forces are not designed in a way that easily allows them to apprehend people who have not yet committed a crime and detain them.

This used to be the job of the community working in conjunction with the health authorities. The psychotic and unhinged were known to the community, and if they seemed to be a potential threat to themselves or their community, they would be committed to a mental health facility by their family, friends or even sometimes voluntarily. This no longer appears to be working.

Parents abdicate all responsibility for their children’s mental health. Teachers either ignore the warning signs, or more likely are not trained to notice them. The culture of human rights above all other considerations make it very difficult to deal with the mentally ill even if they are spotted in time.

America needs to put a third option on the table when choosing what to do about rampant violence.

Keep sick people away from guns.

Not only guns, but knives, explosives, airplanes, motor vehicles and anything else they can do violence with.

Parents need to be forced to take responsibility for their offspring’s. They need to be made responsible for their children’s mental health and they need to be prosecuted if they do not monitor their children’s mental health in the same way that they would be prosecuted for child neglect if they did not deal with a child’s physical wellbeing.

Teachers need to be trained to detect mental health problems in their charges and communities need to again become involved in caring for the mentally sick and protecting themselves from the worst of it.