The Damage

So here we are again, after two days days of the same tired, old, rhetoric I have to address gun violence again.


I. Psychology & Reality
"Guns don't kill people. People kill people." Nope,  this is misunderstanding of thought and event.  An act requires intent and means.  The actual event which kills a victim is a physical chain: looking back at this chain victim>wound>bullet>gun>shooter.  The kill is done by the bullet fired from the gun (both as designed to perform this purpose). The gun is the means used by the shooter to turn intent into event. So, while the shooter originates the act, it is the gun which transforms it into a physical event with a causal result.  Furthermore, many killings are the result of loaded guns left available for children to find, which they improperly discharged.  There is no intent at all in this event.  It would be stupid to claim that in this case "children kill people." The act is reduced to an event, and it is only the means which come into play, which makes it far more relevant than intent.

Without the means, the event would not occur. Like any piece of technology, the gun transforms the individual into a cybernetic being.  That is, it enhances the capability of the human form.  The mind controls the gun, but the gun enacts the thought.  Without the presence of the weapon, the form capable of exerting this power does not obtain.  Modern NRA-style slogan thinking is contrary to historic thought such as the samurai code, which views the sword as doing the killing, not the warrior.

Those who are arguing to combat ideology rather than activity have it backwards.  Freedom must apply to thought before action.  Rather than restrict thought, which it cannot and should not do, for ethical and political reasons, the law must prevent, to the best of its ability, the realization of thought into malicious action,  There is no sense in allowing evil actions, which have real world consequences, to occur for the sake of freedom, while restricting and controlling thought, which even when it is evil or malicious cannot have a consequential effect on a victim without realization.

II. Laws
"Just because something is illegal doesn't mean someone will stop doing it."  Agreed, but this is a misunderstanding of law.  Laws are not designed to make an individual pre-examine their actions, reflect, and then decide what is in their best interest - at least in immediate situations of violence, desperate acts, or willful disregard for social good. A common psychological property of the criminally-minded is the lack of understanding between cause and effect. So, laws are in no way going to help them make immediate decisions.  But, legislation does have an effect on the physical reality which provides the conditions for the act to emerge.  In this case, the law can hinder the proliferation of guns which get into the hands of the shooter, and limit his ability to carry out the malicious act. The law deals with the physical reality, the objective, not the mental, which is an isolated subjective.

"Banning doesn't matter, people will get them anyway." Then why should we make anything illegal?  There are all kinds of laws limiting personal arms.  Fully automatic weapons, explosives, etc are strictly regulated and not easily available even in black markets.  There is clearly a divide between what we would call military grade weapons and personal arms.  Within the fuzzy middle space, the exact position of the line seems too inclusive. It is easy to put hunting rifles and many classes of handgun for personal protection on one side, and F-16s and AH-64 Apaches on the other side (even though I would like to personally own these, military grade equipment is not defensible as personal arms, existing without being subjected to a large chain of oversight).  In the middle, resides arms like the AR-15.  Historically considered personal and constitutionally legal because of its semi-automatic nature, I think this class of weapons has been inappropriately categorized on the wrong side of the line.  Classifying arms as personal or military along an automatic/semi-automatic divide is misguided.  The argument revolving around "Assault rifles" is claimed to be an aesthetic one by gun advocates.  Apparently gun enthusiasts who shoot what they consider to be basic rifles like to make their guns look like "assault weapons"  Why? To play soldier?  This isn't an innocent game, and not the world of make-believe.  But, I agree that we should not be legislating arms based on what they look like.  Why are we not discussing muzzle velocity, firing rate, magazine capacity, etc?  These are the factors that increase lethality.  And it is lethality that should determine the class of weapon.  The M-16, the standard of the US military for decades, has similar parameters and uses semi-automatic and three-round burst modes, which have been concluded to be of more accurate use.  A weapon with automatic mode does not make it an appreciably different type of weapon. With something that can fire 13 rounds per second, the technical aspects of the firing pin are irrelevant, the result of of the weapon as it is are very deadly.  I would like to hear from veterans, who used their gun as their most significant tool in doing their job, in regards to why that tool, which needs to be as lethal and effective as it can be, is something that needs to exist in civilian life? I would think that of anyone, a soldier would best understand the difference between combat and civilized life, and why such arms should only reside in the hands of highly trained professionals.

I concede that violent events can never be pre-neutralized, but the point of living within the safety of civilization is that the laws will reduce the range of possible events, and eliminate the likelihood of the most egregious ones.  Someone can always inflict harm with a screwdriver (maybe), or a knife.  But using a melee weapon limits the damage, maybe one or two kills are possible with several wounded.  Homemade explosive devices and handguns slightly more.  Comparing the Boston Bombing: two bombs only yielded three deaths.  When we get to high-lethality rifles, then we start looking at much higher death tolls, and this is the point where we must address public safety. It does not have to be an all-or-nothing result, but rather eliminate the arms which produces the most public threat but produces the least social good, without hindering the activities of hunting and reasonable self-defense engaged in by qualified citizens. [1]

III: Rights
In the conflict of rights, we must give priority to the actual before the potential found only in hypotheticals.  Why should one’s right to be safe from an actual threat be callously and negligently ignored in favor of the rights of someone else who might one day need to exercise their own rights to avoid threat?  What is immediate and active must be considered first without being subjugated to the passive world of speculation.  The toll of the lives that will be lost in events in the near future can be mitigated rather than ignored in favor of someone's future attempt at self-defense, which can be prepared through other means.  The right to life far exceeds the secondary additions to the constitution which produces a public threat, a threat to that most basic right.

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The events of Orlando have reminded me of these Marillion lyrics, which mostly pertain to the Cold War, but still have significance and resonate about the loss resulting from the conflict with those who emanate an adverse ideology filled with anger and hate, and externalize that internal lack through violence and nihilistic destructive impulses:

And we wake up without you
We wake up without you
With a hole in our hearts

You mad dog shaven head bottle-boy freaks
In Martens and khaki, drunk on sake
You stare at yourself in the cruel flush of dawn
Terrified, sunken eyed, withered and drawn
The butcher, the baker, the munitions maker
The over-achiever, the armistice breaker
The freebase instructor, the lightning conductor
The psycho, the sailor, the tanker, the tailor
The black market mailer
The quick and the dead
The spotlight dancer
The quick and the dead
We wake up without you
With a hole in our hearts

-Marillion “Berlin” 1989

[1] It's very clear that individuals can be denied constitutional rights.  Felons, drug addicts, mental disabled people are all excluded.  I don't see why stronger psychological testing of gun purchasers, and a stricter mental requirement, would be any different legally