Faced with mass murders (e.g. Columbine, Aurora, VA Tech, Tuscon, Oak Creek)--62 over the past 30 years--coupled with the gun violence that happens every day we haven't sought to understand these horrific events within the larger context from which they emerge. Until very recently America has been unaware that it has a problem.
According to the FBI Uniform
Crime Report , firearms were used in fully 2 of 3 murders in
2011. Not only is the U.S. a more
violent society it also presents a strong demand for guns: By about 3 to 1
there are more licensed firearms dealers in the U.S. than there are McDonald's
restaurants. Though we love
burgers we just adore guns!
What have we been
thinking?
Being individualistically oriented and tending to reductionism as a problem solving approach we've turned our focus on the individual who committed the murder--as if these are all independent and unrelated to our culture. Thus we have turned a blind eye to the societal context only seeking information about the characteristics of the individual person committing the crime--asking why did he do it. We frame each event as the specific individual's problem and this keeps us from understanding the system of causes, and so the pattern continues.
In the case of recent mass killings, some have brought attention (and rightfully so) to the fact that mass murders in the U.S. are not just a gun control issue but rather they are reflective of a mental health issue. Because of our society's proclivity for reductionism and its associated either/or thinking many have shown the light of attention on mental illness as the problem thus keeping the prevalence and loose regulation of guns in society in darkness. Unfortunately this can be the seed of a growing miss-belief that guns have no causal effect here that it all resides with mental illness.
Guns don't kill people; people kill people! The argument continues: Yes mentally ill people with guns is a danger but (and here lies the kicker) we can never eliminate the possibility of mentally ill people from committing mass murder with guns so we mustn't infringe upon the right of law-abiding citizens to own any kind of gun they desire. What this is saying is that a gun is neither good or bad it is just an object that people use; so it isn't the gun but the person that is the problem. The implication being that guns--buying, having, owning, and carrying guns of any sort--are not the problem. It is the particular person that is the problem. Is this argument reflective of good solid logic and problem solving or is it reflective of avoidance behavior and problem deflection? Would we be reasonable if we made the same argument about drugs and drug use?
Further there are those who don't wish to see any real change so they employ a line of thought--that is a defense--where the only real solution is a 100% solution. The only solution they will support must completely eliminate the chance of murder by gun. In other words if whatever is proposed will not stop with 100% certainty every person who might want to use a firearm to kill innocent people then what is proposed is grossly inadequate, it can't be a solution. Until such a solution is provided nothing should or can be done--status quo is sustained.
Yet another argument reflective of the relationship we as a society have with guns goes something like this: if more people carried a gun (to protect their self and others around them) then there would be fewer murders--it would be a deterrent to gun violence. The answer to too many guns in the hands of some people is to have more people with guns. Apart from the fact that accurately shooting a gun is not as simple and easy as what you see on television and in the movies, this argument rests on the false logic that having a gun deters others from bringing a gun to a gunfight.
An argument based on false logic is simply a strategy to turn the attention away from the system of causes and the creation of an effective solution to a well-defined problem. Offering up a red herring keeps people from defining the problem, identifying the system of causes of the problem and taking appropriate and meaningful action. It is no wonder we've been mired in this for so long.
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