Another day, another tragedy. Another media circus. Another opportunity for the collectivist ‘ban everything’ brigade to wallow in false emotion and wave their nasty anti freedom agenda in everyone’s face.
27 people, many of them children, died not simply because an Aspergers sufferer got hold of his Mothers guns, shot her, then went to shoot up the school where she worked. Nor were Thomas Hamilton (Dunblane), Anders Breivik (Norway), and Robert Ryan (Hungerford) so simple as the ‘nutter with guns’ assertion. Nor countless others which do not receive anywhere near the same media attention. Guns are used to kill, therefore guns are bad, ban guns, goes the argument. The same case could be made against Sabatier kitchen knives, ceremonial swords, ice axes, steel capped safety boots, glass bottles, logging axes or rocks. Or even a qualification in martial arts or possession of exceptional physical strength. Amongst many others.
Yet none of the calls for regulation will address the underlying issue. Why certain people go AWOL and lash out blindly. If you choose to read this book by David M Buss, you will be told that the human mind is designed for homicide.` We are killers. All of us. It’s a feature of the standard human psyche. Yet most would faint at the very notion because our killer within is only unleashed under certain, very specific, circumstances. Most will never, ever, find themselves in those circumstances, or more to the point, never let themselves be pushed that far. They’re too well balanced and socialised.
So what is the single thing that all these multiple, and seemingly random killings have in common? Guns? Well, as a tool, certainly, but that is only superficially true. The real motivation can be summed up in one word; frenzy. A mania, or unbalanced state of mind. Extreme, uncontrolled anger unleashed. To use the vernacular; ‘Going postal’. Yet even that is not anywhere near the whole answer. Where does the frustration come from that generates these tragedies? For me, this comment over at ZeroHedge is as close to the true answer as I’ve seen anywhere else;
As long as they keep focusing on the tool rather than behavior, culture and personal responsibility there will be no progress.
Think about it.
The vast majority will never resort to physical violence simply because someone looks at us the ‘wrong’ way. Generally speaking, people either fear the consequences or such an action would never occur to them in the first place. Offering physical harm to others is not something the average human does as a first resort. We are taught not to. Well, most of us. We are taught to talk rather than fight or shoot. To voice our frustrations before we hit boiling and the lid blows off. To have acceptable social outlets.
All the bans, regulation and repressive rules will not solve anything because the real issues are more deeply rooted. Banning legal firearms will leave the only guns in the hands of Government agencies or criminals. Some would argue there’s little difference between these two factions, apart from the membership criteria.
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