Guns

Many people believe that getting rid of guns will solve the problems that plague society today. Unfortunately these people do not understand that the actual problem is that bad people want to do harm to others (read: negatively affect another). Sadly guns are NOT the only way to cause somebody harm. While I certainly agree that if we could wave a magic wand and miraculously dis-invent the gun the world could be a safer place, I must also point out that we cannot imagine what could potentially replace the gun if it were never invented. For all we know a much worse killing machine was invented in an alternate reality where guns don’t exist.

Speaking of things that can kill, what about knives… knives kill people. Should will be trying to get rid of all of the knives in the world? You could stick a crayon in somebody’s eye and kill them with it. We should probably also get rid of all crayons. Do you see how tricky this gets?

Alternatively, we could work on the actual problem of bad people who want to do others harm. Much of the current day attention is focused on Islamic extremists, or as some people like to say “all Muslims.” This attitude naïvely shows their complete lack of understanding of religious history, Christian extremists, and general killing in the name of one’s chosen deity. Are there bad theists? Yes, unfortunately there are. Are there other bad people on the Earth? Yes, unfortunately there are. The bad people are the problem, regardless of their ideology.

What if instead of wanting to allow governments to arbitrarily ban certain things, build walls, deport human beings from land that was stolen just a few hundred years ago, etc, we simply focus on giving people who are supposed to be “free” actual freedoms. Bad people can still be punished severely if they negatively affect another, which thankfully is the vast minority of the time.

Men & women much wiser than me have been quoted as making this point that is so important its underlined in bold: good people do not need laws and bad people don’t obey laws. In other words, even if we wave the wand and magically remove all guns, the bad people remain. We haven’t cured the actual problem.