GUNS, GUNS, GUNS!

 This lovely article in the New York Times summarizes some of the lazier arguments used by the pro-gun crowd. I've seen them all before, and they're got getting any younger or any better looking. Let's run through them shall we:

“What happened wasn’t caused by the failure or absence of some gun control law,” said Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the organizer of the Shot Show. “It was caused by a breakdown in the public mental health system. The question is why wasn’t this individual dealt with when everyone around him apparently saw there were very real issues.”

Well okay, nice try. But let's think about this diversionary argument for a second. On second thought let's not, let's just dismiss it out of hand. Hey dude, the argument for gun control laws isn't based on the assumption that guns cause violence. The idea is to prevent the cause the deadly rampages, i.e. people, from acquiring guns that make killing easier. There's nothing unreasonable about making it a little harder for certain people to get strapped. It's not about ending violent impulses, it's about ending violent acts. Get it?

“To my mind,” Mr. Keane added, “gun control is a failed social experiment, and it is time to move on.”

A set of gutted, rarely enforced laws does not constitute a "social experiment," failed or otherwise. A political failure, sure, but not a failed social experiment. In a way, the argument against gun laws is like the argument against public education. Right now it's very en vogue to talk about how public education has failed and the salvation of reading and math can be found in private charter schools, vouchers and, puke, home schooling. The problem with this line of reasoning becomes apparent when you notice that the rest of the developed world have public education systems that (mostly) work. The problem in the US isn't a theoretical failure of the "idea"of public education. It's that US culture and attitudes have effectively sabotaged our ability to run a decent public education system, local, national or otherwise.

It doesn't mean the idea doesn't work. It means that implementation has failed. Same with gun laws. If stringent federal gun laws were put into place, and enforced (with actual political and financial backing) and given time to actually work before the gun lobby could cut them down, they might actually keep psychopaths from getting guns. I dunno, just a thought. And before you show me how violent crime declined while gun laws were loosened, let me remind you that CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION. Just because there are two lines forming an X on a graph doesn't mean that Line A and Line B in inversely related.

“To point any fingers at the gun industry is ignorant,” Mr. Scherer said, as passers-by stopped to pick up and examine the magazines lined up on the counter. “That’s like pointing a finger at Ford and blaming them for car deaths.” 

Ford produces products that have considerably more utility than guns. Guns are designed to do two things: kill things and kill/injure/intimidate things that might kill you. As loathe as I am to defend the auto industry (given their contribution to the imminent environmental apocalypse), the argument can at least be made that they serve a useful function--they're not just a hobby, a weapon or a defensive aid for paranoids. Furthermore, the industry isn't being blamed for killing people; it's being blamed for making it easier with a product designed to make it easier and helping a billion-dollar lobby keep a bare minimum of reasonable laws off the books. 

“It’s the same kind of panicked reaction you get after a hurricane,” he said. “It’s over, and everyone wants to get shutters.”

It is like getting shutters, except the shutters are buying guns, not the reexamination of laws you might see in a reasonable country.

“Tucson is a tragedy, but that’s all we have to say about it,” said the sales representative, Tony Musa. “I have no opinion about gun control.”

 Hey, that's like everyone in American right now. Look, I don't mind the Second Amendment or people who like firearms (hell, I hunted when I was a kid and freely admit that firearms can be a fun pastime for sane people), but simply sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "nanny nanny nanny" over again isn't an argument. Just assuming that no reasonable argument can be made for gun regulations is tantamount to forfeiting all reason, simply giving up because you're tired of thinking an issue through. It's just another manifestation of American laziness and ineptitude. If the system's broke, don't fix it.

Guns don't kill people. Shitty arguments do.