What to do?
Congress is currently working on a bi-partisan gun bill, or so the headlines say. Folks on the left say it is a good first step and folks on the right say it is a bridge too far. Whether it will actually pass or not remains to be seen, I personally rather doubt it given the nature of politics today and the influence of the gun lobby, but the question remains if it does pass will it do any good?
At the risk of irritating my more liberal friends, I must say I think it is unlikely. The availability of a firearm is not what turns some mis-adjusted self-centered punk kid into a homicidal freak. Something else is going on here. But something has to be done, right?
It has become sadly routine, every time some spoiled little brat, who was never taught how to be a real man, goes homicidally outlaw in a school, or supermarket, or wherever, we see the same circus. Pundits and politicians on the right offer “thoughts and prayers” and pundits and politicians on the left scream for “gun control”. Neither side bothers to spend any time trying to get to the root cause of why our society seems to be coming apart along some fairly familiar fault lines.
The reason for this, in my opinion, is that neither side really gives a tinker’s damn about solving the issue because they are too preoccupied with solidifying their own political position. Hence, they come up with glib slogans, easy sound bites, and alligator tears. Each side blames the other and offers sloganized solutions which do not stand up to logic, but which play well to whatever constituency they are pitching to.
One of the ones gaining some traction of late is the idea to arm schoolteachers. Like most of the so-called solutions from both the left and the right, it does not stand up to logic, but let’s consider it for a minute.
The most immediate illogical part of this particular idea is the fact that many of the folks who are crying most loudly to “arm the teachers” belong to same cohort who do not trust teachers to pick out books for their children. You do not trust your child’s teacher with a book, but you are going to trust them with a gun?? Where, pray tell, is the logic in that??
There is no logic of course, but it does lead us to a point which, I think may contain a kernel of the cause of our current societal woes. What I am speaking of is the assault on intellectualism taking place during the last couple of decades. Personally, I think if we read more books, we would need fewer guns. If we look at the areas where gun violence is most prevalent, it tends to be in zip codes with low educational achievement.
We do not have to look far to see that ignorant humans are the most dangerous animal God ever created. Since the beginning of time, kings and princes, priests and potentates have sought to keep people ignorant so that they could be spoon fed whatever dogma the ruler thought was in his interest. And ignorant people, especially those possessed of a fanatical dogma, are dangerous indeed. Capable of the most unspeakable sins and the most blasphemous conspiracies.
The “Reverend” Jim Jones comes to mind, the one from whom we get the expression “Don’t drink the Kool Aide”. Perhaps we should take more heed of that advice. People possessed of ignorant dogmas are more apt to commit unspeakable acts because, through their warped view of the world they are able to justify acts that would be, and are, unjustifiable to anyone who does not suffer from such intellectual bankruptcy. According to published reports, the Buffalo Shooter, and the El Paso Shooter, may well fall into this category, and the Islamic Terrorists who have been plaguing the civilized world for the last few decades most certainly do.
But we have our own fanatics right here at home peddling ignorance and prejudice wholly unsupported by any shred of fact or logic and leading the more ignorant of their followers to commit acts unforgivable by both man and God. The danger we face is not the availability of firearms, rather, it is the prevalence of an almost religious propensity for selfishness and prejudicial hatreds at the expense of morality, personal honor, and a commitment to the good of society.
The cure for this, I would propose, is education. And by that, I mean education in the tradition of the Enlightenment, I would suggest a few good books. The Bible is a good start. Most professed Christians have one, though in my experience few ever bother to read it, but I would also suggest a few more. Shakespeare is an old standby, as well as Plato, Voltaire, Chaucer, Steinbeck, and Burns. Herodotus, Thucydides, and Maimonides also come to mind.
If we teach our children how to think, rather than what to think, they will be the better enabled to navigate the stresses of this world and less susceptible to the baser passions which lead weaker minds to commit acts that not only condemn their souls to eternal damnation but also condemn their entire families to eternal disgrace among civilized men.