Why the Gun Control Debate is Counterproductive

At the end of my post on Friday, I mentioned that I was afraid that the theatre shooting in Aurora would inspire another pointless gun control debate. Unfortunately, it seems that I was right. After the horrific shooting, gun control advocates rushed to demand gun control legislation in tweets, blog posts, op-eds. Gun rights advocates responded by suggesting that gun laws will not stop criminals, but will prevent law-abiding citizens from defending themselves. The debate continued on the Sunday morning political talk shows yesterday morning. Soon this debate will enter the halls of Congress: Senator Frank Lautenberg has already promised to sponsor a new gun control bill.

In light of this controversy, I would like to explain my comments. I do not believe that the gun control debate is pointless because, as some commentators have noted, it is unlikely to change policy. The problem with the gun control debate is its preoccupation with guns. The debate centers on the question of access to firearms: should access to firearms be broad, or limited? Gun control advocates note that guns facilitate deadly acts of violence. Therefore, they argue that access to guns should be restricted. Gun rights advocates counter that guns are tools that can be used for good or ill. They claim that criminals will use guns despite the law, while law abiding citizens can only use legal guns for defense. Therefore, they argue that access to guns should be broad. Add statistics, emotional anecdotes, and appeals to the Founding Fathers on both sides, and you have the gun control debate that has periodically raged in this country for decades.

I believe that the gun control debate is worse than pointless. I believe this debate prevents us from making real progress toward a society without violence. Focusing on gun use allows us to avoid a very unsettling truth: sane people choose to commit acts of violence in our society. These acts of violence include rape, assault, domestic abuse, armed robbery, and bullying as well as gun violence. Neither increasing nor decreasing access to guns will change the fact that people choose to hurt other people. Accepting this truth leads to a question I believe will garner much more productive debate: why do sane people choose to commit acts of violence? This question will require uncomfortable soul-searching, but it could lead us to identifying the systemic causes of violence in our society. With this knowledge, we could then redesign our society to disallow the use of violence in all its forms. We may never eliminate violence, but we will certainly make no progress until we look past the gun to the person holding it.