My agenda on this site is not to spout political rhetoric and sway people’s opinions to the left or right. Sure, I often dabble in Marxist theory to elucidate ways in which films poke fun of capitalism, consumerism, and social order, but I don’t do this to convince readers that they should form a socialist or communist state. I also offer up a fair amount of queer theory and feminist theory, so that I don’t end up on some sort of blacklist or hunted by contemporary incarnations of G-Men. My point in stating this is as a preface to the discussion of gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy. First, there have been many moments of silence paid to the twenty six victims, and these are all well deserved. We should also take another moment for the twenty seventh victim, the shooter’s mother. She too fell prey to this man’s unhinged actions and deserves the same amount of respect.
I understand the reactionary impulse of those against guns to want to eradicate them from the country and ban all firearms moving forward. Perhaps these rallies are held in the presence of a muted Bowling for Columbine. However, banning all firearms would certainly be an improbable undertaking. First, the number of privately-owned firearms in the United States is near 300,000,000, which suggests that, if each person is allowed one gun, eight-out-of-ten people would own one. The larger issue at present is that we have been afforded the right to “bear arms” for nearly two hundred and fifty years. Certainly, we can begin a discussion about the semantics of “militia” and look at the time frame in which the Constitution was written; however, this has been done many times over, and the right has been upheld – for the most part – repeatedly.
That said, the prospect of eradicating firearms seems just as feasible as wanting everyone to be able to possess a dozen firearms or placing armed guards at the doors of elementary schools. While many people who own firearms use them properly, store them safely, and use them responsibly, events of the past – far ago and recent — have clearly illustrated that some folks will use guns in nefarious ways. One apple – or a handful over time – should not spoil the bunch, but their presence should clearly indicate that there are issues to be addressed. Throughout this country, there are inconsistencies on the requisite waiting period to obtain a gun. There are inconsistencies on the thoroughness of background checks, and there are inconsistencies on how sales of firearms are tracked – depending on whether they are purchased through a licensed gun dealer, a purveyor at a gun show, or through private sale. [source]
I don’t have a solution here, but the fact that these inconsistencies have been skirted by the NRA in a recent speech condemning movies, music, and video games as the impetus of violent outbursts only speaks to the polemic ignorance that clouds this overall discourse.
Despite what we have seen in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting and other highly publicized shootings like the incidents at Fort Hood and Virginia Tech, firearm-related murders have decreased in the last twenty years, from roughly 6.6 per 100,000 to 3.2 per 100,000. This is not my defense of arms – as full disclosure, I’m not a fan of guns; if you own one and use it responsibly, you’re welcome to have it, but I personally don’t own one – but it is a defense that flies in the face of NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre’s absolution of any blame associated with his association or lax gun laws. Speaking on December 21, LaPierre, attacked video games, asserting,
There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows violence against its own people, through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. [source]
And movies:
Then there’s the blood-soaked slasher films like ‘American Psycho’ and ‘Natural Born Killers’ that are aired like propaganda loops on ‘Splatterdays’ and every day and a thousand music videos that portray life as a joke and murder as a way of life. And then they have the nerve to call it entertainment. [source]
To an extent, I see his point. It’s hard to believe that children playing these games for an extended period each day and week while watching certain films won’t be – in some small way – desensitized to violence. Hell, the military uses games like Call of Duty and its ilk to train its soldiers in combat situations – simulations that have a similarly desensitizing effect. At the same time, Mr. LaPierre – like those calling for the complete bans of firearms – is neglecting to acknowledge that ours is not an age as violent as it was a few decades ago. (For a complete run down of this, you can check out Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of our Nature, in which he details how we’ve actually become less violent.) Because of social media, numerous television-news outlets and ease of access to stories – breaking and otherwise – we are bombarded with violent images, but many of them are regurgitated and derivations of the original. In other words, one tragedy shown repeatedly over seven days does not equal seven tragedies. This is in no way meant to belittle the events at Sandy Hook or anywhere else. The loss of life is tragic and should be acknowledged, processed, and used to better society. But taking the extreme route on either side is reactionary and ultimately dividing.
That said, LaPierre notes Natural Born Killers as a film to blame for violence. Perhaps he’s right, but Stone doesn’t glamorize violence. He ironically castigates those who do. In effect, he’s responding to our obsession with killers, not promoting them. And he’s doing this in 1994, which means that he’s criticizing the media of the previous ten years, when the Internet was unavailable, when video cassettes were the highmark of movie-watching technology, and when video game quests were predicated on leading a plumber to rescue his betrothed. Stone is mocking the allure of Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, two men who killed without guns for you anti-gun folks – and two people who prove that some people are just plain crazy, for those of you on the “blame media, television, and film” bandwagon.
Despite his mostly misguided vitriol, LaPierre makes a valid point when he notes:
A child growing up in America witnesses 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence by the time he or she reaches the ripe old age of 18. And throughout it all, too many in our national media … their corporate owners … and their stockholders … act as silent enablers, if not complicit co-conspirators. Rather than face their own moral failings, the media demonize lawful gun owners, amplify their cries for more laws and fill the national debate with misinformation and dishonest thinking that only delay meaningful action and all but guarantee that the next atrocity is only a news cycle away. [source]
LaPierre is on the right track here in that the media should also acknowledge some sort of culpability – even though he refuses to accept responsibility on his own end. At the same time, the underlying issues here are the absence of parents and the laissez faire attitude that encourages children to grow up faster than they should and assume they are safer because they possess cellphones.
Most notably, LaPierre unintentionally illustrates the hypocrisy that riddles this debate: no one wants to be blamed, but everyone blames everyone else. He’s correct in that the lawful gun owners should not be demonized; he’s correct that media is in some ways culpable; he’s ignorant to assume that the NRA can absolve itself of any responsibility; he’s a fool to believe that stocking every school, hospital, and suburban house with a firearm will eliminate crime. There is, as of yet, no proof that heavily armed states have lower crime rates.
Guns don’t kill people; people kill people, which why we shouldn’t just give everyone a gun.
