On Gun Control

Recently there has been a lot of talk about gun control, especially after the tragic Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Many people, attempting to pin the blame for this tragedy on something, mistakenly pin it on the fact that the shooter used a gun. If the shooter didn’t have a gun, then he couldn’t have shot anybody, right? We should just ban guns, and that would solve all of our violence problems, right?

While this is an understandable conclusion, it doesn’t take into account all the facts. For instance, what happens if you outlaw guns? No matter how hard it tries, the government cannot keep all guns away from everybody. Even if it could, it would require a huge increase in governmental power, which is something we most definitely do not need. The result of this is that all the law-abiding citizens are punished by not being allowed to keep guns while the criminals still illegally carry guns. We would see a huge increase of gun violence, not a decrease.

Also, the Constitution CLEARLY states that United States’ citizens have the right to bear arms. Thus, if the national government makes any move to infringe upon that right, it breaks the highest law of our land. Our founding fathers were wise men who knew what they were doing when they wrote the Constitution, putting all their sweat and tears, as well as their Christian upbringing, political experience,  age, education, and thought into the most important political document that America has ever seen. It is a very big step to contradict a document that has been the highest law of the land for over 200 years, when most other countries re-write their Constitutions every decade or so.

Thus, the government must either append to the Constitution (a move which should meet with much opposition) amendments clearly against our founder’s intentions, or press states, which have the ability to set gun control laws, to pass anti-gun legislation.

I looked up online a few states’ gun control laws. I found one article that started with the statement that a gun control law had been struck down that would have affected Washington, D.C. After the law was struck down, many liberal politicians panicked because they believed that the strike-down would increase gun violence. The article then captured those same politicians bewilderment that the gun violence rate went down as a result of the failed attempt at regulation.

There are thousands of other stories that capture the same message: gun control does not solve the problem of gun violence! The issues behind gun violence run much deeper than the actual gun. Saying that the gun is the problem behind gun violence is like saying that the paint can is the problem behind graffiti. The problem is the person behind the gun, not the gun itself.

There is nothing wrong with guns, just as there is nothing wrong with baseball bats, or cars, or toothbrushes. They are tools that can be used for good things, but like anything else, can be sinfully misused. Gun control accomplishes nothing and hurts the country when what the country really needs is reform in general. The reform this country most needs is spiritual--not healthcare reform, nor social security reform, nor a balanced budget or any other worthwhile cause.  America needs Christ.