If you put the various parts of a bomb in the center of a room, nothing will happen. If a pound of methamphetamine simply sits on a table, no one will die. Yes, a shotgun on the ground isn't capable of picking itself up and shooting somebody any more than a bike is capable of peddling itself or a wind-up toy of winding itself. No one is arguing that inanimate objects are capable of violent acts without human intervention. The problem lies in the hearts of humans, and the danger arises when access to inanimate objects that ARE capable of inflicting harm if misused by human hands is too freely given.
By this logic bombs don't kill people, meth doesn't kill people, cyanide pills don't kill people, lethal injections don't kill people. Any number of terrible, deadly things you can think of that have been used in the past to slaughter hundreds of thousands of people regardless of race, age, religion or ethnicity don't technically "kill people". Does that mean that they're harmless? No. Does that mean that they should be legally and easily accessible to absolutely everyone? Heck no.
I've seen so many times this week the argument that just because something is illegal doesn't mean people can't get their hands on it. "Meth is illegal and people obviously still use meth, so why should we make guns illegal?" Terrorism is illegal and acts of terror still exist. Arson is illegal and fires are still started. Brutally murdering your spouse is illegal and yet it still happens. Does the fact that these things still happen mean that we should give up and legalize them just because someone out there who is sick enough and resourceful enough and motivated enough is still going to manage to do them? I don't think so.
Will making guns illegal rid our country of gun violence completely? Probably not. Does the fact that murder is illegal prevent anyone from ever being murdered? No. Does it drastically reduce the number of victims yearly compared to the amount of people who would be murdered if the crime WAS legal? Absolutely.
Making guns illegal won't eradicate gun violence completely, and no one is arguing that it will. If it can chop that number, though, if it can reduce the number of unnecessary and meaningless deaths every year by the hundreds or thousands, then what type of person wouldn't see the value in that? What type of person wouldn't see the necessity in that?
How selfish to justify the unnecessary death of hundreds of innocent victims every year because you want to feel like you have your "freedom". How childish to ignore the reality of gun violence because you don't want your toy taken away.
Gun violence, like so many other things, is a problem of the heart. It's not a problem caused by inanimate objects. Our government can't fix problems of the heart, though. What they can do is minimize the access to inanimate objects that are, when misused by humans, the vessels through which death and violence occur.
My goal is not to start a fight, to make anyone feel like their opinions are invalid or to imply that people who own guns are wrong for wanting to keep them. It's simply to get people thinking, to share my views on the matter, and to express my personal belief that the potential to save human lives is more important than my right to own a gun.
