Another Uninformed Opinion

Uninformed opinions seem to be the order of the day as we deal with more lethal violence in El Paso, TX and Dayton, OH.  So here is one more.

I am reminded of a line from the movie Casablanca where Claude Raines, playing Police Captain Louis Renault, tells his deputy “Round up the usual suspects.”  It doesn’t take a genius to know that will be the same thing now.  We will have those who demand we prohibit guns and those who demand we not.  Fundamentally, I tend to come down on the side of those who would not prohibit guns. 

It’s not so much that I believe we need them to stop the government from imposing some autocratic and dictatorial regime for if that happens it will be too late and more than half of us will have voted them into office.  Nor do I believe the second amendment was etched in stone and carried down from Mount Rushmore by George Washington.  Rather, I am unconvinced it is possible to prohibit firearms and even if we did, it would not change the dynamics that are, in my opinion, the true sources of this violence.

What I hear from those who demand we eliminate guns is the angry rhetoric, opinions voiced by those who live protected lives, and little discussion of the social dynamics that cause mostly young angry men to kill others.  What I don’t hear is how a prohibition of guns would be different than the last prohibition we tried. 

You remember that one, don’t you?  Started by the progressive temperance movement in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the passage of the 18^th Amendment in 1919 issued in the age of illegal alcohol.  Its beginnings held the loftiest of ideals.  It would end poverty, child abuse, domestic violence and a whole card deck full of things caused by the evils of alcohol.  What it actually accomplished was the creation of vast networks of organized crime and civil disobedience that led consumers to disregard the laws. It was so unsuccessful it led the Democratic party to make its repeal a plank in the party's platform for the 1932 elections.  Within two years of FDR's election, the 21^st Amendment was ratified. Officially ending the short-lived social experiment.  Unfortunately, the unintended consequences or by-products of prohibition still remain with us.

What would those who wish to end this violence really be willing to do?  Since those in the social sciences seem unwilling to consider the total dynamics of a changing society, and those who vote on whatever changes we need to make, communicate in little more than 15-second sound bites it seems increasingly unlikely our federal government will ever develop an effective strategy that a majority of the population can support.  It is almost as if we are playing chess with the human lives and each side is down to having only a king and a queen.  We are in a state of perpetual check but will never achieve a checkmate.  Smart players would call it a draw and start a new game, but that's not for us.