The Second
Amendment is currently under some of the most concentrated scrutiny it has ever
received since our founding fathers wrote it.
The right to bear arms is without doubt one of the most widely
interpreted and debated writings of our Constitution. Now, in the wake of several more American
tragedies including the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and the Aurora,
Colorado theater shooting, people are looking for someone to blame – and who
could be a better target than the folks in Hollywood who create more and more
films as the years go by that are loaded with gun violence. In a recent interview, Connecticut Senator
Joe Lieberman openly blames the entertainment industry for the recent tragedies:
"The violence in the entertainment culture –
particularly, with the extraordinary realism to video games, movies now, et
cetera – does cause vulnerable young men to be more violent. It doesn’t make everybody more violent, but
it’s a causative factor in some cases."
-Sen. Lieberman
The simple
fact of the matter is, and I am not the first to say it, that movies don’t
cause violence, video games don’t cause violence, even guns don’t cause
violence. PEOPLE CAUSE VIOLENCE.
Now, use me
as an example: I grew up watching violent movies, playing violent video games,
and now I even make violent movies of
my own sometimes. But I promise you if
you stuck me in an elementary schoolyard during recess with a loaded AK-47, I
would not shoot anyone. That’s because
I’m not mentally ill and I was taught how to properly handle a gun when I was
young. At my grandfather’s house to this
day the rifle is on the wall, the shotgun is in the corner and the ammunition
is in the kitchen drawer, yet nobody in the family has gone on a killing
spree. The problem isn’t in the movies
or video games, it’s in the education of how to be a good human – aka
parenting.
The worst
part about the whole problem is that now the government feels like they have to
take some sort of action to appease the people. Their solution is to make more
laws prohibiting more guns, but this was tried in the past with the 1994 Ban on
Assault Weapons, with relatively no success.
The only people that laws affect are
law-abiding citizens! That means the
government is taking the guns out of the hands of the people who use them correctly
and leaving them in the hands of the criminals.
Laws don’t stop criminals from doing what they want to do. Cocaine is
illegal, heroine is illegal, marijuana is illegal (kinda), but if right now I
had some insatiable urge to go shoot some heroine I can promise you I wouldn’t
have too much of a problem finding some… Oh, but it’s illegal. So is breaking
every other law, from speeding to murder, yet people who want to do those
things do them regardless of the fact that that the government writes down that
they are not supposed to. No matter how
illegal you make guns, people who want to shoot other people will still get
them.
This does
not mean I encourage a no rules free-for-all when it comes to buying guns. There should be more in-depth background
checks, longer cooling-off periods, and things like that to make it harder for
people who may end up crazy to get their hands on a deadly weapon. But strictly banning types of guns that some
government official deems more dangerous than the next just won’t do it.
-Wallace West, 10 Feb. 2013
So - you are kind of arguing two points here, and I agree with one and not the other. I grew up in a similar culture - my uncles have a gun in every room, and they feel they must, because that damned wolf keeps coming back to attack the yearlings. But, I think the whole "guns don't shoot people, people shoot people" is kind of silly. I mean, hammers don't hit nails, people hit nails. With hammers. Because without the hammers, you have to hit nails with a spoon or a shoe or whatever, and that is less effective.
ReplyDeleteYour other point, about the First Amendment and the effects of violence, I agree with you about. There has been a lot of study, and there isn't any evidence for causation (this is a nice recent rundown here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/17/ten-country-comparison-suggests-theres-little-or-no-link-between-video-games-and-gun-murders/), though there is some correlation - i.e., violent people may be attracted to violence in media. Anyway, thought-provoking post. And stylistically, I kind of enjoyed watching you think it through in writing.
Yes, empirically it has been proven that movies do not directly cause violence. Studies have shown, however, that there is a correlation between watching violent movies and adopting aggressive behavior and/or becoming desensitized to violence. I also agree that in addition to having conversations about gun control in this country we should also talk seriously about mental illness.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I think there is a flaw in your argument. You state that you are an example of someone who engages in violent media but is not a violent person. This, as suggested in your writing, proves that other “rational” people who have had good parenting are not violent, “trigger happy” people. Such an argument is a hasty generalization. Your individual case does not account for the many other variables that may make the next person’s experience different than your own.
Also, I don’t believe that the government is taking action solely to “appease the people.” The longstanding argument that guns=freedom needs to be more deeply prodded, especially when every year in our country around 100,000 people are shot, many of them innocent children. The government, I think, is taking what it believes to be a necessary—although it certainly should not be the only—step in protecting American lives in the context of gun control.
Very thought provoking post! While I agree with your premise that banning certain types of guns will not in it of itself solve the recent uproar in violence, I disagree with the notion that violent films and video games have had no negative influence on children. I am a staunch supporter of second amendment rights, but I agree that there should be more in-depth background checks to make it more difficult for emotionally unstable individuals and those with criminal records to have access to dangerous weapons. At the end of the day, I am convinced that no amount of legislation will solve this problem. Rather, it is a cultural issue that must come from within. I actually wrote about the gun control debate on my own blog a couple of weeks ago in a post that I entitled “Entering the Gun Control Debate” where I reflected on this cultural phenomenon, one that extends beyond just video games and movies, but also deals with issues that include the nuclear family.
ReplyDeleteI encourage you to check out that post:
http://politicalcommunicationandmessaging.blogspot.com/2013/02/entering-gun-control-debate.html
One other interesting thing worth noting: The Colorado House of Representatives, the state which is home to the Aurora movie theater shootings last year, approved a bill requiring extended background checks, limiting magazine sales to guns that can shoot up to 15 rounds and restricting possession of firearms on college campuses. The bill must still pass the Democratic controlled senate, but federal politicians like Vice President Joe Biden has taken an active role in getting the state legislature to pass the measure so that it can be used as a model for the rest of the country. Here is a link to that article as well:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/19/us-usa-guns-colorado-idUSBRE91I02I20130219