Gun Control Control

We need to look past the debate of "allow guns" versus "disallow guns". It's extremely short-sighted to think either one will ultimately affect gun violence. If you allow people to have guns, then yes, people will have easier access to guns for when they have a crazy episode and go on a murdering spree. Then again, if you disallow guns it guarantees that the law-abiding citizens (aka the ones you would want to have guns) will not be able to protect you. So when the inevitable happens and evil people go on their murdering sprees, the helpless law-abiding citizens get mercilessly slaughtered. A law of "no guns" may make it harder, but will ultimately not prevent evil people from having guns if they really want them. Both of these stances have been spewed back and forth over and over. We should know them well by now.

I work in a gun-free zone. And to be quite frank, it scares the crap out of me. That sign above the door is not going to stop someone from entering the building with a semi-automatic and mowing us all down. Instead, it prevents the rest of us from defending ourselves on the day that it does happen. Having guns in the facility could change a potential death-toll from hundreds all the way down to zero. On the other hand, when my colleagues have a bad day and there's a gun close at hand, are they more likely to shoot people? Indeed! As an aside, what has history told us is more likely? Do we see more deaths (not merely events) from people cracking in an instant and going on a rampage or through methodical planning of murder sprees? My guess is that methodical murder sprees kill more but someone can correct me with data if I am wrong. In the end, I prefer to prevent both and not one or the other.

The debate between "allow guns" and "disallow guns" simply argues two stances of "stop methodical murder sprees" versus "stop crimes of passion." Unfortunately, with this limited vision containing only the two approaches of allow versus disallow, it makes mutually exclusive the two problems we are trying to resolve. If we stop crimes of passion, we allow methodical murderers free rain to kill us like fish in a barrel. If we allow everyone to have guns, we give easy access to anyone who has a bad day. In the end, we cannot stop people from committing either act. We cannot stop evil people from being evil. Instead, we should focus on allowing good people to protect us while hindering evil people as much as possible (or even on preventing the creation of evil people to begin with but that is another topic).

So what do we do? We stop focusing on all-inclusive versus all-exclusive rules and regulations. We use our brains, technology, and learning to discern how to treat people differently. When it comes to equality, we need not go beyond general respect. Heck, most people stop shy of that anyway. We should treat everyone equally when it comes to traffic and McDonald's but certainly we should not treat everyone equally in regard to handing them a gun. We as Americans seem to fear discrimination but it's not only extremely hypocritical to denounce it, but blind and stupid as well. Of course we need to discriminate--not based on color of skin or religious preference, but on attitudes and capabilities. Make laws and regulations to determine who the good people are and give them the guns so that they can protect us when the evil people manage to get their hands on them.

In short, we need to give gun access to law-abiding, courageous, emotionally stable, and intelligent human beings. We should create regulations requiring an IQ test and a psychological exam along with a background check. Require that all owners of guns go through extensive weapons safety training as well as required shooting practice to ensure they know what they are doing and that they are comfortable enough not to fumble it and hurt someone. Require a higher psychological profile and IQ to own concealed weapons and even more so for semi-automatics. I am an upright and stable individual that should be allowed to protect myself from crazy people. I have a family and I should be allowed to protect them. Laws need to prevent crazy people from having guns--not people like me. And in the event that I become crazy, I should lose my privileges. So let's create a regulation that all registered gun-owners take a yearly psychological exam.

Let's stop bickering about whether or not people should have guns, and let's instead start asking, "Who?"