217 Years Later

There is this Sandra Bullock movie about rehab called 28 Days (not 28 Days Later, that's something else altogether, involving zombies and a lot more indie movie cinematic ambition). The movie I'm talking about is a typical Hollywood treatment of a less-than-Hollywood-beautiful ailment: alcoholism. (Not that Hollywood is lacking in substance abuse -- perish the thought! -- I more refer to their tendency to portray excessive drinking as something you can easily survive with a fabulous complexion and a shiny sheaf of hair. Talk about suspension of disbelief.)

Anyway, there is a part in the movie where, over the course of Sandra's character's twelve-stepper revelations, someone intones an adage about the definition of insanity as doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Personally, I always think of real insanity as involving a little more paranoid drama, yelled gibberish, and forced injections from Nurse Ratchet, but this movie's argument has its merits too. I mean, if people in asylums could figure out that their current course of action was keeping them there, they would likely change that course, right? It makes sense. Which brings me to my topic -- school shootings. (Didn't see that coming, did ya?)

But the truth is, if doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results, is a passably working definition of insanity, what exactly is going on with the school shootings in the United States? Is America -- its courts, its laws, its system, and its society -- insane in its treatment of guns and that treatment's innate consequences? I will tell you, as an expat American who has been perched across the Atlantic for a lot of the last decade, it kinda looks that way. And as a man who has a niece at college in a major American university, I'm not averse to pointing out the need for straight talk on the subject...or straitjackets, I guess, if it comes to that.

Because there is a clear pattern emerging, starting with Columbine, or even earlier (don't forget that guy in the tower in Texas). There is a tragic event at an institution of learning. It involves firepower - guns of some kind. And it involves death. For weeks, news coverage returns to this event and its victims, with the morbid regularity of a newly neutered dog licking its stitches. With good cause, in an essential way -- we should be horrified. This is not something that should happen in our country. We are first world. We are not a war zone. But this stuff does happen here, apparently. It keeps happening.

The reality is we have different gun laws than the rest of the 'civilized' world. We have the whole pesky "right to bear arms" built into our rights. But when does common sense finally rule? When do we finally say, "Hey, this is not working. This is proving disastrous, this is proving nightmarish, this is proving fatal. Guns are not something we need to have a right to own in the same way we need to have a right to assemble. We need to re-evaluate."

Maybe, just maybe, our founding fathers couldn't have envisioned our 2008 scenario back in 1791. You know, like how a few generations later we weren't able to predict greenhouse gases and global warming. How were those men, raised in a world where you had to reload most hunting muskets after a single shot, to anticipate the "great strides" humankind would make in their ability to kill each other?

So we Americans say, guns don't kill people, people do. And we Americans say, it's in our Bill of Rights to have all the guns we want. And we can voice these platitudes all day long, and they aren't incorrect. But does it change the plight of the college student gunned down in his classroom? Does it help the mother who thought her daughter was in the safest of places, and whose daughter is now in the stillest of graves? When do we admit instead that we have grown more violent, and quite different, in those 217 years since that right to bear arms was conceived, and now we are smart enough to realize that we aren't going to need our citizenship to form a militia anytime soon. We aren't fighting the British Empire anymore. In the words of the young people we need to protect, we are so over that.

Nowadays, we need to fight to keep our country's children and their teachers from being gunned down because an overly hormonal and misguided moron decided to take his vendetta against society into a classroom or cafeteria, along with a too-easily acquired weapon of death. Let's admit it -- things change.

Or I guess we can keep on doing the same thing, and hoping for different results. Crazy? Not us.

Comments

[CaveatMagnusFrater]

I reckon if you can't un-invent guns, you might as well let the good guys have a few of 'em too.

[AsISeeIt]

yeah, like policemen and soldiers. that should do it, really.

[1will]

Nah, that makes too much sense. We better go ahead and disarm the law abiding citizens too since criminals get mad when their victims are armed. Only when we are all equealy helpless will we all be safer.

[thehuff]

What they should do is let everyone who wants a gun have a gun. They should set up some little kiosks in malls where people can go and get 'em. You should be able to use government issued Foodstamps to get them (if you want to squander your stamps on one). Then let it just be a total free-for-all, bang bang, shoot 'em up. I'll bet ya the last ones left standing will be all the people who didn't go and get guns.

[thehuff]

I left out one important factor. To qualify for the guns at the kiosk you will be asked to answer one question (and of course answer it correctly).
Question: How much does a 41 cent stamp cost at the post office?

[1will]

All sarcasm aside your idea has some merit. Why not let all that are legally able to own guns go and buy them? The gun problem in America isn't with law abiding citizens despite anti gunners trying to lump the average gun owner together with murderers, gang bangers and other criminals.
As for the mall idea, I doubt your predicted outcome. I wouldn't want to see things carried quite that far but if all law abiding gun owners that went to the mall picked up a gun and carried there wouldn't be alot of difference. Well there might be one difference. No one would shoot up the place and kill large numbers of innocents. Killers want their victims unarmed and helpless. Why do you think Cho went to VA Tech for his killing spree? He visited a local range at an earlier period and could have shot that place up. He was already armed. Why didn't he? Oh yeah, a dozen other people probaly would have ended his fun in about 10 seconds.
You cannot guarentee that you'll ever disarm everyone or get rid of all the guns at any given location. You can guarentee that Gun Free Zones are hunting grounds for the homocidal by disarming the few people that wish to carry and are willing to protect themselves.

[thehuff]

Well, I forgot to include the one all important part of the equation. Everyone who goes to the mall for their gun has to answer one qualifying question. (Kind of like the written test for getting your drivers license. Which of course differs from the actual road-test.­)
Q: how much does it cost to buy a 41 cent stamp at the post office?

See, this is where it all gets tricky!

[1will]

I recently saw one of the Va Tech survivors being interviewed on CSpan. He seemed like an intelligent young man until he started speaking on whether or not students should be allowed to carry concealed on campus.
First he spoke of how there is so much presure that students may snap and shoot up the place. Unfortunately I cannot ask this young man if a college student cannot handle the presure of school then what will he/she do in real life when there is a spouse, job, mortgage and kids to deal with?
The young man next said that students shouldn't carry concealed because because if the shooters suspected someone carrying they would bring in an Uzi or AK 47. I guess his logic was you're less dead if the shooter brings in a Glock then if he brings in an AK. I guess it's true what they say about having book sense without having common sense.

[AsISeeIt]

so im not sure, given what you said in a previous post, what you think this young man should have said. that they should be able to carry concealed weapons at a college campus?? why should there even be questions about this? do you guys honestly think college students should be worrying about fighting fire with fire in the classroom? This is lunacy. All we need to do is look to the many models where modifying gun laws has made a significant positive impact on gun related deaths, and come up with some new framework for our laws. its obviously past time already when we are starting to contemplate which gun we should give our daughter as a high school graduation gift.

[1will]

Why not let a few students carry concealed if they wish? Only a small percentage of those attending college would want to carry and as a group concealed carry permit holders are the most law abiding in the country. The question is, what is to gain by disarming the most law abiding group in this nation? Is there some benefit for having a room full of helpless twentysomethings when a shooter decides to commit a massacre?

I do think a few college students worry about fighting fire with fire. If they didn't you wouldn't have groups of students lobbying to have their rights to carry restored. There are college students carrying concealed in Utah colleges and we have not heard of any shootings. We have also not heard of the drunken shootouts or accidents that anti gunners love to predict. It seems all of the anti gunner horror stories about concealed carry on campus are a bit overblown. The same thing happened in the 1990's when the majority of states started issueing concealed carry permits to citizens that wanted them. The anti's cried that there would be shootouts in the streets after every fender bender and every argument would end in a "Wild West Shootout" (obligatory western anti gun metaphor). This too never happened and was a gross exageration.

Where are the models of where gun laws have made a positive influence on gun deaths? You brought this up so please list several.

[lefty2026]

Yeah we should make guns illegal. I hope it works as well as making drugs illegal!

I mean, nobody does them anymore right? It's not like criminals would um break the law?

[1will]

If doing the same thing over and over yet expecting different results is insanity then I suppose the author finally figured out that Gun Free Zones don't work. Maybe just maybe we could allow those that wish to defend themselves the means to do so.

[lefty2026]

Nah allowing people the right to defend themselves is scary. Why should I be at all responsible for my own safety? I pay taxes for that.

[oldpotsmuggler]

FIREARMS RIGHTS AND CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Smart money says that the current SCOTUS will uphold the D.C. Circuit at least to the extent of holding that the Second Amendment creates an individual right. I'm thinking another 5 to 4, with Kennedy doing the writing and maybe trying to "legislate" some sort of a balancing process. They're too conservative not to strike the D.C. law, but probably will end up too afraid to actually send us as far down the road as the Circuit Court got things started.

My personal belief is that this is just one more subject on which it makes little sense for those of us living now to simply accept without question the original pronouncements of the Founding Fathers. I understand and appreciate the value of having an armed citizenry that could theoretically thwart the efforts of a theoretical despot to create an American dictatorship. However, I also understand the value of bringing our best modern minds to bear in the area of solving our modern problems. Sadly, that's something that we've done all too little of.

It’s like this. To the extent that a Constitutional right exists, the authority to legislate firearms regulation needs to be placed under some real limitations. The line drawing here gets hairy, but the safest bet is that there are any number of laws currently on the books that simply will no longer pass muster. For example, if ex-felons and users of psychiatric medications don’t lose their First Amendment rights, why would the result be any different with respect to the Second Amendment? These things can and should be discussed, and answers created by our current citizens for our current circumstances.

Folks on both sides of this issue actually need to give serious thought to supporting the creation of The Second American Constitutional Convention. The exact level of firearms rights that our country now wants is not clear to anyone yet, but what is clear is that the language of our current Constitution is likely not to provide the best means for us reaching that point.

[Socrates11]

Cause of Death - Heart Attack: 28.5%. Let's outlaw Big-Macs
Cause of Death - Accidents (Automobile): 4.4%. Let's outlaw cars
Cause of Death - Homicide: 0.7%. Let's outlaw guns.

Let's ignore the real reasons behind the problems (and the school shootings ARE a problem).

Let's not educate people about healthy diet and exercise (heart attack statistic), or safe driving (accident statistic), or how to recognize (parents/teachers) or cope with (hormonal teenagers) issues of depression/rage. Let's instead outlaw guns.

Yeah yeah, those evil things that are whispering to people that they should shoot other people and cause death and mahem. Let's not focus on the cultural acceptance (and even sensationalism) of violence; where it is cool to be "Gangsta" and 5-year olds are threatening to "bust a cap" into their school-mates and parents.

Instead, let's focus on the "bad" gun which is doing all this evil. It won't do anything to fix the problem, but it sure makes for great soap-box talk.

Brilliant.

[AsISeeIt]

well, with all respect, it seems to be "fixing the problem," to some extent, in a lot of other places. and actually, some countries have also put limits on their fast food chains, ie, you cant SuperSize in every European country. And wow, look, overall they have less of an obesity problem in most of Europe. Not a bad move if you care about your citizenry. But anyway, last I checked, noone came into a cafeteria and starting shoving Whoppers down children's throats. But they have walked in and started shooting them. I think your analogy is off.
Of course we need to address the underlying problems. However, that could take a while.....­meanwhile, how many other innocent children are killed?? And the gangster culture you speak of is arguably a byproduct of our societal reverence for firepower.
Isn't it JUST possible that the problem of gun killings might be linked also to guns themselves? There haven't been a ton of mass stabbing incidents that I recall. Other countries have recognized this type of meaningless violence as something intrinsically tied to the degree of gun accessibility in their nation. It's high time we got our head out the sand and recognized this fact as well.

[BearCountry]

In fact, things are being done to counteract the death by eating wrong and auto accidents. The problems of eating incorrectly are being publicized and discussed in many forums to try to turn this around. We do have to continue to eat so better food preparation is being taught in many ways.

As far as auto "accidents" being a cause of death, there are new laws and new judicial views on the accidents. Driving drunk and killing someone is not an accident. Speeding and killing someone is not an accident. These are beginning to be punished in ways that they should have been years ago. Many people need to drive so we can't simply ban the car, but we can limit what can be done with the car and who may drive. Also, cars are too large to conceal on your body.

We don't need the level of gun ownership that we have in this country. We need to limit who can own them, what kinds of guns are legal, and how they may be used. So someone bursts into a classroom and starts shooting, someone in the classroom starts shooting back, someone from down the hall runs to the classroom to shoot the bad guy. When that new someone bursts into the classroom, who should he/she shoot? Is the new person a helper to the good guys or a threat? How should this play out?

The fewer and more controlled the guns are, the better off we will be.

[lefty2026]

Ah the whole what if scenario. I think all laws from now on should be decided by your method. You come up with possible scenarios where having a right might be a problem, and we'll take away the right.

Here's one for you, what if the shooter pulls out a gun. Another person pulls out a gun and the shooter gets scared and drops his gun, or he gets shot in the leg and no one is harmed?