Without Gun Control, We Are All More Anxious
Gun control is a hot topic. When online, I generally avoid political discussions. Because so many of them are so prone to devolve into toxic shouting matches, I find it healthier to stay away. Today, however, I’m diving in headfirst. The country is still reeling in the aftermath of the shootings in El Paso and Dayton, and quite frankly, I’m pissed off. Once again, a certain segment of the population is refusing to budge on any meaningful discussion concerning gun control, and I’m just sick of it. If we don’t have meaningful action on gun control, this country is going to drown in anxiety.
Avoiding Gun Control
Conservatives are again deflecting the conversation away from guns and attempting to find another scapegoat for mass shootings. Amazingly, the President himself tried blaming video games, which is an argument that’s fallen flat on its face since moral zealots first attempted it after the 1999 Columbine massacre. Thankfully there are few people taking that argument seriously.1
There isn’t time nor space for an in-depth summary of the issue, so I’ll just make the salient points and leave it there. The reasons for this epidemic of gun violence are our obsession with guns, our lax gun laws, and our inability to legislate responsibly. If you have a different opinion, not only are you objectively wrong, you’re also part of the problem.
Why Lack of Gun Control Causes Anxiety
Recently, on The Daily Show, Trevor Noah highlighted a side effect of the gun epidemic that isn’t often talked about. Because mass shootings can now basically happen anywhere, the entire country is on a heightened state of alert at all times.2
How is this a healthy way to live? Living in constant fear that any man (it’s always a man) you pass on the street could shoot you dead in an instant? Who, honestly, wants to live in such a world? But that’s the environment we’ve created for ourselves. For people with anxiety, it’s a nightmare – but honestly, it doesn’t matter your mental health status, it’s a nightmare any way you look at it. I guarantee you more Americans will be diagnosed with anxiety disorders in the wake of these tragedies.
Given all that, we have to take a step back and ask ourselves: is it worth it? Is this nightmare scenario we’ve all collectively gone along with really worth it? Is owning a gun so essential to the fabric of our society that it’s worth continuing to live in this nightmare hellscape for even one more day? If you said yes, again, you’re objectively wrong.
The preamble to the Constitution enshrines the insurance of domestic tranquility as tantamount to the existence of the United States. Common sense more than reaffirms that declaration. If we do not pass gun control immediately, we will not be insured of domestic tranquility – honestly, the collective mental health of our nation will continue to deteriorate. And I refuse to stand idly by and watch that happen.
Sources
- Miller, G., "Dear President Trump: Video Games Are So Much More Than 'Violent'." Newsweek, August 9, 2019.
- Noah, T., "America's Mass Shooting PTSD - Between the Scenes." The Daily Show With Trevor Noah, August 8, 2019.
APA Reference
DeSalvo, T.
(2019, August 21). Without Gun Control, We Are All More Anxious, HealthyPlace. Retrieved
on 2024, December 23 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/anxiety-schmanxiety/2019/8/without-gun-control-we-are-all-more-anxious
Author: TJ DeSalvo
"Gun Control" is not as transparent as it may seem. When a law gets passed, everything that is supposed to change does not instantly get fixed. Enacting many laws about drugs stopped people from doing drugs, right? No. Those laws haven't stopped the sale nor the usage of those drugs.
By adding gun laws, the main people who get gun access restricted from them are law-abiding citizens. In Pittsburgh, the local police department did a study on this with the University of Pittsburgh. They analyzed about 900 guns recovered from crimes in 2016 and found that approximately eighty percent of those were not legally those of the person involved in the crime. This rate will likely grow even higher if we ban handguns. The only result of banning guns is the removal of guns from law-abiding citizens. People who want to do wrong with the guns will still find ways to get the guns and do what they wish with said guns; the only difference between now and this hypothetical is that there will be nothing of similar power to stop them. Let's take a school for example. If someone for whatever reason decides to shoot up a school, they will likely try to get their hands on a gun in whatever way possible. Outlawing guns will not stop this, just like drugs, illegal sale and ownership will still happen. The shootings will only become more deadly, because there will be nothing to stop them. You think some rubber balls to throw at a shooter will stop them? No. Not as well as armed campus security will. If we have armed guards at schools and everyone knows it, shooting attempts will be few and far between. Even attempts that do happen will be much lower in casualties, most likely with the shooter as the only one.
So, if proposed laws are about stopping shootings, this is a much easier, more cost-effective, and logical solution.
I really don't buy into the whole "good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns" argument, and I find it somewhat fascinating that people keep bringing it up. So many recent mass shootings - Parkland, Orlando (I believe), among others - had armed guards on site, and yet the shooter was still able to kill dozens of people in an instant. Not only do I not think adding more armed guards will solve the problem, to be frank, I refuse to live in a world where we have to be constantly surrounded by armed guards just to feel a baseline sense of security. That's exactly what my post was railing against. By doing that, we're sending a message that it's more important to continue to allow the mass proliferation of guns than to enact any sort of common-sense regulation for the safety of the populace at large. I refuse to endorse such a position. In the wake of mass shootings, other nations like Scotland and New Zealand passed meaningful gun control within days. Days. It's now approaching, God help us, seven years since Sandy Hook. Some of those kids are going to be entering junior high and high school. And we've done nothing. Absolutely nothing. If more guns were the solution to end gun violence, we'd already be the safest nation in the history of the world. God knows we're not.
Just to clarify, you would feel safer with laws that aren't guaranteed to work and the idea that everyone follows all laws and is good? The Orlando shooting is the only recent shooting in America with an armed guard; although, it was a gun-free zone and the guard only had a small hand gun with a few rounds. He was out of training, close to retirement, and could hear that the weapon the shooter had was severely disproportionate to that of the shooter. Furthermore, it was illegal for the shooter to have a gun there because it was a large gun-free area, and that obviously didn't stop him.
Yes, New Zealand has passed new laws with a buy-back. According to New Zealand government sources, thousands have been turned in over the last two months. However, there were 1.5 million registered firearms in New Zealand. Now, guns are illegal, yet most citizens who previously owned them still do. Less than 10% have turned in their guns.
Every country has problems. We currently are the safest country in the world. Take Hong Kong for example, they are being oppressed and attacked by the Communist Chinese government. They don't have anything to protect themselves with. Every day, protesters are waving American flags and demanding rights like we have here. Without guns, they can be controlled with no ability to defend themselves from the government and government-controlled police who have all of the guns and deadly weapons.
The notion that we are the safest country in the world is patently false. Japan, for instance, has exponentially less violent crime that we have - as do many other industrialized nations. A few Latin American countries recently posted travel warnings for anyone traveling to the US because of the mass shootings - is that the mark of the safest country in the world? And I highly doubt that the ability for the people of Hong Kong to own guns would change anything regarding the recent protests. If the Chinese government really wanted to, they'd just storm in with tanks and armored vehicles - no gun can is going to save you from that. The same applies to our military as well.
I'm sorry, but if you're not seeing the point here, then we're going to have to agree to disagree on this - I really have no desire to escalate this any further.