America not ready for gun ownership in fearful culture

In the aftermath of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, our nation joined together in mourning. At the same time, people ranging from political pundits to Rice students joined together in political discourse, claiming that if the students at Virginia Tech had concealed weapons, the massacre would not have occurred.

But we live in a world far too complex for this simplistic logic. How do we know that people with guns will only use them in reasonable self-defense? How do we know if retaliating students would have been able to tell friend from foe? Indeed, according to this argument, guns could have enabled someone to kill the shooter before he started on his murderous spree. In the end, if more people had guns, we would see a greater number of deaths, not fewer.

There are 200 million domestic firearms in the United States. But that is not the problem. After all, on a global scale, gun possession does not lead to more violent crime. For example, over one fifth of Canadian households own firearms, but Canada’s murder rate is much lower than America’s. What makes the United States so violent?

For starters, guns do not make people safer — they make people more dangerous by enabling them to take lives. When people’s lives are in danger they protect themselves by matching the threat they face. In our culture this not only translates to gun ownership but also to the understanding that guns should be used for one purpose: self-defense. This belief drives the National Rifle Association and other gun control opponents because they assume criminals will always have access to guns. And as a response, everyone else should have access to guns, too. Under this belief, the only way to be free is through self-protection.

The flaw in this argument is that we become trapped in our own insecurity. We equate not owning a gun to being vulnerable, and consequently sacrifice the ability to define our own safety by conforming to the tenets of gun ownership.

When the Constitution was written, Americans had reason to fear. An unsettled frontier and a vengeful Great Britain posed very real and consistent threats to our young republic. Therefore, the Bill of Rights included the Second Amendment. By asserting gun ownership as an unalienable right, the founding fathers bypassed the country’s inability to defend its citizenry. How better could a feeble government protect its people than to have its people protect themselves? While these circumstances dominated the past, modern America is much more stable and entirely capable of providing domestic security. However, distrust and paranoia still persist in our society.

Today, we live in a culture of fear. As a result, many Americans simply are not capable of using firearms responsibly, reacting to any perceived threat with the ultimate punishment. Just take a look at the violence prevalent throughout our society, and academia is no exception. Since 1996, 110 people have been killed in school shootings in the United States. During that same period everywhere else in the world, only 59 died in similar incidents.

And besides, unstable teenagers certainly are not the people to trust with firearms. Just last weekend, a fight nearly broke out at a Will Rice College private party. Had guns been involved, that fight could have been a murder.

Our nation has lost its privilege to use firearms as freely as the Second Amendment permits. So if we cannot change our attitudes, the United States should change its laws. The tragedy at Virginia Tech proves we need to reassess our gun control laws, as the shooter acquired his weapons legally. We need laws that ensure firearms will be used responsibly, and if this means prohibiting gun ownership altogether, so be it. Unfortunately, the political clout of the Second Amendment has prevented lawmakers from doing so in the past. Very little changed after Columbine. Hopefully, Monday’s events will not be ignored in Washington, lest we suffer similar tragedies in the future.

Matthew Schumann is a Wiess College freshman. Garrett Schumann, a Hanszen College freshman, contributed to this column.

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