Debunking the Arguments Against Gun Control
Multiple times a year the gun control debate comes raging back into American discourse. Liberals feel frustrated that we aren’t doing nearly enough as a nation to curb gun violence while conservatives see any additional forms of gun control as government oppression and a direct attack on their personal freedom. This divisiveness on the subject has manifested in little meaningful action. My goal here is to form a public consensus among reasonable minded people by debunking the most common counter-arguments to gun control. So next time your drunk uninformed Trump loving uncle starts ranting off the tired tropes of why gun control is bad, send him this article.
First we need to establish some foundational facts about America’s gun violence. As you can see below we compare very poorly to other major nations. We have 96 times the gun violence that Japan does, that’s insane. Japan has much less poverty and gang membership, an almost non-existent gun culture, and very low gun ownership. We also have over 6 times the rate of accidental gun deaths compared to other major nations. Our gun violence rates are not normal, they’re not a price of freedom and we have to take action on this. Period. Now let’s debunk the major conservative talking points against gun control.
1. Its Mental Health, Not Guns
Many conservatives claim that Americas high gun violence and mass shooting incidents are a result of us “ignoring mental health issues” This often takes the form of very vague statements such as “kids these days need more Jesus in their life” or “mental health needs more funding”. Nations like Japan, the UK, Singapore and Germany all have their own mentally ill people, yet have almost non-existent gun crime.
The other gaping hole in this argument is that most shooters, even most mass shooters were not mentally ill, there’s this false narrative that floats around that mental illness somehow makes you more inherently violent, this isn’t true. Many of America’s shooters were average Joes who none of us would’ve ever expected to commit such a heinous crime. However they do all have ONE thing in common, and that is easy access to firearms that can cause incredible amounts of harm in short periods of time.
This is not to say America can’t do much better at focusing on our happiness and mental health, of course we could, but it’s a red-herring, a distraction from the glaring issue of our nation being awash in guns.
For you science nerds here’s a source to a major study on just this
2. We Need More Guns To Keep Us Safe
This argument is especially silly to me, it defies common sense but nonetheless I’ll address it because I hear it all the damn time. Conservatives claim that “the good guys need more guns to protect us from the bad guys” Not only is this a naive black and white worldview, it isn’t backed up by any empirical evidence. Following this train of thought the United States would have rather low rates of gun violence because we have by far the most guns of any nation, but the reality is we have the highest gun crime in the world excluding the Philippines and Latin American countries.
3. Gun Control Violates the 2nd Amendment
A lot of our founding fathers also thought slavery was perfectly fine, so let’s just say times change and WE as a nation are in control of our future, there’s no mysterious law of nature that says we have to obey their wisdom, if we want to AMEND an AMENDment then we most certainly can. Not to mention that the original transcribers of the Bill of Rights had no idea how far firearm technology would advance. If only black powder rifles existed, this wouldn’t be a national crisis. Also there have always been limits to the 2nd Amendment, surely you don’t want private citizens having their own Bazooka or personal Nuclear Bomb?
4. People Will Harm Others With Or Without Guns
There is a small grain of truth to this, but it’s still ignoring the efficient killing machine that modern guns are. Could the Vegas shooter have killed 58 people and injured 500 more with a butchers knife from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel, of course not. And anyone that does mental gymnastics around this truth or “whataboutisms” to BUT BOMBS is ignoring that guns are and have been the weapon of choice of murderers in this country, especially mass murders. We will never eliminate humans potential for violence but a reduction in violence or in the severity of violence is still a success.
5. I Need Guns To Fight Against A Tyrannical Government.
No, just no, there’s a million other non-violent intelligent ways to preserve freedom and a healthy functioning society. None of them include you getting in a shootout with a government drone with laser guided missiles to save our country.
What can we realistically do about gun crime you ask? If we wanted meaningful change and if we wanted to do everything we could to prevent another Columbine, another Sandy Hook, another Orlando Night Club shooting, another wave of gang shootings in Chicago, we would implement a ban on all semi-automatic weapons. That would mean only single shot hunting rifles and shotguns would be legally allowed. This accompanied with addressing poverty, gang and drug trade involvement and mental health issues would result in a significant decrease in gun crime in this nation.
