About Brokers

Romancing the gun: America's obsession

Date 4/20/2000 12:00 AM | Topic: News

One year has passed since Columbine High School became the most famous school in America for all the wrong reasons. One year has passed and we as a nation still balk at the chance to have a serious conversation about guns.

The question Columbine High raised is whether the availability of guns is responsible for what happened or if a violent media and irresponsible parents are to blame. I do not doubt the power of art or entertainment to inspire people to action, positive or negative, but it seems art acts more as inspiration than a catalyst of action. In the wrong minds, however, violence can be misunderstood, especially if it is in the form of entertainment and the audience is children. This is the argument those who defend guns use to say parents and the media should be more responsible with what America's children watch, read, and listen to.

I accept this, but this argument has limitations. The second we move past Columbine, which limits the discussion of guns to kids, and start asking questions about the place of guns in the larger society, the entertainment argument becomes too simplistic. It does not explain why a mentally disturbed 41-year old killed two security guards in the Capitol Building in 1998, why a 44-year old man in Atlanta shot up his place of employment last summer, or why a 47-year old would open fire in a church in Fort Worth, Texas, this past September.

For far too long, America has had a romantic obsession with the gun. It pervades our society like in no other democracy in the world. We tolerate guns and regulate them less than seat belts in automobiles and childproof caps on bottles of aspirin.

The rhetoric of the National Rifleman's Association (NRA) adds to the myth of the gun. Although they blame the media and parents for their acceptance of gun violence, the NRA never points a finger at itself. The NRA is just as responsible for romanticizing guns as movies are when they claim nothing is more American than owning one. The NRA has somehow managed to link guns with apple pie, and few seem inclined to challenge that status.

There is not a link between democracy and guns. (Just look at democracies around the world that have strict gun control.) There is a link between democracy and rule of law. The right to own a gun, just like the right to free speech, should not be unlimited. The Second Amendment may speak for guns, but it does so only as a matter of allowing a law enforcement unit to bring order to society, not as a method for citizens to wreak havoc in a nation based on democratic principles. Guns could go and we would still have an American democracy. There are plenty of protections in our Constitution other than the Second Amendment to ensure that.

This past January, I talked with an NRA lobbyist in Washington, D.C. After approximately forty-five minutes, I got the impression that he felt the U.S. government might be conspiring against him and other gun owners. His paranoia saddened me. One of the first things I teach kids in the summer during an introduction to government class is that although Americans realize politicians are not angels, we do trust the system and the checks and balances that maintain it and our freedom. This man ultimately did not place his faith in the Constitution but rather in a Smith & Wesson.

After meeting with him I walked a couple blocks to Arlington National Cemetery. I visited the graves of President John Kennedy and his brother Robert. From there I could look across the Potomac at the Lincoln Memorial and imagine. It's easy if you try.

--

Jason Stonerook
Chips Columnist

[ Comment, Edit or Article Submission ]