My heart sank on Saturday when I saw reports of another mass murder—this time in El Paso. My heart sinks every time I hear of a shooting, but this one hit close to home. After all, Texas is my home.
Then I woke up Sunday morning to learn of another mass murder in Dayton, Ohio. Once again, my heart sank.
And this comes hot on the heels of another mass murder in Gilroy, California last weekend.
It’s enough to make one stop and ask a question: What’s going on here?
I’ll tell you what makes me sad and then mad about these shootings. First and foremost, people die. In most cases, they’re defenseless and shot senselessly. Many times, children die. Lives are cut short.
Second, the mainstream media immediately politicizes (polarizes) the narrative and jumps to conclusions. Forget just mourning with the victims and letting people internalize what happened, much less waiting for reports from the front lines. Everything has to fit the preconceived narrative, whether that’s liberal, conservative, or something else. The philosophy is, “If it doesn’t fit the narrative, don’t report it.” Or worse.
Third, the talking heads who immediately start calling for gun bans, gun control, and gun whatever.
You might be wondering, “Why do calls for gun control make you mad, Matthew? Isn’t that a sensible thing to do?”
No, it’s not, because it’s ignoring so many other factors.
I once saw an analysis of four countries’ gun laws and gun violence statistics: Japan, Mexico, Switzerland, and the United States. Here is the essence of that analysis:
- Japan: Low gun availability, very low gun violence.
- Mexico: Low gun availability, very high gun violence.
- The U.S.: High gun availability, very high gun violence.
- Switzerland: High gun availability, very low gun violence.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
People like to point to gun ownership as the cause of these mass murders. They then demand “gun control” to prevent future mass murders. But that’s like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Switzerland, until recently, had very free gun laws. Every citizen is required to serve in the military, issued a firearm, and then allowed to keep that firearm upon honorable discharge. Consequently, most Swiss households owned guns.
Yet you don’t hear about mass shootings in Switzerland. Ever.
Contrast that to Mexico, the complete opposite. Mexico has strict gun control laws that should prevent even the cartels from owning them, and yet people get shot and killed every day, even in touristy places like Cancún.
Within the United States, one need only look at Chicago, a city with strict gun control laws, to see how well gun control is working out. Chicago banned handguns from 1982 to 2010—at which time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the ban unconstitutional. During that period, 59% of all murders in the city were committed with handguns. From 2003 to 2010, that figure jumped to 71%.
Gun control worked pretty well for the Windy City, then, huh?
Here’s another piece of data: There are approximately 393 million guns owned by civilians in the United States alone. That’s 1.2 guns for every American citizen.
If guns were the problem, we’d sure as heck know it by now. We’d be seeing shootings on an even more massive scale.
These facts are not intended to diminish gun violence in any way. Gun violence is tragic. Any loss of life is tragic. There’s no argument there.
But realize that guns are just a means to an end. Timothy McVeigh bombed Oklahoma City using fertilizer. Terrorists on 9/11 used airplanes. The Boston Marathon bombers used a pressure cooker.
My point is this: Guns are not the problem. Guns never were the problem.
So, what is?
Mental health or instability? Radicalization? Social isolation?
Race-baiting politicians? Brainwashing? Mind control?
The “Deep State” or the “New World Order”?
Far-fetched, you say? Maybe not entirely. But you have to ask yourself these things and do some digging. Rarely does the “official story” match up with all the facts.
Frankly, I don’t know the answer to why. I wish I did. And until I do, or at least think I do, I’m going to keep looking.
But even if I did, the sad fact is that most people will not think beyond what appears to be the immediate solution: ban guns.
Banning alcohol worked so well in the 1920s that they had to pass the 21st Amendment to overturn the 18th.
What makes anyone think that guns would be any different?
And, I hate to say this, but mass murders make me more in favor of the 2nd Amendment than I was before. I want to have a gun on my person if a bad guy starts shooting at me.
And in the current state of our nation, being shot at has become less and less far-fetched of an idea.
I hope this short article has prompted you to think. Ask yourself these questions. Does it really make sense, what these political talking heads are demanding?
Or are they just pushing a narrative?
Pray for the victims of these attacks and their families, pray for our nation, and pray for our world. May God bless our leaders with wisdom and discernment as they grapple with these tough issues. May our nation get to the root causes of these issues so that innocent people can safely go about their lives without fear of being shot.
And may Truth prevail.
Sources and further reading
Guns in Other Countries — Gun Facts: http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/guns-in-other-countries/
Estimating Global Civilian-Held Firearms Numbers — Small Arms Survey: http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf
Gun Control — Just Facts: https://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp