Rather than gun control, are we all not really ultimately striving for violence control, and more specifically to this conversation, murder control? The seeds to the answer for many seem to be spiritual ones. Let us assume for the moment that religions over thousands of years have collectively distilled man’s attempt at understanding of the spirit realm. The Christian religion teaches that no matter how hard man strives, he will always sin. Yet through the practice of his faith he will sin less.
If this is true, then a community steeped in faith gains the benefit of less crime but does not eliminate it. Yet, our nation has rejected this centuries old notion to search for progress through freedom from religion, exchanging its benefits to loosen the binds of bigots that have used religion to cloak their own version of sin.
A belief that following one’s faith in all manners, such as in integrating it in a strong family foundation, leads to activism that prioritizes front end solutions as the best form of murder control. Murder activism would place front-end solutions such as a stronger emphasis on better schools and revitalizing inner city employment over back end solutions like gun control.
A tenet of most faiths is also that while following one’s faith improves the probability that men wil lean toward their better nature, it does not always stop them from heeding their lesser ones. We will always have murder no matter how moral the society.
This understanding is why capitalism wins out over communism. Communism requires an adherence to man’s better nature when man is incapable of fully adhering. Capitalism pits each man striving in his own best interest against each another, and yet also in cooperation as seems fit, to best the interests of all that participate.
Similarly, gun control’s success requires that all adhere to man’s better nature. Yet centuries of religious teaching suggests it is doomed to fail for that very reason. Instead, following the age-old wisdom found in religion about man’s true nature is the better path. We should prioritize enabling man’s better nature on the front end and protect from his lesser nature on the back end.
How then do we protect ourselves from the violent acts that injure one American every 15 seconds and that kill one every 20 minutes. If man’s nature is the same the world over, then taking guns away from citizens is not the answer for other nation’s examples show that taking protective guns away from citizens correlates to increasing violence against them. Also giving legal guns only to policemen is not the answer, for if it were then we would not have the crime we have today for the vast majority of gun violence is not conducted by legally obtained and held guns and police have not curbed their violence.
Based on humanity’s inability to meet perfection even in the most strict of religious societies throughout history, the best solution is a distributive civil defense, guns readily available to defend against the illegal use of guns for violent ends.
Clif Carothers
Job Voucher Plan 