I’ve been mulling the article I linked to yesterday that makes suggestions for practical gun safety based on the NRA’s safety rules. And I suspect that one may think to themselves, how would gun safety laws help decrease the amount of gun violence in the United States. And here from the article is the point:
Well written laws are about pragmatism.
For example, we all know that laws against drinking and driving won’t stop drunk driving, but they weren’t intended to. We know it’s going to happen. People are going to drink and drive and kill themselves and each other. We know we can’t eliminate it completely. That’s the pragmatism part.
Instead, drunk driving laws were intended to do two things, 1) give us legal recourse as a society, 2) make us responsible for our antisocial behavior – which in turn leads over time to a change in culture.
And that change significantly, measurably, reduced drinking and driving and provably saved lives and made American roads a safer place for all of us.
But, and this is important so pay attention, here’s what those laws didn’t do: they didn’t keep those of us who take responsibility for our own actions from 1) drinking, or 2) driving (note the operative word here is or).
And that’s the answer.
We need gun laws that give society legal recourse by making each gun owner/user personally accountable for their own actions.
Most sane people, pro gun law or anti gun law, will at least acknowledge that gun violence is way out of control in the United States. We have a societal problem. The problem has been getting worse for a decade and no laws have been passed to address it. What message, what permission, does the very act of not doing anything have on society? I think it says, the current state is ok. Keep on with the killing no matter whether it is in a school, a church, or a movie theatre.