[Pretzel Logic]

Actually I wrote about the 40K deaths per year by cars in the US in a previous reply, but decided to delete it (to stay on topic). Again, and to be even more clear than in my previous posts:

I AM NOT FOR A BAN ON GUNS! (I hate caps locks but it must be made clear, or the discussion keeps on circling back to it, for some weird reason ...., and not move forward...)

Of course guns serve a purpose, I clearly stated that actually already: "everything has a place in society, even guns". That goes without saying for me.

The whole philosophical question is "are we as a society willing to accept the price (of innocent defenseless children being slaughtered to the tune of an entire class room) because of our current gun ownership law(s)?". Because that answer will logically be "no", we thus need to change the law. That is the only logical next step after acknowledging something is wrong. Change can only come from accepting something is wrong. And apparently the current law is dysfunctional. (otherwise we are self-justifying... the biggest and most dangerous mind-trap of all)

Why would we otherwise spent so much time, money, energy, manpower, etc on trying to make our roads and cars safer? Because we have accepted it ain't perfect, but it requires change. Will we ever get 0 deaths per year in traffic? No, of course not. Can we reduce the number of deaths? Yes we can. Hence our constant work on changing the situation (traffic laws, traffic safety, cars etc). So we don't scream for a ban on cars, that's silly and unrealistic, but we as a society do demand less traffic-related deaths and improved traffic safety.

It is therefore logical to conclude that we can also work on improving our gun laws to reduce the number of gun related deaths and to improve gun safety. Or would that be too much to ask??? Improving them so that next time, because there will be a next time (just like there will be a next car accident) we may be able to safe a life. One life saved will already justify all the changes. That would be beautiful.

That's pretty much all I am asking for.

In this case, the first question that we need to answer is: "Can new laws actually make a difference with something that is already being used by a lawless individual for a lawless purpose?"

I don't think they can. I think the only thing laws do is impact law-abiding citizens, and law-abiding citizens aren't the problem to begin with.

Put simply: Guns aren't the problem: murder is the problem.

And we already have laws against murder. So new laws won't make one ounce of difference to the actual problem, which -- put another way -- is immoral people who don't care about laws.

Gun deaths are only a symptom of the root problem (murder), and we can't make a society well by treating the symptoms. Just like taking an aspirin for a brain tumor -- it might make us feel a little better temporarily, but it's not going to cure a damn thing.

And we have precedence for this: virtually every major city that has outlawed guns has seen violent crime rates INCREASE. So we know by experience that the practical result of gun laws shows they do not decrease violent crimes. Laws do keep guns out of the hands of the law-abiding populace -- but they do not keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Why would "next time be different"? Why aren't we learning from this?

We're not learning from this because it's not an issue most of us approach rationally -- we approach it emotionally, from a heartbroken "senseless tragedy" viewpoint. And I can totally understand that. But if we were approaching it rationally, we would look at the stats and say, "Gun laws don't help, because unfortunately, there's no easy fix for murder."

If we viewed it totally logically, then perhaps we'd even pass laws REQUIRING people to carry personal handguns -- after all, stats indicate that solution would most likely lower violent crime.

And that's the problem with these types of debates -- our heart wants to fix the problem, even when our head tells us we don't have a fix for it. So we grasp blindly at perceived "solutions," in order to make the pain go away... in order to feel like we're doing something proactive to try and fix the problem. That's why I feel it's important to first realize what the problem actually is (murder, not guns). And in those cases, just like trading, I try to take the emotion out of it and do what my head says makes the most sense. And, based on the facts, my head says more gun laws won't help one iota -- and could actually be more harmful and make the root problems worse.