The Enemy Is Us

Guns do kill people. Too many people.

What is the United States going to do about it?

The first challenge is to identify the problem.

At Sunday’s march in Washington, D.C., organizers blamed the usual suspects: guns and the National Rifle Association.

At counterdemonstrations, organizers replied with the usual rhetoric: Hollywood liberals and their pals in the White House want to take away our right to defend ourselves.

This was political posturing, on both sides.

But the bloodshed is real. Disturbed young people find it easy to commit suicide with firearms. Other young people join gangs and find it easy to slaughter one another, as well as innocent bystanders.

Why?

First, we produce these disturbed young people. We entertain them with violence-promoting music, movies and video games. Television news exaggerates crime and fills them with fear. The media and the street culture tell them that guns are a quick way to resolve conflict. Adults create and tolerate the drug culture. Then, we make guns easily available. And along the way we neglect to adequately understand or treat mental illness, suicide’s root cause.

The way to change this demented culture is to change our own behavior. It is an elitist copout to call for yet another law in hopes the government then will compel someone else to change.

Dads and moms, media consumers, the entertainment industry, journalists, health insurance carriers, gun hobbyists, health insurers and drug users all can make better, life-affirming choices. Until they do - until we do, each one of us - gun control proposals will keep on making people angry - and changing nothing.