On violence

The shocking events at Va Tech haven't really sunk in for me. In roaming around the blogosphere this morning, I'm learning that a variety of folks are having a similar response - we must stop the violence. Some want to stop it by looking at video games. Others want gun control.

You know what? We need both of those, and we needed them 25 years ago.

I grew up in a home where the gun cabinet sits right inside the back door. In that cabinet there is a collection of beautiful firearms, some of which are rare collector's pieces. They're all shotguns and rifles. The one pistol that was in there was long ago put into the safe - it's just too dangerous to have around, thought my dad.

When I was about 6 years old, I got a BB gun for Christmas. Now, a BB gun isn't a very high powered weapon, and I would further submit that this gun was even less so than most. You seriously could watch the little pellet arc out of the barrel and fall well short of its target.

However, despite its lack of power, my dad would not let me handle the gun before teaching me a rudimentary gun safety course. See, I grew up in a society where everyone, men and women, hunts. Everyone uses a gun as part of every day life. Got a chicken snake taking your hen's eggs? Shoot 'im. Got a cow that's gone rogue and needs to get back in the field? Load up the shotgun with rock salt, and shoot 'er.

But, here's the kicker - the people in this society don't go on a rampage shooting one another. In fact, the incidence of gun violence in the community where I grew up is virtually nil. Furthermore, there are very few accidents that I know of EVER having occurred involving guns. I truly wish I had statistics here, but I don't.

So I submit that it's not the guns that drives us to the violence. It's the lack of respect for the guns and for one another that kills us.

You see, I learned how to use a gun at a young age. In doing so, however, I learned what a gun was capable of doing. I was taught "hunter safety" not only in the state-approved course that was required to have a hunting license, but also from the time I was very small. I learned that you *never* walk around with a loaded gun. You *never* point your gun at anything you wouldn't mind shooting (loaded or not). And you *never ever* shoot at anything that you don't absolutely intend to kill. There is no middle ground - by choosing a gun as a weapon, you are choosing something lethal, and you absolutely must understand that.

So it's not as much about controlling access to guns - it's about ensuring that people are properly educated about using guns. And also, to get on one of my other related rants - it's about ensuring that people understand that a gun is for protection and for sport - you don't need a damn automatic weapon for anything other than rapid fire situations. Those situations are illegal in hunting, and they have no other application than to put you in a position to kill many things in a short amount of time. There is absolutely *no reason* for someone to own one of these things, and because Americans have a noted lack of restraint, we have to regulate the ownership of them. We should *ban* their ownership, however.

But even more - I genuinely believe this incident stems a lack of respect for life. Honestly, I don't know but what the 'violent video game' culture also plays into this. I'm sorry, but if, in a virtual world, you're allowed to kill hookers and cops for the fun of it, you will lose some of your appreciation for the value we should place on one another.

It does, however, go beyond the video games. It starts when kids are young. I've had a serious issue with the Duke Lacrosse case, simply because I think that one lesson that needed to be learned was obviated by the overzealous prosecutor targeting guys who were innocent of the specific crime charged against them. Simply put, these guys were still doing things they shouldn't have been doing. In my experience with the Duke Lacrosse team (assuming that the team is the same 15 years later as it was in my undergraduate years), this group of boys never has treated women very respectfully. In fact, there is an entire subculture at Duke where men treat women awfully. Remember people, this is a school where the frats get prime housing in the best dorms on West campus (I'll plead ignorance and apologize if this facet of life has changed), while the sororities don't have housing. Disparity?

At the end of the day, we're still in a culture where women, and therefore more than half of our society, are treated as less-than-equal. Women don't get paid as much. Women have asked of them "So, do you plan to have more children in the future" in the course of a job interview. Women are asked "So, when your husband finishes his current path and is getting his new job started, how do we know you won't leave?" as part of a (different) job interview. Sure, you can say these questions are illegal, but they're still asked. Men rarely, if ever, get these kinds of questions.

And that's what yields this type of violent reaction. A lack of respect both on the part of the perpetrator, as well as likely against him by some segment of society. Put it another way - would this happen (or Columbine or any of these massive attacks) happen if there wasn't something in society putting the perpetrator down? If we can't start treating one another with decency and respect, we shouldn't expect to be treated so ourselves. I'm not going to go so far and say that this is a "Male-only" kind of crime - women are vicious and mean too, we just typically don't turn to overt violence as our way of striking back.

It's a long fight - a very long one. But it has to begin, and now. We can't sit around talking about how the college should've done better in warning the campus (despite the fact that they easily should've). Truly, our efforts need to be focused on understanding the defect in our society that leads a person to strike out in this manner. And fully understanding where the fault can be found. Then working to FIX THE PROBLEM rather than pointing fingers and blaming one another.

And people, if we can do that, then gun control won't be an issue any more. Nor will the disparate treatment given to women.