Crime and Punishment

The crime we know about. A lot of it. Mayhem, murder, beatings, spousal abuse physical, mental and sexual, plus abuse of kids. Racism is rampant as well as is incivility that entices violence. There is theft, fraud, propaganda, lying, cheating and a whole lot more. You name the crime, we got it. Plenty of it.

Punishment? That’s easy; it’s the crime we endure.

And that is because we cause it. A crime unaddressed is a punishment earned. Sounds almost biblical.

Guns. We allow guns. We worship guns. And ammo. High caliber, small bore, hidden or cannon sized. Firepower is America. Always has been. At our nation’s beginning, we settled a frontier of mostly uninhabited space. Yes, native Americans were already here, but we European white folk did not accept their dominion over us. So we played at humoring them and then killed most of them. The remainder were relegated to distant reservations on inhospitable landscapes. Before the great death march, we used guns to tame the land.

Guns, again. We have more guns than people today. Over 330 million guns, rifles and God knows what included in that census. The point is the longer we allow guns to prevail as anointed God given rights, we also allow nasty behavior of the gun owners to do as they pretty much please. Oh, there are laws to control bad behavior, but that does not work well. Never has. Death penalty and all that, no real deterrence.

We became appalled at the death toll from using automobiles freely in America. We were horrified at the carnage of maiming and disability caused by auto crashes. So, we wrote laws to control the situation. Lots of laws, so many it is difficult to keep track of them. In the main, however, they work to reduce the carnage. From nearly 60,000 deaths annually we are down to about 30,000 annually. That’s with a hugely increased population on top of it!

But guns are special. Yes, there are laws about guns, but they are so weak they do little to deter the carnage. Not only that, but the weakness of the laws was planned and designed so guns and the rights to own and bear them were never in doubt. No shade is allowed on gun rights.

And that’s where we are. Guns in most homes. Guns in poverty neighborhoods. Guns among those with little wealth, prosperity or whatever to protect. Just dignity and freedom. And so the guns are used to burnish the dignity. All the way to the funeral parlor.

Black neighborhoods throughout America, especially in urban areas, have a surfeit of guns. That’s where much of the violence and death is. That’s where drive-by shootings occur. That’s where car jackings occur. That’s where family abuse and murder abide.

Yes, there is much of this throughout society regardless of race, but the statistics prove black violence against black people is horrendous.

Complaining about any violence is natural. But in the end, what we all do about the violence is critical. If we do nothing to remove guns from the playing field, we have nobody to thank for the violence but ourselves.

The press loathes to say this. So are columnists, novelists, researchers, politicians, and people in power. We have boxed ourselves into a bad place. We don’t like being here, but we created it and maintain it. Change that and violence will change, too.

You don’t have to believe me. It may be helpful, though, if you reviewed the laws and justice systems in other lands that ban gun ownership. They have a different kind of violence, but not gun violence.

We are insane by definition. Doing the same thing but expecting different results. Get over it. Move on.

Banish guns. Now. At least put the onus of solutions on those who insist they have the right to own guns. Stop crowing about that. Work to end the violence. You now own it.

July 12, 2021