By contrast, liberals believe that human civilization can and should be perfected, and that most people are fundamentally good and decent, therefore near-perfection is achievable, eventually. No issue is more emblematic of that philosophical -- I would say, spiritual, divide than the gun control debate. If you believe, like I do, that most people are kind and trustworthy, then you naturally question why everybody should need so many deadly guns to protect themselves against... whom? Other kind and decent people? It doesn't make sense.
Even in the conservative/Red State conception, the justification for possessing lots of deadly guns presents a contradiction. For they are the first ones to point out, post-Sandy Hook, how rates of violent crime in Chicago and Washington, DC are higher than in Small Town, USA; they always have been, well before recent RTC and concealed-carry laws. Yet conservatives are not quite ready to credit their small towns' relative tranquility to the abundance of their guns; nay, they truly consider themselves to be better morally. Meanwhile they see immorality and bestiality in the multicultural, multi-class structures of our growing, bustling, complicated urban areas. Pro-gun conservatives may pay lip service to "An armed society is a polite society," but indeed, the presence or absence of guns is a distant second, in their minds, in terms of what distinguishes them.
That is why these shooting rampages at schools throw conservatives -- and all of us, really, since we all go in for this nonsense to some extent -- for such a loop, because they are usually committed in suburbs and rural areas. Moreover, shooting rampages are overwhelmingly white-on-white crime. Yet statistically, we know that our chances of falling victim to a deranged, heavily armed mass murderer are tiny. For conservatives, the main thing is to stay focused on the real threat and stay armed in case they come for them: blacks, Muslims, Latinos, OWS hippies and anarchists, godless atheists, activist gays, poor people -- all the alleged marauders storming their Gates of Goodness.
And so, there are articles of faith in pro-gun conservatives' minds that no amount of statistics or facts can alter. That is why our gun debate never goes anywhere, we always start at zero, and nothing much will happen this time (after Sandy Hook) either:
As we've seen in the debates on issues from climate change to gender equality to foreign policy, facts, statistics and rational arguments don't really matter if the goal of offering them up is to improve things in the here and now. It's a deeply pessimistic view of humanity that projects a strong sense of fatalism.The point of being "good" isn't because goodness is valuable unto itself or because goodness is widely beneficial. The point of being good is to earn heaven points. Goodness, then, is defined according to a very particular set of religious and cultural values, and is highly "in-group" focused. Goodness means going to church, marrying early, submitting to a husband-in-charge family structure, having children out of obligation and upholding the social pillars that organize society to keep a particular group on top.Goodness isn't necessarily helping other people or taking steps that are proven effective at decreasing violence or working to create a more accepting and happy world for our children. Goodness is upholding the power structures that have traditionally benefited the small group of men who think they have a monopoly on defining "goodness."
[...] It is certainly true that "good" people don't walk into a classroom and shoot a group of six year-olds. It's also true that good people don't murder their wives and girlfriends – yet five times more women are killed by intimate partners every year than by strangers, and 95% of the women who are killed with a firearm are murdered by a man. If there's a gun involved, an incident of domestic violence is 12 times more likely to result in death. And while mass shootings understandably capture our national attention, the more than 30,000 American gun deaths every year (and their $37bn price tag) should spur us to action.It's easy to read those figures and conclude that conservatives are right: we are a world of awful, violent people who are going to keep on being awful and violent no matter what, so gun control serves no purpose and we'll all be better off in Heaven anyway. But as is true with almost anything that makes life on Earth brutish and miserable, we have the power to change that. Gun deaths are lower in the states with the strictest gun control laws. And the majority of US gun deaths actually comprises suicides – acts committed not generally by evil, murderous people, but by individuals who are sick and hurting and need help.
By Jill Filipovic
December 21, 2012 | Guardian
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