Over the past few days, I’ve read or heard numerous comments such as “All guns should be banned”, “if guns were banned, this wouldn’t have happened”, “this was the direct result of playing video games”, “violent games should be illegal”, “my kids will never play video games again”, “i’m making my husband get rid of every single one of his guns”….and on and on and on. Every one of these comments, these opinions, are absolutely absurd; and anyone with an ounce of common sense should stop for a moment and truly consider what you’re saying.
We’ll take guns first. To do this, let’s step back to 1970. In October of that year, the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act was passed. This made narcotics such as Cocaine, Heroin and other drugs illegal to obtain, posses and distribute. (There were actually a few laws prior to this in 1906 and 1915 for you history buffs, but this was supposedly the “nail in the coffin” of drugs.) I don’t have to finish this line of thought; you know where it’s going. Every year since 1970 (without exception) the number of crimes related to these banned narcotics has increased as well as the volume of available narcotics. There are more illegal drugs on the streets today than any other time in history. Yet, according to all of these people, if you ban something, or make it illegal to posses — this solves any subsequent problems with that item. Cocaine was banned. People can no longer get cocaine. Cocaine is no longer a problem in America. Seriously?
This would be the exact same scenario with banning or controlling guns. I cannot comprehend why people can’t see this. If guns were to be banned, all this does is remove those guns from law-abiding citizens. Criminals will have their guns no matter what — just like they have their drugs no matter what. Sure, there may be a little higher purchase price — but that doesn’t matter. If a criminal wants a gun, they will have it. Period. Banning guns only weakens us a nation and makes us more susceptible to violent crimes. Do your research before you spout off something that you know nothing about. Look at gun laws in European countries. Countries with the lowest gun-ownership per capita also have the highest murder rates involving guns. By removing guns, you also remove the rights of people to protect themselves from those that will have guns regardless of the law.
BREAKING NEWS: America will once again be a nation of skinny people!! All eating utensils (forks, spoons, knives, and chopsticks) have been banned! No more fat people in the United States!! It was, after all, the spoons fault that we’re a nation of obese citizens.
On to video games. This is more asinine than the gun excuse. You hear the media say things like “violent video games desensitizes our kids to violence”. This from the generation that grew up playing “Cowboys and Indians” or “Cops and Robbers”. These were games that you actually acted out killing your best friend in your yard. You aimed a gun at him, pulled the trigger, heard a bang, and he falls over dead. Can’t get much more violent than that. But that generation (as a whole) didn’t grow up and become psychotic killers did they? Of course not. It’s because we, as humans, inherently know the difference between right and wrong. Playing a video game doesn’t make me want to go out and shoot someone.
If anything desensitizes us to violence and these types of shootings, it’s the media. All we have seen or heard now for days is reporters sensationalizing this kid who murdered these children. I bet without thinking very hard, you can name the 2 murderers in the Columbine shootings. Dillian Klebold and Eric Harris right? Now, name one of the victims of that shooting? …….. Still trying to remember? You can’t. It’s because the media (intentional or not) makes it “glamorous” for these evil people. They make them a household name. It makes some other person, that doesn’t have it all upstairs, think “hey, i’ll go out with my name forever in American history”. If anything other than the gunman himself should be blamed, why not blame the media? That’s much more likely than saying a video game did it.
Everyone needs something to blame. It was guns, it was video games, it was his mother, etc. etc. How bout — It was him? It was his fault. Why do we have to have something else to blame?
If you want to blame something, how about this. As a nation, we’ve gone soft. Very soft. Children are taught that if you complain about something, you’ll always get your way. If you want on a sports team (even if you have no talent whatsoever), you can just sue the school; they have to let you play. Responsibility doesn’t mean anything anymore. There’s always someone, somewhere that can be blamed. That’s the world we live in today and it’s a sad world.
How do we fix this problem? That’s for another post, but I can unequivocally say that banning guns will do nothing but increase violent crimes all around us. It’s been proven.
