Change Yourself

Guns don't kill people, people. People kill people. We must always remember this. Also, cars don't crash into people. People crash into people. Cocaine doesn't snort cocaine; people snort cocaine.

You see what I'm getting at here. The NRA has a point. A gun does no harm so long as the person holding it knows what they are doing and has no desire to do wrong. The world is dangerous; cars crash. Guns fire and misfire. Lightning crashes. Prohibition of old dangers only creates new dangers, plus the same old dangers which are illegal but still around.

Still, the urge to ban the tools that people use to cause others harm is quite strong. There are so many things that people use to harm. Back at the beginning of the century, radical feminists thought they could curb violence against women if alcohol were banned. In the 80s, Tipper Gore thought she could curb licentiousness and depravity among teenagers if nasty music were restrited. And, for a while now, people have been saying that guns ought to be banned because they are so very dangerous and have been used to kill people in these horrible school shootings.

So this kid Jeff Weise in Minnesota taking a gun to school and killing people, after he killed his own grandfather, and then taking his own life...it's going to make us want to ban things. And not just guns. He was a professed neo-nazi, apparently; let's outlaw hate speech and swastikas. He got made fun of in school, so let's outlaw teasing in the classroom. At some point, someone is going to get their hands on his CD collection, and then we'll be deciding what music to ban again.

But let's not ban things. Why? It doesn't work. The reason is simple: Jeff Weise killed people because there was evil in him. Notice, I don't say that he was evil. There was evil in him; there is a difference. There is evil in all of us.

And you can't ban that. You cannot ban hatred or legislate against the temptation to do wrong. But wait, can't we legislate against temptation? We could, after all, ban the guns and Mein Kampf, which tempted the boy to do what he did. Well, that bans one kind of temptation, that is, the things that are inducements and allurements. But temptation is also the desire to do wrong, and that comes from inside us. There would be no murders if people did not desire to kill; if there were no guns, no knives, and no heavy stones, the desire would still be there, piqued by our jealousy when we are denied or our rage when we are wronged. We would find ways strangle each other with our stumps if our hands were cut off.

It is not foolish or naive to hope that a day will come when no one wants to do anyone else harm. Hoping for that day, and working toward it, is what makes human beings pleasant to be around. However, everyone knows that the road is long. And every step we take, we take alone. Because, though inspiration inspires and influence influences, no one changes you but you.