Spoiler Alert: Drag Queens Don’t Kill Children in Their Classrooms
Last week I heard a report that death by gunshot is now the leading cause of death in children in the United States¹. WTF folks? What we’re doing about and with guns is stupid. Please note the period at the end of that last sentence. And, by the way, don’t give me that bullshit about your second amendment rights. I don’t give a hoot if you have those rights or not. Killing kids in their classrooms can not be justified by anyone’s rights, real or imagined. So get down off your high white horse and deal with reality. I mean really, what could that hurt? I doubt that you are aware that Switzerland is also a country with guns in nearly every household². But the rules in Switzerland are a bit different than here in the US, where gun ownership is a constitutional right. While the US manages guns via the Second Amendment, Switzerland has no equivalent constitutional provision dedicated to the ownership for owning guns. Laws vary from state to state in the US, with some states having among the least restrictive gun laws globally. In Switzerland, states or cantons also regulate guns and ammunition with some cantons being more strict than others. In general, in the United States background checks and safety training are not mandatory, and purchasing firearms is relatively easy compared to Switzerland. Background checks are mandatory in Switzerland³ and while it is relatively easy to purchase weapons the reason for the purchase must be within the law and a reason is required for purchase of automatic weapons, for example.
In Switzerland, societal views of guns are notably different than those in the US. In Switzerland, firearms are treated as tools primarily used for hunting, personal defense, or sport, and a permit is needed for public carry. They don’t have the same romanticized view of guns that we have here in the U.S. of A. We consider owning a gun as a ticket to righting all wrongs. From a shooting at a chinese party, to a shooting in a synagogue to a shooting in a black grocery store to shooting in schools. They’re all about righting someone’s notion of social injustice. How we in the United States arrived at the idea that killing someone will right anything is one of the most baffling of all mysteries. In not one mass shooting reported was anything meaningful accomplished. More often than not the shooter also ends up dead. Even when the shooter thinks of himself as a righteous avenger his manifesto is not published and no one reads it other than the police.
As debates concerning the prevalence and effects of gun violence continue in the United States, there is value in examining the Swiss approach to gun ownership as one example of responsible and successful gun control. While the US is not Switzerland, it’s clear that Switzerland’s approach to guns has proven highly effective in promoting responsible gun use and keeping violence rates low. But then not every country in the world is blessed with a congressional luminary such as Ms. Taylor Green. Ms. Green can say with the same mouth that she will protect children from drag queens putting on a show, but will insist that dumbass kids can buy and use guns with no supervision or instruction at all. According to this line of thought people should be born with the common sense to not shoot children in their classrooms. But I don’t see how that can be an actual argument if anyone can have access to a gun.
In Switzerland, for example, only 27.5 people out of 100 have access to a firearm. In the United States 120.5 people out of 100 have access to a firearm⁴. Now that’s an amazingly stupid example of how thoughts and prayers work. What that means is that anyone crazy enough to think that killing someone will make anything right, can put his or her hands on a firearm and go marching down to your local school and shoot your kids. How do we ignore that fact?
Look, cars are or can be dangerous. I have owned a car for a long time. I have owned guns for an even longer time. But I do not use either one to kill people. I do not gas up my car and go looking for a parade with lots of kids just to prove “I’m to be reckoned with.”Do you suppose there is a universe where Republicans back the right to drive cars with “people catchers,”for a weird example, on the front, so that in an intersection you can clean all pedestrians from the cross walks? Of course not. No one could back such a stupid idea. But we somehow think that selling automatic rifles to wet behind the ears, emotionally unstable teenagers so they can kill a whole classroom of children–that’s just hunky dory.
I don’t advocate taking guns away but I do advocate registering them. Switzerland has a set of practical laws that work. People have to be of age to buy firearms. Guns have to be locked up and they are inspected to make sure that’s the case. You have to have a reason to purchase an automatic weapon of any ilk. There are firearms which are grandfathered, but the culture is way different than in the US. There is a national culture of respect for firearms. Not only are the guns themselves registered, so is ammunition. Everyone still has the right to purchase arms. Military service is mandatory and those who serve buy their own weapon and keep it in their homes. Under lock and key mind you, but they keep their military weapons. Here comes the spoiler. They don’t give licenses to mentally challenged people or people who have a record. There are some caveats to those laws, but that’s the broad brush explanation.
I understand how the argument for letting everyone have guns that wants one is reasoned out. If all men were actually created equal the argument makes sense, but it takes young folks a while to get to the place where they can even wrap their minds around responsibility. Sometimes young folk who have trouble with responsibility also have trouble with controlling their anger. I’ll give the point that laws will not stop idiots from being idiots. But that doesn’t mean we have to put our heads in the sand and ignore that this pied piper of fear based aggression, all packaged up in a cute automatic weapon. That weapon is not something we can allow goofball dummies to ever lay their hands on. There is a reason that you rarely see young people running large cranes or excavators. To pay attention to that much of an investment requires maturity. To have that level of maturity requires years of experience to understand the most subtle changes in the overall state of the machine. That’s just plain old common sense, isn’t it? So will someone pray tell me how it makes any sense in any reality to give machines which are designed to kill people to inexperienced children? I don’t mind kids getting training to take care of firearms, but without training and without a method of licensing that kid, giving him a weapon to use will only guarantee him using it. Dumb play, guys, really dumb play.
References
1. Choi, A. (2023, March 29). Guns lead as most common cause of death for children and teens in the US. CNN. Retrieved May 16, 2023, from https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/health/us-children-gun-deaths-dg/index.html
2. Haroun, A. (2023, April 19). Switzerland Gun Laws: Why the Country Has Fewer Gun Deaths Than the. Business Insider. Retrieved May 16, 2023, from https://www.businessinsider.com/switzerland-gun-laws-rates-of-gun-deaths-2018-2
3. Faulkes, A. (2023, April 24). Guns In Switzerland (Laws, Culture & More) — SwitzerLanding. switzerlanding.com. Retrieved June 3, 2023, from https://switzerlanding.com/guns/
4. Davis, M. (2019, March 17). In Switzerland, gun ownership is high but mass shootings are low. Why? Big Think. Retrieved June 3, 2023, from https://bigthink.com/the-present/switzerland-high-gun-ownership/
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