Someone emailed me and asked how I could “promote violence.” In short, I don’t! I am a firearms instructor with decades of experience and training. My career is teaching others how to be safe and knowledgeable with respect to firearms. I don’t blame the gun for doing what it is designed to do, and the reductionist argument that blames an inanimate object for the complexities of human behavior and societal issues is silly.
However, gun violence is a serious matter, but boiling it down to “guns are the problem” ignores the multifaceted factors like mental health, socio-economic conditions, and any other blame you wish to put towards the use of a gun in the death or injury of another.
It’s not as black-and-white as that. That would be like blaming every vehicle for a vehicle accident just because someone you might have known died in one. It’s never been the “object” that committed the act. It was the “person” using the object!
The first gun, or proto-gun, appeared in China around 1000 AD. People have been killing each other for thousands of years, using various weapons such as sticks and stones. We, the “Human Race,” have always been the “cause and effect” of our own violence. Yes, guns have, no doubt, played their part, but they have also saved the lives of people.
Perhaps it’s the same reason when there is a “car accident,” we all slow down to see, knowing something terrible happened. We seem to crave the bad and don’t care about the good. Part of being a responsible “gun owner” is knowing that you have a tool that can cause serious injury, death, or save a life.
The bad people know it, too. That’s why they have theirs and why I have mine. “I train not to be a hero, but I refuse to be a victim.”