Following the school shooting in Nashville, State Rep. Tim Burchett (Tenn., District 2) went viral for making comments like “we’re not gonna fix it – criminals are gonna be criminals” and mentioning how his father, a World War II veteran, told him “if somebody wants to take you out, and doesn’t mind losing their life, there’s not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it.” Burchett also explained America’s high level of gun violence by stating “Other countries don’t have our level of freedom either.”
Comparing the war in the Pacific in 1944 to an elementary school today is both inaccurate and deeply concerning. It’s inaccurate since war is a situation where it is permissible to kill others to achieve an objective that is ideally worth more than the lives it will take. Elementary school is not a place where adages about war should be applied, especially if it’s to dismiss what we could do to prevent such violence. The fact some think such adages are appropriate shows the current situation is untenable.
Furthermore, what does freedom mean in Burchett’s mind? Does it mean other countries do not have a constitutional right to bear arms? If so, he is mostly correct. In every other regard, however, other Western countries’ freedoms stack up to the U.S. – exceed it perhaps, since one cannot effectively exercise their freedoms while suffering or dying from a debilitating gunshot wound.
The right to bear arms is a questionable measure of freedom. I am not here to say guns should be banned outright. Although I wish I could snap my fingers and have all weapons designed to eliminate humans disappear, there are far too many firearms to properly regulate. However, that does not mean we should sweep aside smaller, phased goals. For now, a more serious discussion about banning assault rifles, or about banning future commercial sales of these weapons, needs to occur.
I will admit right here I know way too little about hand-held firearms to properly engage in this debate. Rep. Burchett is right when he says criminals are going to find a way around existing laws to acquire guns, so I believe we should make the deadliest guns as scarce as possible to decrease the chances they would fall into the wrong hands. My current opinion is assault rifles, and eventually all assault weapons, should be banned. The same goes for accessories like high-capacity magazines, which are useful for a shooter trying to kill as many people as possible, but dead weight while defending against one or two attackers at home or in public. The police, of course, will still have access to the weapons they need to protect against and respond to threats.
Increased numbers of school resource officers or other armed guards may act as a stopgap, but an expensive one at that, especially considering there is little evidence of their presence deterring attacks. At Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida and in other major school shootings in 2018 where an SRO or guard was present, the shooter was stopped by the guard or SRO in zero cases. That is certainly not to say there are not heroic SROs or guards out there who could prove quite effective, but considering the number we would need relative to the number of school shootings (way too high to be acceptable, but too low to start treating American schools like forward operating bases in an active war zone), this should not be our end goal. Shortening active shooter incidents would be great but preventing them would be even better.
My main issue, however, is this debate is not happening in the manner it should. People are making uninformed comments that do not address other people’s points. At the congressional level, we have the NRA to thank for that, but at the personal level, we should stop using blanket statements to shut down our opponents’ arguments.
