There is a lot of discussion on how to end gun violence. However, methods vary greatly. One side wants to pass new laws to reduce access to guns, while the other wants to enforce the thousands of gun laws already in existence. One group, though, has come out with a whole new theory; Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership has published a story saying that “There is No Such Thing as ‘Gun Violence.’”
While some might consider this controversial, it some ways it makes sense. No one says car violence or alcohol violence. No one even says knife violence, though that term is liable to raise its head soon in Great Britain. In those instances, violence is caused by an person or a group, not the tool. However, it seems as if many consider the tool to be the cause when people use gun to hurt others.
This is basically what the DRGO article is stating. In most cases, the person is blamed for the attack. But when bad people use guns to do bad things, the gun is blamed. A lot of folks don’t understand this relationship.
Arguments Made by Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership
In the article, Dr. Robert A. Margulies specifically makes four points, mostly about how authors write about positions they don’t really understand.
1. Suicide, whether involving firearms or not, is an act of desperation, remorse, inability to accept circumstances, or choosing to avoid a situation that the individual cannot control.
2. Justifiable homicide falls into the category of self-defense, including law enforcement action. Whether it involves firearms, conducted electrical weapons, blunt objects, pointed objects or blades, or hands makes no difference in the end.
3. There are small and declining numbers of accidental firearm deaths in the United States.
4. That leaves approximately 25% of firearms associated deaths due to criminal activity. More than half of these occur in just a few of our large cities and are associated with gang activity and other drug or sex trafficking crime.
This information shows that guns are not the cause of violence; violent people are the cause of violence. Guns in the hands of police and law-bidding citizens harm no one. Only guns in the hands of criminals harm people. Makes one heck of an argument that there is no such thing as gun violence; there’s just violence, the tool doesn’t matter.
