Examining Gun Violence Non-Causes

Every time there is a high-profile shooting, pundits and politicians of a certain stripe come out on TV and in the newspapers demanding that we get rid of the guns they blame for the shooting. They never talk about the people who committed these crimes; they only blame the inanimate objects. To me, that makes no sense.

When I was in high school in southern Arizona, there were frequently guns in the school parking lot. They were usually on gun racks, frequently but not always in the back windows of pickup trucks. Students would frequently go out into the desert after school for a little shooting relaxation. And there was never any gun-related problem with any of the students or with any of the guns.

Other schools had some additional programs my school didn't have.

It's clear from our own history and experience that the guns are not the problem. Other countries have shown that, too.

One is Australia which instituted a gun "buy-back" confiscation program and made acquiring guns nearly impossible. It didn't work. Other countries that tried similar programs had similar failures.

At the other end of the spectrum is Switzerland, a country those of that certain stripe don't want to talk about. That's because Switzerland has one of the highest gun ownership rates — and one of the lowest gun crime rates — in the world. Another reason they don't want to talk about Switzerland: It forbids firearm ownership by foreigners from several Muslim countries.

We can also take a broader, worldwide look. Except we don't have to do the research — we can simply watch this video.

Looking at the past, and the present, we can draw only one conclusion: To the degree that there has been a real change, it is clearly not because there has been a big change in the U.S. gun ownership rate. Whatever has changed is clearly something else. Whatever it is, it definitely won't be affected by the repeatedly proposed new gun control laws. And those particular folks aren't interested in proposals that might actually have an impact on today's gun violence — that would violate too many of their prejudices.