In every tragedy, we look at something to blame, we want something tangible to take our anger out on. After the Columbine Shooting in 1999, one of the scapegoats was the video game "Doom", a violent first person shooter (FPS) released in 1993. The perpetrators of the horrific crime were known fans of the game, and supposedly even created a custom .WAD file that was a complete layout of the school with the monsters modified to look like students (this turned out to be no more than a myth). Evidence would later reveal that bullying played a major role in their motivation, yet an inanimate object with no malicious intent was still blamed.
Why do we look to blame entertainment, guns, flags, ect... as the cause of these tragedies? My theory is that we humans don't want to look inward, we don't want to face the darker recesses of our minds, we want to pretend that, that side doesn't exist in most of us. We want to believe that an inanimate object influenced an action and removing that item will eliminate the threat. All that does is put a bandaid over the problem, banning guns might lower the statistics of gun violence, but it doesn't provide a cure.
The discussion of Gun Control shouldn't be looked at as a dirty one. The left needs to stop the "ban all guns" rhetoric and the right needs to stop the "don't take my guns" rhetoric. The result of those arguments being shouted is a partisan and emotional situation that goes nowhere and doesn't create a solution, a true solution comes from compromise. The 2nd Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, anything removed from that part of the Constitution would set a precedent for modifying other parts of those scared rights, including the 1st. The likeliness of it being removed is nil, so take that off the table. A licensing system would be a good compromise, and while one shouldn't have to pay to exercise a right, we need a solution that doesn't punish people who did nothing wrong.
Even that is only a temporary solution, violence will only be curbed, not stopped. Again, we to travel to those darker parts of our mind to find a solution. When we look into the eyes of these criminals, do we not just fear them for their actions, but do we also fear them because we fear we may also be capable of the same thing? The vast majority of us have a moral code, we think about doing something bad, but that little voice in our head tells us, that is wrong. This code may vary from person to person, but the basic concept is there. Without it, we're no different than animals, acting on impulse rather than reason.
We are also the sum of our experiences, and those experiences influence how we react to situations, they influence that internal moral code. If someone commits a crime and you look at their background, you'll probably be able to trace back and figure out why they committed that crime, what influenced them.
Trying to improve education, helping people out of poverty, prison reform, and greater awareness of mental heath, along side curbing the sale of illegal firearms are solutions, but not one that is 100%.
The unfortunate truth is, even we come to an understanding of those darker places, we won't even have a full solution to the problem. Humans are unpredictable creatures and we can not calculate how each individual person will turnout. That is not to say we should just give up, that would be foolish. But for us to go on blaming inanimate objects, even guns, is also foolish. We're just putting a bandaid over a scapegoat so that we feel better. We need to look at out culture and assess if what we're doing is right, and maybe then, we'll find a solution.
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