Why I Am Against Strong Gun Control

On most issues, I guess you could consider me a progressive. But that doesn't mean that I don't see areas where traditionally progressive ideas are flawed, particularly on the issue of gun control.

I see the fight for gun control as pretty much the modern day equivalent of the Temperance Movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which eventually led to prohibition.

If you look at the arguments for gun control and prohibition, you'll see that they are very similar. Not only this, but it seems to me that the types of people who advocate for strict gun control are very similar to old time temperance supporters. They are people who claim that one single issue is responsible for America's problems. Replace the scourge of alcohol with the scourge of guns. In fact, if you go back and read the literature the Women's Christian Temperance Union, you will find that their arguments are very similar. They claim that domestic violence and abuse is almost completely due to men's immoral consumption of alcohol. Ignoring economic disparity, lack of education, and the virtual non existence of domestic abuse shelters.

Similarly the gun control movement seems to do the same thing while ignoring things like mental health and media influence. I think that when a young boy keeps hearing the names Dylan Klebold and and Eric Harris, he might think "hey, those guys are famous, maybe I can be famous too".

Look, I'm not saying that guns play no role in gun violence, of course they do. I'm saying that simply banning guns, just like banning alcohol, would have terrible unintended consequences. After all, banning alcohol had no effect in stopping people from drinking (in fact. it had the opposite effect), and led to a huge expansion of organized crime.

The issue is not guns in my opinion, the issue is mental health and the media's endless sensationalism in it's coverage of shootings.