#lostomnibus

I have no real basis for this small rant about gun control.  I have done no real research on anything recent to back up my statements, so feel free to rage all you want.  

This is just my opinion.

Today in class, we talked about gun control.  The lecture was about how many different policies we have on gun control: gun abolition, regulation of gun dealers, gun buy backs, concealed weapons, enhanced prosecution, etc. There was also a discussion about how some of these policies are driven by the supply side and the demand side (i.e. reducing the number of guns released and increasing the cost of guns).  Afterwards, we had a discussion on what would best reduce crimes that involve guns.  Everyone talked about how we should be more strict on having weapons in public places, how gun control should be regulated individually per state, more focused policing, and other things related in that sense (if that even makes any sense at all).  

What i wanted to hear more about is American culture in general.  I didn't bring up my opinion in my group because the rest of them were so concentrated on policing, different policies, and bans that I didn't want to bring up a sort of....you could call "some what unrelated to their topic".  I brought up my opinion afterwards, since it seemed much more appropriate at the time.  

i think that we should be working on de-glamorizing weapons in the media and thus reducing it in our culture.  My professor brought up an interesting study where children who have been around guns and have had been taught about guns by their parents were put into a room with a gun.  All of the children were able to find the gun, and there was only one child who told the adults afterwards that there was a gun in the room (he was made fun of by his peers for outing the rest of them but that is besides the point).  The point is that many of the children could not resist playing with the gun and in some cases attempting to fire it despite having been around guns.  I think this also goes with how we should concentrate on the big picture on addressing the underlying causes of violent crimes with guns like enhancing our mental health issues.  

A criminal is going to find a way to obtain a gun no matter what  laws or policies are imposed.  Where there is a will, there is a way.   I doubt that the criminal cares about the consequences at the time anyway. 

I think another thing is that in today's culture, we expect so many things to happen quickly.  For example, some people believe that an outright ban on guns will drastically decrease violent crimes over the span of a few years.  I think many of our policies are very short term, and do not work very well long term.   We are very selfish in that we want to see how this benefits our society currently instead of in the future.  Change takes time....and I think that it is impractical to implement something to have an immediate change (finances, time, etc.).