The high school students whose faces and placards filled front pages on Thursday had a clear message. “Do something about gun violence. Now. We’re weary of living in fear and fed up with our legislators’ complacency.” In principle, the rest of us mostly agree. Nobody wants our schools, churches, concert venues, and movie theaters to become slaughterhouses.
We differ dramatically, however, on appropriate, effective solutions. The young demonstrators and many others call for at least some level of disarmament. They seek legal measures to get and keep high-powered killing machines designed for military combat operations out of the hands of individuals whose daily business doesn’t call for a lot of killing, and especially out of the possession of immature, unstable, and untrustworthy people.
Those on the other side of the thought divide will spare no expense in resisting any form of control over the numbers and types of weapons individuals may rightfully possess. Currently, they propose we address the frequency and scope of killing sprees by arming schoolteachers and trying harder to identify and get help for individuals who fit the profiles of potential mass killers. In response to Wednesday’s demonstrations, numerous public officials on that side of the debate suggested that everyone must work harder to befriend the troubled loners and angry, sullen, young men who most often perpetrate massacres. One even suggested people deserve whatever retaliation they get from those they have isolated, ignored, or shunned.
Meanwhile, on the world stage, President Trump, who apparently abandoned his efforts to limit the proliferation of assault rifles, has stepped up his efforts to force his archenemy, Kim Jong-un of North Korea — a mysterious, brooding loner if ever there was one — to give up his nuclear weapons. Or else. (And Trump and his diplomats du jour try to make that “or else” sound ominous as possible). So, in the global context we can’t tolerate quirky, unbalanced people running around loose with powerful, deadly weapons, and we’ll do what it takes to stop them. Locally, however, we accord even the most careless and unbalanced among us the legal right to own weapons with which they could slaughter dozens or even hundreds in a very short time.
Now, however, Mr. Trump has taken up Kim Jong-un’s offer to meet face to face so they might work out their differences. What tack will Trump take in this meeting, if it ever takes place? Will he only rattle his sabre? Or might he behave like the social worker or counselor that today’s pro-gun spokespersons argue can prevent violence by listening to the hearts of angry loners and addressing their maladjustments and psychoses? Will he invite “Little Rocket Man” into the family of nations that heals wounds with the therapy of friendship and settles disputes over sparkling water and hors d’oeuvres, if not a full dinner?
And what if that should succeed? Such an outcome would provoke a most poignant question about our nation’s recent history. What if after 9-11 we had responded not with shock, awe, and warfare for 18 years and counting, but rather by inviting conversation with the shadowy loners who masterminded the attacks and asking them, over food perhaps, what we had done to warrant their murderous retaliation? How did we isolate, ignore, and shun you, and what will it take to live with you in peace?
We’ll never know, but the world might look very different today had we tried that. Then again, perhaps the safest course is doing whatever it takes to get weapons away from angry people before they slaughter innocents. Note well who owned that last argument first.
Fred Niedner is a senior research professor at Valparaiso University .
