Polling results in the wake of the Virginia Tech slayings make it clear that people believe there is something that can happen in gun law that will lessen the chance of similar incidents.
I think that is heartening because it is a sign that people desperately want to eliminate the potential for this kind of violence. I also think it is wrongheaded and would only lead to a lot of heated debate over something that isn’t going to help.
We always look closely at events to find out what kind of lessons they present.
I have a problem with this.
There are lots of events that present no lesson at all. They just happen. The question, then, is never “What has just happened?”
It is “What has led to what just happened?”
It’s a difficult way to look at things because it means many situations defy a simple solution. What can we do to make certain we don’t face another Virginia Tech? You can’t really say. Tighter controls on firearms would just up the ante. Maybe the next time it would be a fertilizer bomb. Do we make fertilizer illegal?
We face an unending collection of firearms deaths in the United States every day. Some of them are caused by accidents. Some are caused by suicides. Some of them are homicides. Some of them will never be completely explained. Some of them are “gang-related” as players struggle over drug turf. Some of them are just stupid. A kid finds a pistol with no lock on it and, while playing, kills a friend.
I don’t think we can create legislation that eliminates any of this. Much of it is already illegal, and stupidity has a remarkable way of acting on its own. Will making it more illegal, or illegal in a different way, change anything at all?
Take just one of these cases, a drug-related homicide connected to gang violence. If you could peel an incident like an onion, what would you find? I think the gun would be pretty close to the surface, so addressing the gun question wouldn’t really address the problem.
This is a timely thought because the U.S. has just announced yet another plan to spray opium poppies in Afghanistan to cut down on the opium-heroin harvest. I would argue that the problem in that particular onion isn’t poppies, it’s people who want heroin, just as guns are relatively superficial, although fatal, in the drug formula.
If you are sitting in a quiet suburb someplace loading up a bong hit or making nice neat lines of cocaine on a mirror or whatever else it is drug folks do these days, rethink your role in the violent world that we find so threatening.
You and your interest in using drugs are right at the heart of the issue.
This is important because if we are serious about finding solutions to problems, we have to examine the real causes, not just the symptoms.
Drugs, for example, can seem like fun. I hate saying that, but it is the truth.
Whatever it is that gets people involved, it’s the buzz that keeps them there and fuels their growing interests.
Until the culture is ready to deal with the many answers to the hard question, “What is it that makes you need that buzz?” it’s not really going to be able to address gang-related gun deaths.
It’s a question of economics.
The demand for illegal substances is big, and a system has evolved to meet it and make money at the same time. It is run by criminals supported by, irony of ironies, those among us who use drugs. Looking at it this way, then, there is no such thing as innocent drug use. I’m sorry. You are on the consumption end of a murderous criminal conspiracy and, hence, are accomplices.
We could go a long way toward affecting the economics in this situation (and the violence) by legalizing drugs, but only if we understand what that is going to mean in the culture. Perhaps alcohol is an effective model for thought. It’s legal for adults and some people just can’t put it down, and every day it creates its many victims, from dead teenagers who mixed it with driving to battered spouses to wrecked families.
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Somehow, we have decided it’s worth it.
Prohibition only served to fuel a vast criminal empire supplying the drinks to a thirsty culture. So, we tax it, try to limit access and mourn our losses. It might be nice to ask the serious question, “Why did that happen?” in these cases but people generally can’t handle the answer, particularly when it is, “Because you made it happen.”
So our pondering of Virginia Tech continues, now settling on the difficult question, “Why has violence become so common in our culture?”
Charles M. Madigan is a Tribune senior correspondent, editor and columnist. E-mail: [email protected]