One argument for gun control is that this country has the highest rates of gun violence among wealthy, developed countries. It’s a comparison among peers.
Maybe a better argument would acknowledge that some countries have higher rates of gun violence. Some of the rates in Central and South America are spectacular. And we could be like them — if we gave up on the idea of regulation and just let everyone shoot it out as each saw fit. We could also be like Japan, England or the other countries that have stricter laws and lower rates of violence.
It seems obvious to me that we not only have a choice, we have a range of choices. We could put ourselves anywhere on a spectrum from Japan to Nicaragua.
Many of my neighbors in Georgia see no choice. Any regulation would infringe on freedom, a sacrilege. Regulation is not a matter of choosing policy but of betraying values.
Since we’re divided, and gridlocked by our division, I’ve been wondering what would happen if we incorporated a feature of ancient democracies: the lot. Suppose we cast lots. If the advocates of gun control won, they could add five proposed laws to the books. If the opponents won, they could remove five laws from the books.
We’d cast lots each year, and we’d allow ourselves to be steered by lot, since we are incapable of doing the job. We’d go a year at a time with new laws and we’d note whether we had more violence or less, whether we became more like Japan or more like Nicaragua and El Salvador.
I think we’ve become so wrapped up in our politics we have lost the ability to see cause and effect. That is, we’ve lost touch with reality. Would regaining that ability be worth the bloodbath?
Do you think it would be hard to convince our fellow citizens to give this proposal a chance? Leaving the safety of innocents to chance would strike many people as monstrous. But if you ask me, that’s exactly what we’re doing now.
Apalachee High School, the site of the latest tragedy, is 33 miles from the front porch at Stone Mountain.
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