http://www.zolatimes.com/V4.9/gun_violence_myth.htm

The Myth of Gun Violence

by Russell Madden
Two more teenagers are shot to death in Columbine, Colorado. National news media and politicians decry the “gun violence” plaguing our nation. The push to prevent teenagers from possessing ? or even touching ? guns is intensified in the so-called juvenile justice bill.

In California, plans are underway to further limit any access to guns. Gun owner licensing, gun registration, gun bans, and limits on gun purchases are merely the latest in a long string of assaults on the rights of citizens to defend themselves. As has happened in England, Australia, and elsewhere, gun registration is, of course, a precursor to gun confiscation. Bit by bit, a right is transformed into a privilege. Competency tests, permits, fingerprinting, and exorbitant fees and taxes on both guns and ammunition strangle one more branch on the tree of freedom.

The rallying cry for these emboldened crusaders for serfdom is “gun violence.” “Gun violence” is labeled a plague. As with any medical emergency, we must eradicate the carrier, that is, guns. They cry out against “gun violence” at every opportunity. “Gun violence” is destroying our children! “Gun violence” portrayed in movies and on television is polluting the minds of our youth! “Gun violence” in video games glorifies death and destruction and transforms our young men from innocent souls into soul-less killers, training them in the techniques necessary to slaughter their fellow citizens.

The litany sounds so very chilling, so frightening, so unutterably horrible.

The last thing these anti-liberty zealots refuse to acknowledge, of course, is that what they decry does not exist.

“Gun violence” is a myth.

Despite the lies and distortions promulgated by modern day statists, it is true that statistics do, of course, reveal that thousands of people die every year from gunshot wounds. But the image the anti-self-defense crowd seeks to promote is a mirage.

As the well-known saying points out, no gun has ever killed or murdered a human being. People kill and murder other people using instruments that include firearms.

Predictably, the people-control advocates scoff and denounce such statements as reflecting a “bumper sticker mentality.” They say that everyone knows (somehow) what they mean when they speak of “gun violence.” Of course they simply are using “gun violence” as a shortcut to express the idea that guns are designed and used by people to kill other people.

Of course.

But regardless of the decades of attacks on objectivity and truth launched by present-day philosophers and social scientists, by deconstructivists and those who claim that language and words reflect only what we have agreed upon, words do mean something. To use them sloppily or euphemistically or ingenuously is to destroy the purpose of language and the source of the concepts that words represent. Language is a vehicle to convey our thoughts to others. Words and concepts should be precisely defined and applied to ensure that the meanings we seek to share are accurate symbols for what exists in reality.

The Language of Corrupted Thought
This type of propaganda is old hat to statists. Control of language, obfuscation of meaning, and the twisting of thoughts are ancient techniques wielded by actual and would-be tyrants to induce, threaten, scare, or otherwise impose their will upon others. Such obvious dictators as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao are hardly the only practitioners of this corruption of the human conceptual faculty. Modern democracies have refined and polished the cruder weapons of past masters into the current incarnations of “spin” and “image.”

The expansion in politically correct language has exacerbated this trend. “Poor people” no longer exist. There is only “poverty” to be combated. People are no longer “bums.” “Homelessness” describes the problem that must be solved. Ignorant and bigoted individuals are not the issue. “Racism” is. Bills dealing with “criminals” don’t emanate from Washington. “Crime” bills do.

The focus shifts from violent people to “violence” and from perpetrators brandishing and using guns to “gun violence.”

The reification of language in this and other areas of social life justifies and excuses the abuses statists want to commit. They might run into more resistance if they directly stated that they wished to eliminate “gun owners.” Masking their goals of limiting people’s freedom with the more abstract phrase of ending “gun violence,” however, allows these pocket despots to advance their desires more readily.

The myth of “gun violence” has seeped like a poisonous fog into the web of social discussion. Reliance upon this description eliminates not only the moral responsibility of those criminals who threaten or harm their victims using guns. More insidiously, “gun violence” blurs and smears the very real distinction between the violence committed by rights-violating thugs and the violence done by those who use firearms to defend their rights, their lives, and their property.

That, of course, pleases the enemies of freedom to no end.

The Penumbra of Political Manipulation
Language is a tool for delineating just those distinctions the anti-gun autocrats hope to obscure. Hazy language leads to hazy thinking. The wider the penumbra of confusion, the more room that exists for the manipulators to confuse the fundamental issues involved in this struggle.

To condemn “violence,” in general, and “gun violence,” in particular without regard to context reflects the same impulse Ayn Rand exposed in her essay, “‘Extremism,’ or the Art of Smearing.” In that essay (published in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal), Rand exposed the critics of Barry Goldwater who attempted to discredit him by charging that he was an “extremist.” Goldwater’s opponents counted upon the public not asking the vital question: extreme in regard to what? It makes all the difference in the world whether one is being extreme in defending liberty or in undermining it.

Likewise, the mini-Goebbels of today hope to obliterate in the minds of their citizens the fact that people using firearms save far more lives than they take illicitly; that using a gun violently against an intruder, a robber, or a rapist is a profoundly moral act, not something of which to be ashamed, not an act to be hidden and ignored. By seeking to lump these two disparate groups together ? rights defenders and rights violators ? the collectivists do not seek clarity. They desperately want their listeners not to think but to feel. If people only “sort of” know what “gun violence” is, they are in no position to resist the conclusions the anti-self-defense people advocate.

Understanding context is essential for establishing the truth of a proposition or an argument. One must be aware of what things are similar and which differ in essential and important ways. Precise definitions help us to achieve this cognitive correspondence with reality. The process requires time and effort. It takes work.

For a plethora of reasons ? ignorance, fatigue, other concerns ? many citizens either do not care to or do not want to devote the energy necessary to think through the evidence, the facts, and the arguments presented by the two opposing camps. Intellectual honesty and analysis demand active participation. They will not function without choice and focused involvement.

The Temptation of Feeling
“Feeling” something, however, is automatic. No real expenditure of mental capital is required. One need only experience the emotion and flow with its motivating force. The statists encourage individuals to indulge in this temptation. When people try to substitute feelings for thought, they are much more amenable to irrational courses of action. This suits the purposes of the “gun violence” crowd to a “T.” By targeting the vague issue of “gun violence” while disregarding what that phrase really means, they come closer and closer to reaching their objective of complete subjugation of the country without bothering with the niceties of informed debate. Pound the catch phrase and harp on the conclusion. Don’t confuse people with the facts. As long as they feel they know, then that is sufficient.

But there is no short-cut to thinking!

To maintain our freedoms, to preserve recognition of and the ability to exercise our rights, we cannot afford to remain passive in the face of continual onslaughts. The enemies of freedom love to terrorize the populace, whip otherwise unassuming people into an hysterical frenzy. They glory in the abandonment of reason, objectivity, and individualism. They see such a retreat from the founding principles of this country not as a cancer devouring the core of this nation but as an ally in establishing the authoritarian world of their dreams; a world in which they will rule with paternalistic “wisdom” and power.

The anti-self-defense fascists sneer when their adversaries point out the implicit results of using and spreading such obscenities as “gun violence.” They would not denounce so vehemently our struggles to maintain exactness of expression if they did not recognize how dangerous such adherence to precision is to their cause. They can thrive and grow only in the shadows of ignorance and murky thought.

The myth of “gun violence” is a potent weapon in the arsenal of those who would ensure that only they and their supporters remain armed. It is a myth that can destroy us if we do not battle against it. It is a myth we must expose at every opportunity.

Nothing less than extreme devotion to our liberty, our rights, and our lives will do.