Bob Costas on Sunday Night Football has opened up the gun control can of worms again. He said that Jovan Belcher would still be alive today if he did not have a gun. Using his
Guns are often blamed for violence in our society. Advocates of gun control have good data to back them up. About 60% of suicides and 54% of homicides are performed with handguns. 55% of all handgun deaths are suicide, 45% of all handgun deaths are homicide. 10% of gun deaths are either accidental or justifiable. It is very easy to draw the conclusion that handguns are the cause of so much death in our society.
But the real debate is no whether handguns are the cause of the violence or just the tool. And what is the root cause of the violence. Do people have violence sewn into their souls and the guns are just the tools? If they did not have access to guns, would they chose something else?
Let's take the Jovan Belcher incident in Kansas City this week. If he wanted to take his own life, and the life of his girlfriend, he could have done the deed in several different ways. He could have driven his car over a bridge, for example, as there are many in the Kansas City area over the Missouri River. Needless to continue to list all of the options out, but if someone is determined to take their own life, there are many ways to do it.
Suicide is complicated. It is a mystery; even to the experts. What would cause a person to take their own life is the great unknown. But it is becoming epidemic in some professions. One of those professions is American Gridiron Football. Belcher is the latest high profile suicide in the NFL family. The most prominent was hall of fame linebacker Junior Seau last summer.
The trouble with suicide, you can't talk to those who succeed.
Even with murder, one does not know what causes people to snap and become more violent. If that was understood, more could be done to prevent it.
It is real easy to blame the tool that was used in any crime or tragedy, but to say that there would be fewer suicides if there were more limited access to guns is, for lack of a better term, jumping the gun. Hand guns are to suicide and murder as the Internet is to pornography. It is a tool that makes the job a little bit more convenient. Focusing on the tool does not solve the problem. People who have anger issues will find something else to use.
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