As one with an engineering education, I have been trained in problem solving. And when I see politicians and those in the news media advocating gun control, I cringe because I do not see them using any valid problem solving techniques.
First of all, you need to define the problem. They would tell you "gun violence". I would ask why they limit it to "gun violence", isn't the problem just "violence"?
Am I any better off if someone beats me to death with a baseball bat or stabs me instead of shooting me?
They blame the gun, but I ask, does the gun make someone violent? Do decent well adjusted people walk past a gun shop and suddenly find themselves transformed by exposure to those guns into becoming someone who is going to shoot someone? Obviously not. The guns do not cause someone to become violent, they are just a tool someone who is predisposed to that type of behavior might use to act out.
Unfortunately the problem is violent and unstable people, and there are no easy answers to trying to identify them and protect our society from them, and to figure out how to prevent people from becoming that way in the first place.
To do so would mean addressing issues like poverty, drugs, poor education, single parent families, poor education, poor job prospects, mental health, etc. Very complicated! But they are all serious problems that should be addressed.
So it is easy to just focus on a tool, in this case guns. But that does not make the gun control advocates correct, I would argue they are lazy.
Engineers are also trained to research things that have been done in the past and also analyze the effectiveness of past solutions and new proposed solutions. In this case, how effective have our gun control laws that have been enacted over the years been? Can they be enforced, why are they not enforced better, and why would our track record with new gun control laws be any more effective?
The areas where crime rates including those involving guns is the worst, typically are the areas with the strictest gun laws. Why are these laws not enforced or why can't they be enforced?
Advocates claim that people buy guns in places where the laws are more lenient, and bring them into areas where the laws are strict. However, if you research gun laws you will find doing that already violates a number of local, state and federal laws. Why not enforce the laws that already exist?
We can also study bans and highly restrictive laws on other items to see if they are effective. How about prohibition? It created a large black market, enriched organized crime, and didn't do much to prevent people from getting liquor. It was eventually repealed.
Few would argue our laws about drugs have been effective. Billions of dollars have been spent, we have the largest prison population in the entire world and a large percentage of prisoners are incarcerated for drug possession or distribution. Violent gangs have been enriched smuggling and distributing drugs. Have laws against drugs kept drugs out of the hands of anyone who wants to buy them? I think the war on drugs has been a failure in every way and have only enriched bad guys and have put drug users in jail instead of into treatment, where their lives might be helped instead of further damaged.
So how could further more restrictive laws on guns be successful and economical? I don't hear any advocates answering that question?
It's easy to focus on the tool, but finding real solutions and answers is a very tough job, and the sooner we focus our attention on that, the better off we as a society will be, in many ways, not just in reducing violent crime.
