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Friday, January 18, 2013

Are Guns The Problem?

by Walter E. Williams
Recently by Walter E. Williams: Dishonest Educators


When I attended primary and secondary school – during the 1940s and '50s – one didn't hear of the kind of shooting mayhem that's become routine today. Why? It surely wasn't because of strict firearm laws. My replica of the 1902 Sears mail-order catalog shows 35 pages of firearm advertisements. People just sent in their money, and a firearm was shipped.
Dr. John Lott, author of More Guns, Less Crime, reports that until the 1960s, some New York City public high schools had shooting clubs where students competed in citywide shooting contests for university scholarships. They carried their rifles to school on the subways and, upon arrival, turned them over to their homeroom teacher or the gym coach and retrieved their rifles after school for target practice. Virginia's rural areas had a long tradition of high-school students going hunting in the morning before school and sometimes storing their rifles in the trunks of their cars that were parked on school grounds. Often a youngster's 12th or 14th birthday present was a shiny new .22-caliber rifle, given to him by his father.

Today's level of civility can't match yesteryear's. Many of today's youngsters begin the school day passing through metal detectors. Guards patrol school hallways, and police cars patrol outside. Despite these measures, assaults, knifings and shootings occur. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2010 there were 828,000 nonfatal criminal incidents in schools. There were 470,000 thefts and 359,000 violent attacks, of which 91,400 were serious. In the same year, 145,100 public-school teachers were physically attacked, and 276,700 were threatened.
What explains today's behavior versus yesteryear's? For well over a half-century, the nation's liberals and progressives – along with the education establishment, pseudo-intellectuals and the courts – have waged war on traditions, customs and moral values. These people taught their vision, that there are no moral absolutes, to our young people. To them, what's moral or immoral is a matter of convenience, personal opinion or a consensus.

During the '50s and '60s, the education establishment launched its agenda to undermine lessons children learned from their parents and the church with fads such as "values clarification." So-called sex education classes are simply indoctrination that sought to undermine family and church strictures against premarital sex. Lessons of abstinence were ridiculed and considered passé and replaced with lessons about condoms, birth control pills and abortions. Further undermining of parental authority came with legal and extralegal measures to assist teenage abortions with neither parental knowledge nor consent.

Customs, traditions, moral values and rules of etiquette, not laws and government regulations, are what make for a civilized society. These behavioral norms – transmitted by example, word of mouth and religious teachings – represent a body of wisdom distilled through ages of experience, trial and error, and looking at what works. The importance of customs, traditions and moral values as a means of regulating behavior is that people behave themselves even if nobody's watching. Police and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct so as to produce a civilized society. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. The more uncivilized we become the more laws that are needed to regulate behavior.

Many customs, traditions and moral values have been discarded without an appreciation for the role they played in creating a civilized society, and now we're paying the price. What's worse is that instead of a return to what worked, people want to replace what worked with what sounds good, such as zero-tolerance policies in which bringing a water pistol, drawing a picture of a pistol, or pointing a finger and shouting "bang-bang" produces a school suspension or arrest. Seeing as we've decided that we should rely on gun laws to control behavior, what should be done to regulate clubs and hammers? After all, FBI crime statistics show that more people are murdered by clubs and hammers than rifles and shotguns.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very true; very well written. It's a shame this won't gain the widespread acceptance it deserves.

Anonymous said...

I graduated from WI HI in 1964. We had skeet shooting in PE using 22cal rifles with bird shot rounds. The guns belonged to the school and were stored there. We were taught safety and respect for the rifles. There were never any problems. When our rifles were cleared of rounds we carried them back to the gym. Times were different then. We were in school to learn and we had respect for our classmates and teachers.

Anonymous said...

logic and reason have no power over over liberals...

Anonymous said...

This proves what we have become with liberal intervention.
They have destroyed the very fabric of our society with immoral teachings in schools completely circumventing the family unit.

Anonymous said...

you are absolutely correct. t v shows include andy griffth show and other family shows that taught values and the right thing to do. i graduated 1968. we saw a immediate de cline in school activity's after the school was integrated, including school dances. i am thankful i lived through some of this countries best years.

Anonymous said...

google search "the naked communist" it says it all there! liberals ruin everything!

Anonymous said...

we saw a immediate de cline in school activity's after the school was integrated, including school dances. i am thankful i lived through some of this countries best years.

January 18, 2013 at 11:03 AM

You are longing for the days of segregation? Of course your not racist.

Anonymous said...

11:03 this is class of '64. Your statement about integration is so very true. You can ask any retired teacher and they will fully agree with you. Its just the way it is.

Anonymous said...

Wow 11:03, you convict yourself out of your own mouth.

Anonymous said...

OMG 11:03 did blacks and whites dance together?

Anonymous said...

I would say that 11:03 has nailed the problem right on the head, but no one wants to admit it, you might be called a "Racist", but it is true, when we had seperation, we didn't have "Gang" trouble, no meth, no crack, no real problems. Check out the national crime stats, Blacks cause 80% of the crime in the USA, they make up 85% of the prison population. If you tell the truth today, your called a "Racist", but facts don't lie!

Anonymous said...

second that 3:17

Without specific instruction, tell a group of 50 7 year old children, half black and half white to split into 2 groups...
watch what happens...