A "Logical" Discussion On Gun Control"

                                                                         

"Logic: (from the Greek "logos", which has a variety of meanings including word, thought, idea, argument, account, reason or principle) is the study of reasoning, or the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. It attempts to distinguish good reasoning from bad reasoning."

Were I President Trump I would call for a bi-partisan commission to study this early century's mass killings and exactly what role federal, state and local governments could and should assume to prevent these tragedies.

The commission would include government representatives from both parties as well as representatives from law enforcement, judges, Constitutional scholars, average citizens, select members of both the IRA as well as those who advocate for stricter gun laws.

But I would also assign to that commission two or three totally neutral highly regarded academicians who hold PHD's in the science of Logic.

Then, as the sundry members of that commission gather to discuss the factors that contribute to these mass killings, they must agree to have any proposal they offer subjected to a rigorous examination of their proposal, using the science of Logic as the final determining factor. This eliminates the "white noise" of emotion, political views......and certainly pat, overly simplistic answers to what is a complex problem.

As this commission sits and sips on orange juice, or coffee, or flavored waters, then tosses out various suggestions, it would be perfectly okay to discuss various viewpoints. But in the end those two or three Logic professors would have to scrub every proposal, using the principals of logic before any are accepted as a solution.

Had that commission met right after Sandy Hook a few years ago gun control advocates (as they surely did) might suggest background checks for anyone who wishes to purchase a gun. Ah, but then one of those crusty old Logic professors might ask "since the shooter son stole his weapon from his parents, how would stricter gun control have prevented the Sandy Hook tragedy?"

Of course that Logic scrub down would shoot down the Sandy Hook solution within seconds, with gun rights advocates tossing in such bon mots as "what about Chicago's Southside three dozen weekend killings each and every week, even as the city has the most stringent gun laws in the nation?"

Another gun control advocate might propose we at least take the guns out of the hands of "the crazies!" "Well", says the old Logic professor, "one must remember that the Democratic party legislated a ban on forcibly institutionalizing the mentally retarded. So how do we isolate and neutralize those with mental disturbances?" Alas, another popular gun control proposal shot down by the science of Logic.

Perhaps after days and weeks and months of commission discussions enough people on that commission might throw up their hands and say "well, hell, what CAN we do?"

Then, hopefully, those commission members might look on these mass killings as products of several societal shifts in the last three decades. They might now find it politically acceptable to put away the crazies at the first mad rant on social media, or at the first sign of mental instability. The members might finally conclude that violent video games and violent movies and TV shows play a role in gun violence. They might look at the number of guns available today versus 50 years ago and realize that those World War II and Korean vets brought an awful lot of weapons home with them.........yet chose not to kill anyone as movie and TV decency standards were still enforced.

That bi-partisan commission, stripped of all their political hype by those Logic professors, might finally come to some reasonable decisions involving a whole host of causative factors, then finally agree on how "logically" we might find a solution to both Chicago's Southside "weekend warriors" as well as the crazies who are home just now, dreaming up a whole new way to annihilate their fellow man.

That commission might finally realize that no gun in history has ever killed anyone. It is the one pulling the trigger. Take away the guns and the lunatics will mow down 50 people with their car, or release chemical toxins in a train station, or fly airplanes into skyscrapers.

Logic is a beautiful thing. It defeats emotion, it shoots down the notion that an oppressive government bureaucracy will keep you safe, and it provides rational solutions to the most complex of problems.