«We have nothing to fear but fear itself.»
– Franklin D. Roosevelt
«We have nothing to fear but fear itself». What a true insight by Roosevelt. As I mentioned in an earlier blogpost [in german] often people lack focus on the real issues to a great extend. They'd rather have never ending discussions about fighting some symptoms instead of tackling the real problems at hand. The same thing happens time and time again with the topic «gun control». But actually it doesn't matter so much if there are guns around or not. While available guns admittedly make it easier to hurt somebody and maybe a strict gun control would lower the abuse of guns slightly this is not the central problem at all. It is the readyness to excert violence and the lack of empathy that is the true root of the problem, not the tool itself (whatever it may be in the end, guns, kitchen knifes, broomsticks, fists…).
While some may hesitate to believe this it can actually be shown with a very simple mind experiment. Check out this thought:
Wish to kill + (fire) arm = murder
Wish to kill – (fire) arm = murder
No wish to kill + (fire) arm = no murder
No wish to kill – (fire) arm = no murder
Can you see it now?
Taking it to the extreme this thought experiment is even true for people with suicidal tendencies. Except that if people who are (sadly) commited to carrying through with it and that have no effective tools at hand are more likely to involve third parties like, train conductors, parents, kids, forest rangers, teachers, class mates against those peoples will.
Or putting it the other way round: if you hand out fully automatic machine guns to truthful (that point is important!) buddhist monks there will be not one single murder whatsoever.
Of course you got the conclusion of that idea already: it is the will to kill that has to be approached on this planet. And this is done by teaching people empathy. Even though empathy has some connection to genetics it can still be learned. So what we have to do is teach empathy to each other and our children. This point is more important and clearly takes precedence over the question of gun control! Concentrating on empathy makes the topic of gun control suddenly seem to be secondary. I'm not saying gun control couldn't help. Maybe it could. Maybe it's a good start. But is it the solution for the root problem?
So how can we practically do something about teaching empathy? Firstly we can get conscious of our fears. Wanting to own guns for protection as well as wanting to control guns for protection has both immensely to do with fear. And fear in our hearts is a deadly poison. Let me repeat this: fear in our hearts is a deadly poison!
You know, maybe we should all watch the film «Bowling for Columbine» once again:
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