Anyone who's been in touch with recent events in America knows that the school shooting in Connecticut has refocused attention on gun control. But will gun control really curtail gun violence?
THE PROBLEM IS THE ENVIRONMENT?
Certainly, as best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell points out in Tipping Point we are shaped by our environment. In a no-gun environment, gun violence would drop to zero. But no one seems interested in making America a no-gun environment. Gun control, yes. Gun elimination, no. We want our police and our military to have guns. Politicians, Hollywood stars, and high-level businesspeople want their bodyguards armed. As a people we don't seem terribly concerned about allowing people to hunt or to shoot guns recreationally. What we want is to curtail gun violence. So the question is: how is that possible in an environment where both legal and illegal firearms exist?
THE PROBLEM IS MOTIVATION
In his landmark TED talk Tony Robbins says, "If I pull a gun on you and I'm in the hood, instantly I'm significant from zero to ten how high? Ten!" Tony claims that everything we do is motivated by our six human needs. Particularly violence is motivated by our need for significance, that is our need for attention, or our need to feel unique, special, different. Looked at from this angle, people will turn away from violence when we take away its significance.
STORIES MOTIVATE
Going back to Tipping Point, Gladwell analyzes the meteoric rise in suicide attempts by teenage boys in Micronesia after a highly publicized 1966 suicide by the "charismatic scion of one of the wealthiest families" of Ebeye. That story motivated other boys whose publicity motivated others in a vicious cycle that has caused the suicide rate among young males in Micronesia to hit one out of every thousand, and on some islands, one in forty. Many of these suicides seem to be triggered by banal disagreements with older family members and do not fit the traditional "cries for help" model. Still, each one is highly publicized, giving permission and even encouragement to the next.
MORE LAWS OR BETTER MEDIA?
Now of course, Micronesia could outlaw rope, wire, belts, and anything else these men might try to hang themselves with, but wouldn't it make more sense to take away part of the reason they're committing suicide? What if the Micronesian media refused to report on suicides the way TV stations now refuse to show stadium streakers at baseball games? By taking away suicide's significance, you could take away a major motivational factor. And what about gun violence?
SHOOTER VS. HERO
By now everyone knows the name of Adam Lanza, the Newtown shooter. How many instead know the name of Victoria Soto? She's the 27-year old Newtown teacher who lost her life while saving a whole classroom full of first graders by hiding them in the classroom and telling the gunman they were in the gym. What, she didn't make your local newscast? What if the mass media agreed to a total media blackout about the shooters and focused on the heroes? What would that give us permission and encouragement to do?
Now I'm not saying we don't need intelligent gun laws. We do. I'm suggesting that violence could be greatly curtailed by a media blackout like they already use for streakers at sporting events. Cut away from the action, give a brief commentary, and then focus on the heroes everyone wants to see. Couldn't that spark a social revolution of heroic generosity?
Fr. Scott Kallal is one of the founding members of the Apostles of the Interior Life, a new community dedicated to answering Pope Benedict's call to raise up "a new generation of apostles rooted in Christ's word, able to respond to the challenges of our time, and ready to spread the Gospel far and wide." You can contact Fr. Scott at scottkallal@gmail.com
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