The philosophical theory of William of Occam, popularly known as “Occam’s Razor,” states that when faced with competing explanations, the simplest one, requiring the fewest assumptions, is usually the correct one.
Yesterday, television viewers were greeted with yet another presentation of an obscene shooting; this one of a political figure, the 31-year-old Conservative, Charlie Kirk, at a public event in which he was the principal speaker. The ubiquitous variety and startling number of such tragic events appear empirically limitless; children at camp, school, or park, worshippers in churches and synagogues, in siores, on public streets, conceivably, any venue affording a gun lunatic, perceived enemies.
There is a universal media terpsichorial presentation following each such horrific event; the dance consists of (1) the interruption of general news programs unrelated to the event, televised statements by local politicians, and the local Sheriff, or Chief of Police, (2) broadcast shots of the venue and the fleeing crowd, (3) animated testimony from witnesses or attendees. (4) the exclusive dedication of the reporting media to several hours of related commentary and verbal conjectures, including those from familiar, retired FBI or police experts, conjectures as to the conceivable motive, and a recitation of techniques employed in such a criminal investigation and pursuit of the perpetrator. The experienced television patron can recognize, from frequent experience, the reprise of such standard commentary. (5)For the next few days, the respective media will present their regular commentators on the subject, and (6) immediately preceding the commercial message, the reaction of an excited witness, usually a female student or a tearful member of the victim’s family, pitifully relating the all-too-familiar lines of a traumatized witness.
We have tiresomely witnessed the predictable reprise of this performative media dance and the bland stereotypic utterances of “thoughts and prayers,” too often to resist the present statement of the effective antidote to this chronic disease, at the conclusion of this writing, one that, if he were alive, would predictably please Sir William Occam.
However, we might initially consider the limited utility of guns. Our small pocket knife, is useful for cutting string on packages, opening stubborn jar lids, slicing cheese, eating fruit, whittling, arts and crafts, sharpening wooden pencils, boring holes in materials, scraping off unwanted paint, and cleaning out small, structural cavities. By bright comparison, a gun’s utility is singularly restricted to killing and maiming, and, as an empirical matter, of no practical utility to a normally socialized individual.
The most distressing subject relates to the “right to bear arms,” as purportedly granted by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This intentional misreading of the subject Amendment is not excusable as a contextual error; it amounts to an intentionally tactical misreading of the Amendment by the NRA and others who substantially profit from their propagandistic sociopathy.
A mere cursory dip into American History will irrefutably disprove the populist claim that the subject Amendment regarding the “People’s right to bear arms” authorizes every citizen to be a “gunslinger.” An objective reading of history reveals that the Second Amendment is solely a statement of the ultimate settlement of a fundamental dispute relating to the nature of our new polity. History relates a fundamental dispute between the “Federalists,” who favored central government, and the supporters of separate state sovereignty.
The existence of an independent sovreignty was historically considered to depend upon the right of the entity to raise a standing army (militia) with the right to bear arms, The Second Amendment merely recites the ultimate settlement between the parties, which provided for a centralized polity, but the States (“the People”) granted the right to raise an independent armed militia, ( ” the People’s right to “bear arms.” ) We are emphatically obliged to presume that the NRA and the profuse members of the gun lobby include members who can, if desired, read the irrefutable history.
There never was a right to carry a gun, or for that matter, other conceivable “arms,” possibly, by extension, a hand grenade or rocket launcher; and we presume that the sociopathic supporters of this bogus “right” are perversely and profitably aware of it.
In view of the undeniable reality that guns are solely utilitarian in their capacity to kill or maim other members of civil society, and that there is no Constitutional franchise for their ownership, we can eschew the irrelevant debates concerning their legal sale and registration, gun shows, legal ownership, acceptability of military-grade armaments, vetting the determination of prerequisite mental health health and the like.
We would, justifiably, employ the contextual, Occam’s razor to the whole of the societally hazardous subject and expressly mandate the outlawing of all guns and instruments of homicide on the grounds of societal safety and basic humanistic considerations. There possibly,\ may be certain permitted exemptions, i.e, shotguns to farmers for protection of their animal stock from wild predators,
Aside from the far more cogent, societal and humanistic considerations, citizens do not reasonably require guns for their personal safety, any more than Grandma needs a Gatling gun installed on her sun porch for protection against rowdy neighbors.
-p.
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