Gun Culture = Blame-the-Victim Culture [View all]

[Moonwalk]

First off, let me say that what I'm going to point out is probably very obvious, very "duh!" and likely been said by many here before...but I really felt the need to post a little rant about it as I I've seen many a pro-gun person arguing this mode of thinking here and there. Second, let me say that I don't think this means that all gun owners think this way, but rather that U.S. gun culture, fostered by the NRA's particular propaganda, makes it more likely for us in the U.S. to think this way. And that certainly, our narcissistic culture is given to it. Also our very simplistic culture which seeks easy answers.

Let's start with this: There's been news about the teenager who shot a baby, and on one such thread the question was asked if the NRA's answer to this tragedy would be that mom should have had a gun (rather than that the teen should not have had access to a gun). One responder mentioned that his wife would have reached into her handbag and used her gun to shoot the guy threatening her baby. Which is all well and good, but there is a real problem with this train of thought. The end result of it--and one which we are seeing--is that we blame the victim.

Ultimately, this mode of thinking says that anyone who doesn't go armed all the time is to blame if they or a loved one is shot because if they'd been armed, they could have stopped the killer (Sandy Hook kids wouldn't have died if teachers had been armed, mom wouldn't have lost her baby if she'd been armed, etc.). So, okay, what if they had been armed? By this logic, isn't the victim also to blame if they fail to kill the killer? If they get shot instead? Wouldn't we then say: "They ought to have trained more and been ready for this"?

We already live in a blame-the-victim culture. This mode of thinking, saying that the victim should have had a gun--and using personal examples to support that like "my wife would have..."--disturbs me because it leads us to an even darker version of blaming the victim. One where the one who gets shot is judged and scrutinized instead of the killer, one where the victim is blamed and thought to have deserved it (not unlike a rape victim), because they never imagined such a scenario and didn't prepare for it. One where the killer gets off or ignored or even respected for being the superior shot.

Perhaps this is very obvious but: we need to fight and stop the blame-the-victim rhetoric and way of thinking even as we change gun laws. As so many in the anti-gun-control argument compare guns to cars (real apples and oranges, but let's use it anyway), the one driving the car is to blame in an accident with a pedestrian (non-car owner). Almost always. We don't hear about a crazy man crashing his car into a bunch of people and say, "Those pedestrians should have been in cars, too," we simply blame the crazy guy in the car. I don't know if we can get people thinking like that in regards to guns, but it would certainly make arguments over guns and gun control (IMHO) more realistic.