Just an Excuse to Be Angry with Guns

The common position on firearms repeats itself. Rather than confronting and analyzing the true cause of these senseless massacres, the anthology of appeals, protests and blame begins

A horrendous massacre, an insane act, an irreversible trauma for the survivors in the Newtown school. Multiple homicides, a 20-year-old with mental problems who hates his teacher mother. But, as always, there must also be an accomplice and the actual guilty party: Firearms. This is nothing new; the common position repeats itself. To skim the comments of the press and television, it seems that Adam Lanza’s automatic rifle and the two pistols acted by themselves because they have lives of their own: There is no need at all for anyone to take aim and pull the trigger. No, when there are massacres like this in the U.S., arms become science fiction, and it is their diabolical spirit that pushes people to use them. Don’t laugh; there are many who think like this. And so, rather than confronting and analyzing the true cause of these senseless massacres, the anthology of appeals, protests and blame begins. The White House, drowning in requests for gun law reforms, is thinking of running for shelter to stem the flow. But is it needed? We doubt it; if a maniac wants to kill, he will get a gun somehow. Does anyone know someone who has become a killer by leafing through a gun catalogue? Please.

Look at Italy: Do you think there are few guns and the laws are much more restrictive than in America? If your response is yes, you are mistaken. In our country there are very many guns; every one of us can buy them and keep them at home with a simple statement. And yet, although they are widespread, massacres like those in the elementary school in Connecticut do not happen here. Of course, maniacs are everywhere, but the culture of taking justice into one’s own hands, of the biblical eye for an eye, of the legend of the pioneers of the Wild West, is entirely American. And the young people overseas grow up and are formed with these principles. Here, our culture and our education about our rights are a secular legacy. Example? In 1764, the Milanese Caesar Beccaria wrote “On Crimes and Punishments;” in America in 2012, the death penalty still exists. Thus, at the risk of being unpopular, we refuse to blame the guns. It is just an excuse not to recognize the guilt of men.