Over at npr.org, a report entitled Lawyers Band Together To Fight Gun Violence reveals “a new group called Prosecutors Against Gun Violence [that] has formed to find solutions to gun violence in the U.S.” NPR’s Arun Rath interview with attorneys and co-chairs Cyrus Vance Jr. (NY, above) and Mike Feuer (LA) uses the term no less than 13 times. A rose may smell so sweet by any other name, but “gun violence” is a deeply misleading term for “firearms-related crime,” which properly highlight the criminal rather than the method used. But don’t take my word for it. Look at the the PAGV’s Facebook profile pic above. And consider this from commentator
There is no such a thing as “Gun Violence”. Would you call a injury inflicted by a drunken driver as “Car Violence”? Of course not. A gun does not do anything until it is picked up, loaded, aimed and fired by a person. Calling it “Gun Violence” deflects the responsibility from the real cause of the violence, the operator. It also obfuscates the path needed actions to ameliorate the problem by taking the spotlight off the person who does the assaulting. The present shooting are gang violence. We need to focus our efforts in that area.
To which anti-gun reader/listener Dharma Gates replied:
You ignore the gun culture. You ignore the ease of guns. You ignore the simple fact that a gun is a machine designed to propel a missile at great speed over a short distance with the sole intent of maiming or killing the recipient. You ignore the fact that a second of anger or bad judgment or impulse produces irreversible tragedy. People might stab or choke or beat but that takes a higher level of intimacy, strength, and effort than simply pulling that trigger. You ignore reality.
As Proverbs 18:12 points out, “a fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.” Just sayin’.