Gun control: Why gun control won't stop gun violence (and why banning punitive parenting will)

Many people these days support extreme measures of gun control. Usually, this involves looking to a gun control "utopia" and applying it to the American legal context. Most American leftists and liberals doubt the right of the people to keep and bear arms. There is a reason why we don't interfere with that right. If we regulate guns too much, they will end up in the wrong hands. Gun violence does not stem from the existence and availability of firearms, but from childhood abuse that models violence to children.

According to GunPolicy.org, there are approximately 200,000,000 to 300,000,000 guns in America. There are around 300,000,000 people in America. Thus, you basically have a gun for every person in America, but with not everyone owning a gun. Thus, at least some of these guns are illegal guns. Do we really want to push more gun legislation in this kind of environment? Chances are, all these new gun laws will do is drive guns underground, leading to more guns getting into the wrong hands. New gun legislation that bans any class of firearm is not the answer, even if it is true that you don't need an AR-15 (I sure don't need one). All types of guns should be legal, but regulated in a way that someone who wants to buy a gun can get one easily the legal way, competing with the gun traffickers that smuggle guns into the country.

Gun violence, in terms of causation, is not rooted in the availability and existence of firearms in a given jurisdiction. Gun violence is rooted in the legality and social acceptability of punitive parenting measures, especially corporal punishment. In the United Kingdom, guns are pretty much banned, and are banned completely for personal protection. But, in the UK, corporal punishment and other punitive measures towards children are legal on a national level, and on a local level are only prohibited in Scotland and Wales. The social acceptability of punitive parenting is still high in the UK. Did gun violence go down? Sure, GUN violence is down, but violent crime is still the same in terms of rate. Most violent criminals use knives, with there being mass knifings in the UK, as well as knife fights. Violent crime hasn't gone away. It is just perpetrated using a different weapon, and one that is more difficult to defend onself against. Many trauma survivors in the UK want to be able to use guns in order to protect themselves against their abuser.

However, in neighboring Iceland, the same kind of gun laws apply, but with a ban on all punitive parenting. Violent crime is pretty much non-existent in Iceland. The only exception is sexual violence, and that is because of sexual repression in a society that stigmatizes male sexuality. Most other violent crime, including mass murders, are non-existent in Iceland. It is actually safe to walk the streets of Reykjavik at midnight, meaning you can expect not to get shot or mugged. This is because most adults were not modeled violent behavior in Iceland. 

In America, punitive parenting such as child punishment is already prohibited under the unwritten law of the land. See Colossians 3:21 KJV:

Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.

The Greek root word translated "provoke...to anger" is ερεθιζο (Latin: erethizo) and refers to damages or offenses, namely the slightest of personal offense perceived by a child, including, but not limited to, the slightest of offensive touch or speech perceived by a child, stemming from entitlement. This commandment was intended by the Apostle Paul, and understood in its original context, as a moral statute prohibiting all forms of punitive parenting, including any punishments or controlling demeanor towards children. In the Old Testament, puntiive parents were put to death by way of bloodletting, after punishing their children one last time. Parents who punished their children were charged with kidnapping, with "kidnapping" being defined under the Law as the slightest of damages or offenses stemming from hostage-taking - child punishment was seen then as holding your child hostage merely for things that they did wrong, thereby treating them as a quartered slave. Paul here was lifting up this legal context in order to convict a group of Greek Christian parents who brought their pagan custom of spanking and punishing their children into the church. Paul, contrary to popular legend, was anti-spanking, and opposed any and all punishment of a child.

Gun control won't help us with gun violence in America. The answer is to ban the type of parenting that conditions children to grow up to be violent in the first place. Punitive parenting models the type of entitlement that leads to gun violence, because it models to children that it is okay to incur onto others and be violent with others. Violence begets violence, and usually, entitled adults who are violent with others learned it from somewhere.

The depraved and entitled parents who provoke children to anger will not inherit the Kingdom of God! Let them be forever cast into the lake of fire and burning sulfur, which is the second death preprared for Satan and his accomplices! Let them descend into the abyss which is the ever-burning lake of fire and torment, suffering God's Wrath forever and ever! Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!