David Ancell / Tuesday, March 28, 2023 / Comments(0)
If you have seen the news lately, you will have heard that we had a school shooting in Nashville. These things are always horrible, but this one was especially awful because it took place in an elementary school. I just can’t imagine what would bring someone to the point where they wanted to do something like this. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be one of the parents who gets the call that this happened to one of my kids at school.
Of course, here in the United States, it’s met with a “we have to do something attitude,” or, more precisely, “the government needs to do something.” Well, of course we do. One of those things that is often proposed is gun control. I don’t think I’ve written much about this on my blog. To be honest, I’m not someone who really likes guns, but I have mixed feelings about gun control laws, and am probably more against them than in favor of them.
For me to favor anything, I need reason to believe it’s going to make a difference. If any proposal isn’t accompanied by study of how the perpetrators got their hands on their guns and how their proposal will curb that, then I will write it off as an emotional reaction. The last thing we need right now is an attempted solution based on a typical American emotional reaction. Someone may respond to this “Well, come up with a better one.” However, I would leave open the possibility that some “solutions” may be worse than doing nothing.
However, I would not oppose reasonable laws that would help curb the problem of guns getting into the wrong hands. While the people behind them are the ones really responsible for the killing, the guns are a rather convenient tool for them to accomplish their aims efficiently. However, the guns can also be a convenient tool for protecting oneself against such an aggressor. For that reason, I also want law-abiding citizens who are willing to pass necessary (and I emphasize necessary) safety measures to be able to obtain them.
To put it the way a former co-worker of mine once said “We need more gun laws because the criminals are not heeding the ones we have.” There are plenty of guns already in circulation in this country. If they were all of a sudden banned, then the only people who would turn in their guns would be the law-abiding citizens. It may have some effect on the criminal element because people can be stopped in their tracks if a gun is found, but that effect could be negated by another problem.
That problem is best illustrated by the problem of “gun-free zones.” We see lots of establishments that have signs saying that guns are prohibited. Does that keep us safe? It may keep us safe from accidents. It also allows someone who is found to have a firearm to be stopped without having to wait for him to discharge said firearm. However, people with criminal intent are not going to obey those signs. In fact, declaring a “gun-free zone” will even send a signal to someone with criminal intent that, if he shoots, there will likely be no one who can shoot back.
So, I don’t think the problem is solved by the simple passage of some ban of certain types of firearms. The unintended consequences may be worse than our current situation. While I don’t want mentally ill or criminally minded people to be able to obtain guns, I also don’t want them to have easy targets to hit.
In fact, as kind of a side note, I fully support having armed security in schools. This may scare some people. Keep in mind that this should be properly trained, armed security, not just anyone with a holster. You might say that this won’t really solve the problem. I’d agree, but only in the sense that giving someone food to someone on the brink of starvation won’t solve his ultimate problem. It’s not that I like the atmosphere of a school with tighter security. Rather, it’s just that we need to do something to stop the aggressors who are planning their attacks right now.
Just as we don’t want the hungry person to starve while trying to solve the underlying problem, neither can we let kids die while the underlying problems of school shootings are solved. This is going to require taking a good, hard look at ourselves and our society to see what we have become. We need to do this even though we will never completely solve the problem in this world. The ultimate solution is something we cannot and should not try legislate, which is to turn to Christ and his Church.
Category: Social Commentary
David Ancell / Sunday, November 20, 2022 / Comments(0)
It’s often fun for me to go an analyze a particular idea thoroughly. Today, I’m going to have some fun with one that is kind of a pet peeve of mine, and it’s something that you can be trapped in by someone pushing a particular idea. It’s the fallacy of thinking that, if someone is against a particular program or method of doing something, then someone must be against doing that which the particular program or idea is supposed to accomplish.
Let’s just imagine that someone wants to reduce funding for a certain workplace safety program. Suddenly, people make emotional pleas asking not to cut the funding because workplaces will be come super dangerous if this program is cut. Finally, they argue that the people trying to cut this program don’t care about the safety of people in their jobs.
When these arguments are heard, one must be really careful of what conclusion one draws. Someone can be very concerned about job safety and still want to reduce funding to the program for a number of reasons. Perhaps one person thinks the program has enough money to operate and does not need more (or is making poor use of their funds). Maybe another believes that the program will not be an effective program for improving workplace safety. Still another may believe that the program is impossible to implement in its current state. Yet still another may believe that there won’t be measures in place to assess whether the program is effective, and it will continue to run and to receive funding forever despite no one knowing if it is doing anything useful.
While one may argue that such people should come up with an alternative if they care about workplace safety, it’s possible that, at present, the opportunity to do so has not arisen. Others may decide that lack of safety in the workplace is not a problem in a given place or time or that the owners of companies will take adequate measures on their own. Maybe the program being presented is such that doing nothing is better than trying to implement this particular program. When it comes to government or academic programs, I believe that is often the case.
You can substitute a number of things for workplace safety and do the same exercise, like education, public transportation, aid to the needy, or pretty much any organization that may not be doing its job effectively (or at all). You can also substitute, for funding, something like an e-mail campaign. I got tired of being blasted by e-mails by candidates whom I voted for or would have voted for had they been on my ballot.
So, this is a good thing to remember when making an argument. Get to the point of what the other person believes. Ask for specifics and debate those. Granted, some people are guided by emotion more than reason, but at least you are coming from a more sound and more charitable position.
Category: Social Commentary
David Ancell / Thursday, June 30, 2022 / Comments(0)
I have just a few moments tonight, but I can’t help but really be happy about much of the new directions that the Supreme Court has taken. It’s interesting to read some of the media stories that are coming out of the “mainstream” media. We knew something hadn’t been quite right for a long time, but now they are really showing their stripes.
I just love reading stories that refer to the court as “out of touch.” The only thing the court really is supposed to be in touch with is the text of the law and the Constitution. We have had too much trouble with court imposing their own opinions instead of upholding rule of law.
In fact, people with an agenda really need to try to convince others and go through the legislative process instead of trying to ram stuff through the courts. If you can’t get the support to do that, then your agenda won’t pass. This is truly what a democracy is.
Category: Social Commentary
David Ancell / Saturday, September 23, 2017 / Comments(0)
Sometimes it’s hard for me to take allegations of racism in this country seriously. It’s not that I deny that racism exists. Even if I did, the latest events in Charlottesville should have been enough to convince me that it does exist. I don’t deny the evil of racism either. I know it’s sinful. Let me share an incident that has happened in the news to illustrate the problem I have.
In August 2017, a retreat for leaders of fraternities and sororities at Ole Miss (which happens to be where I went to school) was cut cut short due to one supposedly racist incident.. A breakfast had been served that included a fruit cart with bananas. I guess one of the students took his banana to go. He looking for a trash can to throw away his banana peel and couldn’t find one. So, he put the banana peel in a nearby tree. One of the members of a historically African-American sorority saw the banana peel and, having remembered a recent incident involving bananas that really was a racist incident, became disturbed by it.
A meeting was called later that day, and the student who put the peel there explained himself and apologized for it. However, that wasn’t good enough for the offended. They claimed that they didn’t feel safe, and the end result was that a big production was made out of it. The retreat was cut short. My favorite line was that the student who discarded the banana peel needed to consider the “effects of their actions versus their intent” because of the “fear and anger” that was incited. Never mind that it seems pretty unlikely that such an effect could have been anticipated by the student who did this.
I once read a meme that someone posted on Facebook that said something like “If I tell you that you’ve hurt me, you don’t have the right to tell me you didn’t.” There are really two extremes that we need to avoid in cases like these. One is usually not socially acceptable by any decent person. The other seems to be the direction in which our society is headed, and I can only think that it will lead to worse relations between different groups of people as we will fail to walk on eggshells to avoid being accused of “bias.”
The first extreme is only acceptable to genuine abusers. These are the people who do objectively offensive things and blame the other person for taking offense. The incident I have described would have been an entirely different issue had there been a racial slur written on the banana peel or had it been hung from the tree on a noose. It is beyond question that white supremacist groups are wrong. It’s not just about black and white races either. It’s just as wrong to walk up to a Latino or Asian person and tell them that they need to go back to their own country. It would be wrong for someone to meet a Catholic priest and immediately tell him he’s a pedophile. I can’t imagine a decent person saying that a person offended by any of these things is being too sensitive.
The other extreme actually concerns me more because it’s becoming a kind of norm. This extreme basically says that one who is offended by the words or actions of another doesn’t have any responsibility at all for how he interprets those words or actions, and to suggest that he does is “blaming the victim.” This mentality goes beyond the fact that someone was offended by something that was said or done. The person who committed said “offense” is guilty of an enormous evil. Maybe it’s completely unforgivable, or maybe the “victim” makes a major drama about being offended but never seems to be able to describe anything in particular that he wants done about it. Someone has been “triggered,” and now the entire world must be horrified by it.
So, we end up with a group of people being super upset because someone discarded their banana peel in a nearby tree. Great offense is taken because the table centerpieces at a dinner were cotton stalks. If we were deliberately looking for something to be offended by, it would be hard to tell if anything would be any different.
Maybe I had my chance to make some major drama. I am married to an Asian woman, and on two occasions at an amusement park an employee questioned me when I tried to board a ride with my wife and her immediate family. After all, they just assumed that, just because I don’t look like her family, I must not belong with them. What terrible racist people! Really, what could the operators have done? They didn’t have any way of knowing whether I belonged with them or was jumping the line. Still, I could have made it into a racial drama and gotten them in big trouble for nothing more than trying to do their jobs as best they could. Instead, I just laughed about it, and I still think it’s funny.
All of this is not to say that misconceptions and unintentional slights shouldn’t be corrected. St. Ignatius of Loyola is a good guide in this matter. He would tell us to always be ready to put a good interpretation on another’s statement. If we can’t, ask the other how he understands it. If the understanding is not good, first correct with kindness before using more forceful means of correction. In other words, correction needs to be done with an assumption of good will rather than making something into a drama by too easily condemning someone as “racist” or “sexist” or “stereotyping.” Only after someone responds in a way that rules out good will can we assume that there is none.
We also need to recognize that we can’t expect everyone to understand everything about any given race, culture, or religion. I’m Catholic, and the number of misconceptions about the Church is huge. Although I love to talk about it and help bring people to understanding, I have to accept that not everyone will understand. It’s not necessarily a form of bigotry or hatred, but instead it can just be a form of ignorance that someone just doesn’t see the need to correct. Often, when people don’t know something, then don’t know that they don’t know it. I can’t imagine the student putting the banana peel in the tree thinking he had better Google that for racist incidents just to be sure. How would that have ever come to mind?
We’d see a much better improvement in any kind of relations if we thought more critically about the things at which we take offense and took some responsibility for our reactions. Some things are objectively offensive, and true hate groups do exist. There’s no question that we need to fight against them. Other things are misconceptions that need to be corrected with charity. Some things are just misconceptions and misunderstandings, and treating them as racist, sexist, or any other kind of bigotry will merely stir up anger which serves no one. If we are continually taking offense, we leave each other walking on eggshells for fear of unintentionally triggering someone and being dragged before a bias incident response team (Yes, they exist on college campuses with who knows what kind of power!). It will become so restrictive that many will give up trying to improve relations.
Category: Catholic, Response, Social Commentary