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It Shouldn't Always Take A Law

Gun control and pro-life advocates look toward legislation for solutions. Ironically, on the other side of both: Gun rights and pro-choice advocates argue that the state should mind its own business and respect individual rights.

But what is left out is the potential for common ground and hard work.

I imagine we all would like a world where fewer people were killed by gun violence as well as a world with little to no unwanted pregnancies. These are worthy, complicated, and ambitious goals.

The difficult task ahead for both camps is to fundamentally seek ways to heal society rather than look to legislation that seeks to coerce and enforce behavior regardless of context. Moreover, healing must also recognize that recognition of individual rights exists within specific contexts.

Here are the tasks:

  1. Create a society where depression and anger and pride do not escalate to picking up a gun, whether in mass shootings, domestic violence, or ongoing inner city conflicts.
  2. Create a society where the decision to be sexually active coincides with the decision to accept the possibility of procreation, and, thus, significantly decrease the number of unwanted pregnancies.

There are, of course, exceptions to both cases. In fact, that is my point: context. We have been violent since we first picked up a club. We have been having sex even before that.
I am not suggesting pacifism; nor, God forbid, abstinence. Rather, I simply ask that we stop looking toward legislation, recognize our common desires alongside our individual rights, and begin the far more difficult and rewarding task of healing our world.

I’m Michael Perry, and that is my perspective.

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