Monday Musings: Guns and Fences?

Guns and fences are not solutions.  At best, they are temporary steps that can be taken to manage problems while solutions are drafted.  The problems of violent crime cannot be solved by putting more guns into people’s hands.  I don’t want to be cowering behind my door with a gun.  I don’t want my children to be under lock down when they are at school.  I want to reduce crime.  Gun control legislation is part of a solution.  Reworking our mental health system is part of that solution.  Reducing unemployment, improving our educational system, and increasing opportunity has to be part of that solution.  It is a very difficult problem that can’t be resolved overnight and that demands a solution that goes beyond more access to gun shows where folks can buy assault weapons without background checks.  The same is true of immigration.  The problem of illegal immigration is not solved by guns or by walls.  Putting a wall up doesn’t do anything to address the reasons why people seek to come to American illegally.  You can’t condition real reforms on stemming the flow of immigration with a wall, the real reforms to our immigration system have to come simultaneously to the wall if not before or instead of it.  I’m not interested in retreating into a heavily armed and walled compound.  I want to solve the problems we are facing rather than hiding from them.  If enough folks agree, we may be able to do something.  We may be able to find real solutions.