Society or government can't control the better angels of our nature. They can control access to the most destructive tools of destruction. had the hijackers on flight 93 had guns, that plane probably would have made it to attack Washington. I doubt anyone will be able to commandeer a passenger plane with knives of any kind ever again. Had Adam Lanza not had a high capacity clip rifle, someone may have had an opportunity to save some of those children. US citizens have no legitimate need for assault weapons or high capacity clips. They are desired as higher powered toys in the woods and shooting ranges. Unfortunately, that also leaves them available to be used as weapons of mass destruction by troubled people that government, society, or family can often not control. The point of this article is what? People are bad and gun control advocates are shrill?

I searched in vain for the point of this piece.  Perhaps it's things don't kill, people do?  Hardly a brilliant insight.  Here's some numbers to mull in lieu of mere self-evident observations:

US - 270 million guns;  89 guns/100 people;  10.2 gun deaths /100k people

UK- 4 million guns;  7 guns/100 people;  .22 gun deaths /100k people

Gun ownership rate in US is roughly 13 times higher than Britain's, gun death rate is over 46 times higher.

Even if I grant you the assumption that people in Britain are for some reason 'better' than those in the US (despite soccer hooligans), do you think they are 46 times better? Gun culture matters.  That the ready availability of guns causes more deaths is undeniable, any argument seeking to deminish that reality is absurd.

Jeff Jacoby - proving once again that if you say something enough times, believe in it fervently and provide an endless stream of anecdotal examples to prove it, it must therefor be so.

More Heritage Foundation and NRA drivel.  Mr. Jacoby did not step one back further and take note of the acceptance of violence by this society.  High prison populations, non sport weapons, extremely high murder rates compared to other developed countries, major divisions in the distribution of goods from one economic class to another, and ghetto-izing of our communities have all contributed to a daily supply of 30 violent deaths per day.  Mr. Jacoby's approach mistakenly thinks we can punish our way out of this problem and by arming the "good guys" whoever they are.  We once tried to settle a societal issue with civil warfare and managed to get over 700,000 citizens killed and still needed another 150 years or so to make some decent progress.  We have to do more to break down gated fiefdoms to move away from confronting pressing issues and think more about building responsible communities.  Much harder work but to be successful with such deep problems in our culture the easier road is a recipe for continued disaster.

 Exactly Mr. Jacoby.  And that's why we often need to take away those things -- like weapons -- which allow man to act upon their malevolent impulses.

Exactly Mr. Jacoby. And that's why we often need to take away those things -- like weapons -- which allow man to act upon their malevolent impulses. 

I think Jeff makes a profound point here. It is simply not enough to restrict access to the tools of evil intent. There is also a need to make evil behavior taboo, and to make righteous behavior universally appealing. The issue is not just too many guns, but too much moral decay. I can't say I know the answer, but I agree with Jeff that it is a far deeper problem than most solutions seek to address. We need prayer in school, we need parents to marry before having children.....we need a God focused and God Fearing culture.

Just when I thought your editorials couldn't get more inane.....................

I have always found this argument that Jeff makes utterly and completely pointless.  If "all" men were good at heart we would not have to create weapons of any kind and if all men were evil at heart.  Well the end result of that is fairly obvious.  It would seem obvious that all men are nothing but a compilation of their genes and their experiences.  Some are indeed hard wired for maleolence to others evil is abhorrent. For most of  us we are fairly capable of a wide range of things.  As one who has experienced war I know given the right set of circumstances what I am capable of and I consider that evil. 

The question truly is, What is the point of civilization if it is not to contain mens capacity towards evil.  We create as many buffers as possible between our evil inclinations and those things that give us the capacity to inflict evil and cruelty upon the world.  We seem to be completely capable of preventing large scale evil when it is in the interest of our species.  We also seem capable of preventing it as long as it doesn't get in the way of our own evil greed. 

People such as Jeff however only see evil as it pertains to the obvious but never sees the pernicious evil that flows through civilization.  Murder Jeff sees as evil, yet ignorance and want he sees only as an abstraction and not as a result of evil.  Jeff like so many sees only the evil of the monsters in our world and fails to see the evil when he and I look in the mirror.  Sadly he sees only his own goodness and not the evil some of his beliefs may lead us to. 

Nice plug for the book...no thanks.  Once again (as you point out) human nature shown - in this case $$ motivation.  Sigh.....

Speaking of impulses - writing this column probably was a good example of a negative impulse.  Did you want to make sure that you got out something topical on the day that the kids were returning to school?  I'm not curious about your view, but I am amazed that with 28 deaths - 20 of whom were children - you feel that the same dreary arguments about gun rights would be just what we needed.  Walk a mile in the shoes of the Sandy Hook community - put yourself in the new school location this morning and if you still believe that any measure we take to control the likelihood of a similar incident is unacceptable then I guess that's - well I guess it's just what I'd expect after reading many of your columns.

Guns don't kill people, people _with_ guns kill people.  The more guns there are in circulation, and the easier we make it to get one, the more people will die.  Crazy or bad people with knives can harm and kill, but don't have nearly the same capacity to greive us as those with guns.  Crazy or bad people with traditional guns can harm and kill more people that those with knives, but don't have the same capacity as those with automatic guns.  There was an attack similar to the Sandy Hook one by a man weilding a knife at about the same time that the horror of Sandy Hook took place, but no one died.  The attacker had a knife, so no one died.  Not because the attacker was somehow a "better" person than the Sandy Hook attacker, but because the "things" were less able to kill.  http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/14/world/asia/china-knife-attack/index.html

Lanza was not good or evil, he was sick. Who can ascertain the state of each individuals mind? The only solution is to limit the availability of deadly weapons.

I am still trying to figure out what this article is supposed to say. While I try to do that, this struck me as incredibly flawed persuasive reasoning: 

"But that can only be true if crime is rooted in the bad character, depraved values, or evil choices of those who use guns to murder. And that can only be true if men and women, by and large, are not innately good and kind — if decent behavior, like monstrous behavior, is a matter of free choice, not a hard-wired instinct."

Even if you accept the premise that crime is rooted in people and their choices, it does not necessarily follow that all people are not innately good and kind. How did you get from Point A to Point B? 

People are not innately good, neither are they innately evil. The concepts of good and evil are socially constructed, they are a part of one's environment and are fostered by a community. This is why education, whether within the confines of a family or institutionally in a school, is the bedrock of a healthy society. If you have a community in which everyone carries a concealed weapon, loaded and ready to fire, what kind of values does that inculcate in a child? What does that say about the individuals in a community? What is the image of the human condition, of the values of that society, if it is considered valuable to carry a loaded gun everywhere? If my teachers and my school administration deem it necessary to carry a loaded gun? And what do I think when my parents take me to another country, to Canada, England, or Germany, in which no one carries a loaded gun? What kind of conclusions should I draw about *my* community in regard to good and evil when everyone feels the need to carry a loaded gun?

Lots of good comments today.  Sometimes I wonder if Jeff actually lays out some of these arguments knowing full well that the logic is going to be exposed as being full of holes.  It's almost as if cardboard cutout targets of the primitive reasoning behind right wing explanations is set up for target practice.    Another angle on the line of thinking in todays piece is that in a perverse way it ends up being bedfellows with the mindset which is clinging to gun ownership out of irrational fear.  The irrational part is mult-layered, but can be suggested by the tragic event in CT recently when a father shot and killed his own son, thinking he was an intruder.  The lesson of that story is that gun usage by well-meaning people is frought with unintended and dangerous consequences.  The follow up logic to that is that gun ownership, for purposes of protection from evil in the world, is a catastrophe waiting to happen for the average person.  Jacoby is onto something about human nature having basic problems.  Yet again he comes to a conclusion which would not be supported by his own initial premise.

Mr. Jacoby, shame, shame on you for confronting emotionalism and agendas with facts.

Fact:  I have owned guns for over 45 years, never, not once did one of my guns jump off a shelf, or climb out of a gun rack and shoot anyone.  There is even an awful, terrible AR15 in there.  I keep an eye on it though, it just might be teaching my other calm guns bad things.  I have heard stories about AR15's being intrinsically evil.

Fact: Freedom comes with a price tag.  That tag reads:  RISK.  So today we ban evil guns according to Dianne Feinsteins plan.  Next week, some lunatic uses several revolvers to commit an atrocity.  Fine, we ban evil revolvers.  Then it is lever action rifles.  Ban 'em.  Then we notice that too many people are now dying from high speed car collisions involving alcohol.  Prohibition.  Still too many deaths we say!  Force automobile manufacturers to make less powerful cars.  Still too many deaths.  Pass legislation to force people to ride trains and buses.  Of course no one is going to allow all that, it is ridiculous.

Fact:  Someone or some group is always going to be unhappy about something and want laws passed to prohibit whatever it is they do not like.  They will then conjure up a huge emotional argument that involves making anyone who does not agree with them appear to be irrational, when in fact, they are the irrational ones.  They will reject any solution to the problem that does not agree with their pre-chosen solution.

Fact:  Other countries are not the United States.  Comparing what England or Australia has done is irrelevant.  They do not share the same traditions or history as our country, that makes them culturally different.  To ignore that difference is foolish.

For those who like to state that our forefathers did not really mean to arm the citizenry to protect themselves against the government, they did leave us some clues in their writings:

.”A free people ought to be armed.”
~George Washington

”[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
~James Madison

.”The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”
~Thomas Jefferson

.”The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
~Thomas Jefferson

.”And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms….The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants”
~Thomas Jefferson

.”A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”
~George Washington
 

As for those who would advocate more gun control laws, consider this:

.”The philosophy of gun control: Teenagers are roaring through town at 90MPH, where the speed limit is 25. Your solution is to lower the speed limit to 20.”
~Sam Cohen (inventor of the neutron bomb)

.”Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
~Benjamin Franklin

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.
- Patrick Henry -

mr jacoby is a bs artist.

BS, is not exactly lying, and bs remains bs whether it's true or false. The difference lies in the bs's complete disregard for whether what he's saying corresponds to facts in the physical world: he "does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bs is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are. - Harry G Franfurst, On BS

Sugar is the culprit, not the people that eat it. Quickly, pass an amendment to ban all sugar.

Let's boil down the logic a little more concretely:

For these horrific events to occur, you need bad people and weapons (implied).  I would rather focus on how people are bad.  Here are a few anecdotal stories.  Bible says people are bad.  Let's not restrict guns.  End.

People being truly good at heart doesn't really come in at all, what to do about it if people aren't really good at heart etc.

Wow.

In some ways I am really disappointed at the level of logic and reasoning here, in some ways it is instructive of why the country gets stuck so much.  One side wants to convince the other using logic and reasoning, the other has no use for these things.

Oh, for God's sakes!  If Adam Lanza could only get his hands on a knife and not high caliber guns things would have been a lot less horrifying.

Grow up, Jacoby.

Jeff, you are right. "Human beings are not naturally good." A recent study showed that more drivers swerved to run over turtles, than the drivers who made the effort to avoid the turtles!

I rarely agree with Jacoby and I'm not sure I'd say people are basically evil, but I do think we are basically self-serving and highly reactive creatures. I agree that good behavior and limiting agressive reactions must start with each individual. It might help in reducing the isolation of pschologically fragile or disturbed individuals. It would definitely improve everyday life.

I remember when I was 5 years old.  My mother (partially Indian, partially Irish, temperamentally ALL Irish) sat me on her knee and said, "Son, if you never remember anything else I ever tell you, you must remember this -- PEOPLE ARE NO DAMNED GOOD!"  I never forgot that.  And I've never been disappointed by what people can do, either.

It's evil beliefs that are the  problem. Killers, even the insane killers,  think they are doing the right thing when they kill. Take for instance all the killing nations perpetrate in the name of national defense, as if slaughter were the right way to solve the nation's problems. Look at all the slaughter done in the name of passionately held religious beliefs. The shoe bomber thought he was doing the right thing for Allah. Even Hitler thought the same. His conscience was clear. In fact, he thought that creating a super race was the right thing to do. Evil is based on well-intentioned though hideously misdirected ignorance. 

Whether people as a whole are inherently good or evil is irrelevant.  We know the overwhelming majority of people will never commit a murder, it's a truly minuscule minority that will.  What does that have to do with preventing that small minority from obtaining the means to murder large numbers of other humans, whether it's by restricting access to large-capacity ammo magazines, bomb-making materials, etc?  Exactly what is your plan for reducing atrocities like this, the status quo?  Giving more "good" people guns to shoot supposed "evil" people?  Should we have a good vs evil arms race, would that suffice?  I don't get your point, Jeff.  Then again I often don't get your point.

HHKitchener, See below (today's Globe). Looks like one of those "Pentateuch-believers" (your term) at work. What do you think?

  January 02, 2013

When Panera Bread opens up at Government Center this month, a few key elements will be missing from the bakery and sandwich shop: There will be unattended collection buckets instead of cash registers and “suggested donations” instead of prices.

The store is the latest iteration of a worthy social experiment by Panera founder and co-chief executive Ron ­Shaich, a Brookline resident, to test human nature and, in the process, provide a new way to help feed the hungry.

At the four existing Panera Cares cafes — in Missouri, Oregon, Michigan, and Illinois — about 60 percent of customers pay the suggested amount for their meals, around 20 percent give more, and around 20 percent pitch in less or nothing at all. With its new Boston location, Panera Cares is taking a few additional risks. Instead of converting an existing retail location — with its built-in paying customer base — into a not-for-profit cafe, it is building from the ground up. In addition, Shaich picked the location because of its close proximity to the New England Center for Homeless Veterans, where the need for low-cost food, especially during the winter, is already high.

Shaich is betting that the generosity of residents will overcome whatever challenges the location presents. Hopefully Bostonians will honor the faith Shaich has placed in them and rise to his challenge.

I am amazed that some posters claim that they "don't get the point" of this op ed.  The questions it raises are clear:  What is human nature and what relationship does it have to evil acts by human beings?  Although I agree with some of Jacoby's comments, the headline for this piece is seriously misleading.  The moral threat posed by progressive thinkers and activists is not their belief that we are "truly good at heart."  Rather, and I suspect Jacoby would agree, the fundamental and grave error of progressivism is the belief that we are all blank slates at birth and that progressive social institutions created by enlightened elites can mold all of us into good human beings.  This belief that we are, by nature, blank slates at birth can easily lead to authoritarian regimes that aim to create the perfect Aryan man or the selfless hero of socialism.  This belief can even lead to the genocide perpetrated by the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia during the 1970s.  I'm surprised that Jacoby didn't conclude his essay with a warning that we should not rely on a centralized state dominated by political and cultural elites to program the rest of us to be good progressive citizens.

The conversation today has, again, made it clear that the two sides of the gun debate simply cannot come to any agreement.  Given the trajectory of mass murders over the recent times, I believe that a change is in order.  Whether we agree on the gun or the person, the basics of human nature, or anything else, is tangential to the discussion.  We all would like to not be on the receiving end of a gun in the hands of a disturbed person.  And we would like for our family members, however old, to also have that same good fortune.  Changing the structure of gun ownership in the country is the most obvious systemic change available.  Currently there is far more danger from sick people owning guns than there is from a runaway government harming the populace.  This is absolutely true, despite the unsubstantiated rumblings of the militia crowd.

It's also clear that this change won't happen in any timely manner.  In the meantime, here's a challenge for the Boston Globe.  Take space to report on every incident, anywhere in the United States, that demonstrates the useful, necessary, and appropriate use of a gun for self defense by a civilian.  Gang activity could be noted as such, and those statistics could be designated with an asterisk.  The point here is that the population of people insisting on the need for guns for self-protection, and in particular the need for automatic guns, raise an unending cry claiming the necessity of those guns.  Perhaps if the rest of us understood just how dangerous the country is, we could all go out and by assault rifles.  

Absent that proof, the evidence is that a major re-structuring of gun ownership would, in all likelihood, have a positive impact on the increasing epidemic of gun related tragedies.  Absent that proof, the cries for gun ownership lack basic common sense.

For those who didn't get the "point" here are some facts from the FBI for 2010 (other years are just as dismal)

The cause of death (homicides) for children 12 and under:

Knives: 39
Blunt Objects: 52
Fists: 248
Poison: 5
Explosives: 1
Fire: 14
Narcotics: 14
Strangulation: 22
Other (or weapon not stated): 131

Firearms: 96

Doing some math, that is 531 deaths not caused by firearms. 96 caused by a firearm.

The "Fists, hands, feet" catergory alone is over 2.5 the gun rate.

So, why is it that there is no public outcry over these horrendous numbers?  No MSM focus on the appalling numbers?

Is it because as long as they die one by one, we just don't notice and it doesn't make for headlines?  Isn't it a bit hypocritical to start shouting about "saving the children" only when a lunatic attacks a classroom, and ignore 531 other deaths every year?  Oh wait, no, it isn't, because they feel they CAN do something about it by taking something away from another person, a right or liberty.

Tell Mister Jacoby all about how wrong he is, and how his article had no point, as you further your agenda and ignore 531 children.

After your last "let them eat bullets" column, I wondered when we would hear your solution to abolish evil and make the world a better place. We are still waiting. Some of your defenders seem to think we need God in schools. Is that where you stand? Please state your opinions on this matter, that is what you are being paid for, isn't it? Do you have anything constructive to say?

"It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. 

- Anne Frank, July 15, 1944"

Naturally, Jeff Jacoby begs to differ. Could it be he is proof of his own argument? No, I think there must be some goodness even in his heart. Admittedly, this belief is based on faith, not his columns.

You actually get paid to write this stuff? Just as a matter of interest, how long did it take you to compose this opus, from conception to submission? You make enough to own a home and a car and have kids from this kind of product? Do you ever feel a little bit guilty and overpaid? Compared to the rest of us, I mean.

Agreed. So, since people aren't all good, and we can't change that, let's just give up.  People will still run red lights, so let's get rid of those too.  No rules, everyone fends for themselves.  Oh wait, we did that before.  It was prehistoric times.  

One final thought on this thread.  Isn't it interesting how many of you repeatedly say that Jeff Jacoby is a stupid hack who has nothing to say and yet you return week after week to posts nasty comments about his commentaries?  Ask yourselves why you do this.  There must be some substance in his words or why else would you waste your time rushing to trash his columns?

The paragraph beginning with LaPierre's statement "Look, a gun is a tool..." commits a couple fallacies. 

First, it is not true that, if we accept that "the problem is the criminal" rather than his tools, we must also accept that "crime is rooted in [his] bad character, depraved values, or evil choices."  There are other possible causes in the mix, such as an inability to do what most adults think of as "choosing" (due to a perpetrator's youth, severe mental illness, cognitive disability, or position under an authority figure, any of which can limit or complicate the act of choice) or a mistaken belief that the crime is somehow a "good" thing (i.e. someone might have good basic values yet have incorrect information about how to fulfill them, due to poor role models, a stressful environment where crime might subjectively seem necessary to survive, or other informational input such as hallucinated voices that speak about what is "best" for others).  I am not arguing for these things, as, if an opinion column is a small space to make sweeping claims, a comment box is yet smaller; instead, I am only pointing out that they are possible answers and therefore that we need not accept at the outset that crime always stems from bad character, even though we can readily accept that crime is primarily a problem of human behavior.

The philosopher Mary Midgley wrote in her essay "Wickedness":  "The idea that we must always choose between social and individual causes for human behaviour, and cannot use both, is confused and arbitrary....Causes of different kinds do not compete.  They supplement each other.  Nothing has one sole cause.  And in this case, the inside and outside causes of human beahviour--its individual and social aspects--supplement each other so closely that they make no sense apart."

Second, even if one assumes that crime is caused by the criminal's deliberate choice of evil, it does not follow that we have to accept that people, "by and large, are not innately good and kind."  The sense of this seems to hinge on the meaning of "innate."  The author seems to think that "innate" goodness implies a "hard-wired instinct" that excludes "free choice" and the susceptibility to be "tugged by conflicting moral impulses" (which surely exist).  But surely one could coherently say that most people, as social animals, naturally tend toward goodness (cooperation, reciprocation, empathy, altruism, honesty, loyalty, etc.) while acknowledging that, in practice in human society, these virtues quickly become more complex than any philosopher has been able to comprehend, so that there are a myriad of ways in which people spectacularly fail to live up to them, by various degrees of choice and accident.  In sum, it seems too hasty to assume that people are not innately good simply because they are not perfectly good.