Have you ever wondered why most people in the United States eat with only our right hand, while our relatives in Europe use both hands to eat? They hold the fork in their left hand and the knife in the right hand, while we awkwardly shift the knife and fork back and forth always using the right hand. We are taught to keep our left hand in our lap, under the table. Is this so our left hand will always be near our gun?
Guns have played a major role in U.S. history from our beginning in North America hunting for food or furs. They were important in driving the Indigenous peoples off their lands, in protecting the homesteaders, and maintaining slavery. Every “western cowboy” movie featured a six-gun on the man's belt – even while eating in the saloon!
At that time women, who could use a gun like the legendary Annie Oakley, were not allowed to vote. Slavery was allowed in many states and segregation was assumed to be permitted by the natural order of things. Homosexuality was so vile that it could not even be named. Gun ownership was wide-spread and accepted as a necessary form of protection, especially outside of cities with a police force.
Now women have the right to vote – after a long struggle that resulted in a dramatic Senate debate and decision cast by one Senator who was persuaded by his mother to vote in favor of women's suffrage.
The Civil Rights struggle that cost many lives and involved incredible hardship and suffering for decades finally brought an end to segregated schools and eventually to segregated swimming pools and other public accommodations. Young people today have no concept of having to ride a school bus 50 miles past better schools so they can attend their segregated school.
Gay men and lesbians were driven underground, fired and arrested for being discovered to be homosexual during the Civil Rights struggle; but after enduring the AIDS epidemic and federal discrimination in the Armed Services, finally achieved the equality of same-sex marriage, the right to adopt and parent children, and to serve openly in all branches of the U.S. government.
These changes represented dramatic shifts in the basic beliefs people held about the way things should be. They uprooted long-standing beliefs about women, Black people, and homosexuals. These changes were hard-fought, lengthy struggles that often came down to shifts in values related to families and children.
Today the epic struggle is about the idea that all people have a right to use a gun and nearly all people should be able to buy any kind of gun they wish to own (except a “machine gun” which is prohibited).
As with denying women the right to vote, allowing racial segregation, or criminalizing homosexuality – there is no logical reason for allowing nearly anyone over a certain age to purchase a weapon of mass destruction. As with the other struggles, eventually shifts in values related to family and children are likely to be effective. When we realize, as we did during AIDS, that the victims are our friends, relatives, and children; then we will pay attention. This realization has begun with the multiple incidents this year; and when prominent persons are directly affected, the pace of change will increase rapidly.
We license drivers, for the good of public safety. We restrict the consumption of alcohol, inspect restaurants, and provide fire safety regulations in buildings for the good of our social contract that allows humans to get along with each other and build a constructive society.
Why is it not possible to prohibit the sale of military-style killing machines like we prohibit the sale of machine guns, or toxic pesticides, or lead additives to gasoline? Is it truly because legislation to regulate guns is impossible? Society can only make mass killings of civilians less likely by adopting an agreed-upon social contract that requires acting in the public interest for the greater good.
How then do we motivate major corporations that profit from selling products that kill and their sponsored politicians to take action in the greater public interest? Most of the economic penalties have been prevented by shielding gun manufacturers from liability. Most of the enforcement protections have been eroded by under-funding of the federal agencies responsible for it and by preventing the use of modern technology under the guise of privacy.
What psychological tools of behavior change can be used to elevate the greater good of the social contract above the selfish interests of greed and power? I would suggest, education, advocacy, and voting. It is a very slow process, but it worked to end segregation, denying women the right to vote, and preventing LGBT people from having normal lives. Now, of course, we also have to contend with the winds of opposition to those very hard-fought gains. It is a time for continued struggle and courage.