So, like I said in yesterday's post (“I'll take Uruguay”), I'm not a big proponent of gun control–even though Americans perforate each other and themselves with firearms in a disproportionate number in comparison to other wealthy countries, I don't think guns themselves are the problem.

If you look at the world statistics on violent death I pointed to yesterday, you'll see that the countries at the top of the list (with the exception of Israel, though I suspect it fits to some degree as well) all have a few things in common:

1) An absence of a social safety net. The US has been slowly eroding its social welfare systems, both institutional and societal. Housing and healthcare are not considered inalienable human rights here, as they are in Canada and most of western Europe; American “welfare reform” largely succeeded in separating mothers from children for longer periods of time (as they go off to “workfare” jobs without the benefit of childcare) and nothing more.

2)A large crime-driven economy as a result. Where government and society fail to provide, other forces come in to play. Heroin, for example, isn't a social safety net, but it makes people not care so much about having fallen through one for a while, and people desperate about their social condition are more likely to turn to crime to achieve some level of security, self-worth, and disposable income. Organized crime networks in the former Soviet republics and parts of eastern Europe aren't the alternative economy for many–they're the only economy. And the same is true in parts of America's inner cities–like Baltimore.

3)A widening gulf between haves and have-nots, abetted by government. The recession hasn't hurt the wealthy all that much; the middle class in the US, however, has taken a huge hit. With increasing white-collar unemployment and increasing corporate productivity, more and more people are going to be falling through the cracks of what remains of the social safety net.

4)Growing fear despair. You can't tell people things are getting better and beat them at the same time and expect them to believe you. A significant percentage of people on the streets of East Baltimore, Bangkok, Chiapas and Kiev all see the government the same way–as a random whip hand, not a helping hand. Whatever the government does will only create more of a hassle for whatever line they've got going to make the world work for them. There is no hope for a “mainstream” middle class existence in their future, or even for a steady job or decent housing; the government has abandoned them, if it ever cared at all. Think Monrovia.

When the NRA says that the government doesn't enforce the gun laws on the books, they're right. But when the government cracks down, people scream about “overzealous policing”. What's the answer?

Maybe, it's to prevent people from feeling that their livelihood depends on them shooting someone else. And that means going to the root of the problem–the two centuries plus of bad social policy that created this mess here.

(Geez, it looks like David Horowitz agrees with me, to a point. Hmm.)