In response to the Virginia Tech tragedy a number of letters and opinion pieces have appeared in these pages observing that, had the students at Virginia Tech been armed, they would have been able to defend themselves and stop the killer before he had killed so many. One cannot deny that this is so. On the basis of this observation, the writers of these letters and essays recommend that we allow students to carry guns on campus, that as a nation we arm ourselves in ready defense against madmen such as the murderer at Virginia Tech.
The adoption of this recommendation might well have limited the carnage we have several times now seen inflicted by a psychopath on the defenseless. However, the robustly armed citizenry advocated by these writers invites the possibility of another kind of tragedy, one more frequent and with a greater accumulation of dead.
Exceedingly few human beings evolve into violent psychopaths able to arm themselves and murder large numbers. In contrast, far more of us are subject at one time or another to some sudden access of despair or rage. Such emotions are normal responses to the disappointments and indignities that are part of normal life. For a few moments of intense feeling we might be ready to harm ourselves or others. But such moments pass quickly and harmlessly, in part because we know that to act on such impulses is wrong ' but also because ordinarily we do not have the means to act with a gun.
If we did, the ability to act on this mad impulse in some cases would, for a moment, overcome our knowledge of right and wrong. A moment is all that is needed with a gun. In a robustly armed citizenry we would thus see tragedy enacted every day. Just one or two killed perhaps ' but everyday ' because the disappointments and indignities that lead normal people to rage or despair happen each day to someone somewhere.
It is rather unlikely that any of us will ever encounter an armed psychopath and think, I wish I had a gun! In contrast, during the course of normal life, subject as it is to occasional disappointment and insult, we are many times more likely to lose, if only for a moment, our rational perspective and say to ourselves afterward, Thank God I didn't have a gun!
' William M. Owens is a professor in the Department of Classics and World Religions.
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Letter to the Editor
