A Buddhist Perspective on Access to Guns

Last updated on: July 25, 2012 at 9:49 am by Andre E. Johnson

A Buddhist Perspective on Access to Guns 2012-07-25T09:49:00-05:00 Andre E. Johnson

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How can we make sense out of the senseless? When a deranged young man opens fire killing innocent people, what lessons can we take away that can give meaning to the lost lives? Learning something new or deepening our understanding seems to be the best way to honor those who’ve suffered the most. I’d like to offer some thoughts from a Buddhist perspective.

Events unfold largely due to causes and conditions. An event like this does not happen in a vacuum. An unbalanced person with paranoid delusions, with easy access to guns, immersed in a culture of hatred and violence, whipped up by a media hungry for sensational news, given messages that a politician is threatening his well-being and should be targeted, can produce the tragedy we’re dealing with now. All of those factors were likely at play. To only blame the young man’s mental stability and simply say, “Oh, he was nuts,” misses the point. Our country spends 60 percent of its budget on the military and more than the next dozen nations combined. Is it just a coincidence that we have so many civilian gun killings? Pima County sheriff Clarence Dupnik sarcastically commenting on the easy access to guns said, “What will be next — Uzis in kids’ cribs?” Yet, we were still shocked.
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