The arms argument

For way too long sides have been firmly drawn in this argument. One side says that if you eliminate all arms, there can be no violence with arms. On the other side the claim is that you can never eliminate all evil-doers and having arms allows one to protect the people and places you value. Philosophically, both arguments are sound; one being utopian and the other fraught with misuse possibilities.

And that’s where we find ourselves when it comes to arms in America. Neither side is 100% right and, in labeling one side pro-guns and the other anti-guns, it is seemingly impossible to find sensible compromise to balance the scales of this argument. But balance needs to be found before the intractability of both sides produces no beneficial outcome to anyone.

Horrible events like school shootings happen and the scales rightly tip one way only to have vested money people like the NRA raise more money and pollute any possibility of compromise by their ownership of politicians. Meanwhile, millions of law-abiding, well-trained shooters rely on an ability to hunt to feed families, enjoy gun-shooting sports and, yes, even take part in the Olympics.

The issue of arms extends globally and in the coming weeks and decades will grow as a more serious threat. Imagine you are a world superpower and have invested in the weaponry and manpower to oppose and control a fine balance of diplomatic and political-systems’ power; imagine you are Russia with the world’s largest tank numbers, battle cannons and short-range missiles.

If you have invested your country’s wealth in these “conventional” weapons and yet you see that at a keystroke the opposition almost already has the capability to trigger a computer shutdown of all your industry, can fly remote almost-disposable aircraft to wipe out your tanks and that same opponent has armed dozens of other countries similarly and they are in a pact… would you want to strike early before that modernization and capability comes fully online, before all those tanks are worth scrap money only?

Any arms race, any arms argument, has overtones of “maybe I should use it while I can” when one side feels out-maneuvered or on a longer-term losing strategy. The trick with any arms argument is to try and meet in the middle ground, understand the fears and, perhaps, even recognize that the owner of those arms may feel foolish for such a heavy investment when a different course could have been not only more profitable but less likely to prove a loser in battle.

In America, the NRA will, in the end, fail, because they are corrupt and are corrupting the system more than just on arms control — and in that failure they will deprive law-abiding, trained shooters from using a tool that rarely causes any harm in trained, law-abiding hands.

Similarly, Russia and even China will, in the end, fail, if they deploy conventional arms because in the non-conventional arena, they are out-gunned, figuratively, all the while dealing with horrific media coverage that conventional arms will produce. Months of empty shelves in every supermarket in Russia are not sexy media, but that will be the outcome for the Russian people, forced to carry the penalty for any rash arms’ deployment.

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now resides in New Mexico.