Guns don’t kill people: Men and boys kill people. (Thoughts on what is really wrong.)

Today a man walked into a shopping mall in Holland and went on a shooting spree. At this moment there are 7 people dead and 15 others injured. More of the wounded may well die. The gunman was described as being a male about 25 years old and wearing a leather jacket and camouflage pants. And just yesterday another man walked into an elementary school in Brazil and shot dead 11 children and wounded 13 others.

The horror of these events simply chills me…. And then it makes me want to weep.

Deep breath….

Now back our blog, already in progress: For years the National Rifle Association in the U.S.A. has maintained that “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” And the retort from those who favour gun control has been: “People kill people – with guns.”

This blog post is not intended to rehash the debate around handgun (or machine gun) control. Although I am sympathetic to the notion of a somewhat less armed citizenry, I do have two problems with the argument that the violence is all just about guns.

The first problem is, as leftist filmmaker and NRA member (and no friend of feminists) Michael Moore pointed out in his film “Bowling for Columbine,” Canadian gun ownership rates are similar to those of the United States, yet people who live up north blow each other away at a far lower rate than do their southern neighbours. (Perhaps this is because Canada does a better job of meeting the basic needs of its citizens – but that too is a subject of another debate.)

The second problem I have with this “violence is about guns” vs. “violence is about humans” argument is that both of these stances ignore the fundamental reality that the vast majority of violence in our world is committed by men. Men with guns. Men without guns. Men with knives. Men with just their fists. And until we address the fundamental elements of masculinity that undergird this violence, we will probably never be able to reduce it.

Dude, it’s the testosterone, stupid! Actually, it’s not. Whenever I attempt to address this fundamental maleness of violence, I hear the retort that it’s all about testosterone. This notion is ridiculous, for at least two reasons.

First, the rate of men’s violence varies immensely in different cultures. If men’s violence were all about testosterone, then rates of men’s violence would be the same cross-culturally – just like men’s levels of testosterone. But we know for a fact that this is simply not the case. The USA is rather violent. Mexico these days is very violent. Canada is not. But Canadian men are no less hormonal than their North American peers. So clearly cultural context plays a huge role in determining men’s violent behaviour.

Second, the research clearly shows that (in human beings) male levels of testosterone are not directly linked to violence. It is indeed true that male athletes who dominate their opponents do experience a temporary surge in testosterone (as do their male fans watching in the stands). But the same phenomenon occurs with chess players… who are rarely implicated in raping women in a bar after the game, or in beating the crap out of other guys. Violent men do not have higher levels of testosterone than nonviolent men. That is just a fact.

Men should run nothing. But let us pretend for just a second that there is something to this “testosterone = violence” theory. Let us give it the importance that the defenders of men’s violence assert that it deserves. Let us, just for a minute, accept the fiction that men are violent because of their hormones. Therefore, it should follow, men should run nothing. Men are untrustworthy, and everything should be run by women. Men, being such slaves to our hormones, cannot be trusted not to be violent, and therefore we should not be allowed to be cops. Or soldiers. And we sure as hell should not be allowed to be heads of state with our fingers on the button that assures nuclear Armageddon for the planet. Because we have all this testosterone – and we cannot be expected not to be violent.

What is really wrong. Of course that is an absurd suggestion. Men are perfectly capable of sharing with women the leadership of the planet. They should not be excluded. So let us also drop this equally absurd notion that “men are violent because of testosterone,” and, in the words of the great Irish songwriter Van Morrison, let us “get down to what is really wrong.”

And what is really wrong, of course, is the way we grow our boys into violent men.

Permalink

Great Response to Biological Determinism Bill

This is a great rebuttal to biological determinist accounts of men’s violence. This is a really significant project to keep going. There are also some really good responses to biological accounts in Joshua Goldstein’s War and Gender.

David

Permalink

So well said. These obvious points need wider circulation amongst an oblivious population, and we need to work hard to see them believed. Then comes the really tough part: changing the way boys become violent men.