Malcolm Gladwell: Gun Control Won’t Work, So We Need More Gun Control

Liberal advocate Malcolm Gladwell recently admitted that more gun control will not stop school shootings and then immediately suggested its ineffectiveness should not undermine the liberals’ push for more of it.

Gladwell is an author and also writes for New Yorker magazine. According to Newsbusters, Gladwell was taking part in a New Yorker podcast when he was asked, “How big a problem is the availability of guns?”

Gladwell’s response:

Well, uh, you know, uh, those who say that you can solve this problem with gun control are engaging in a fantasy. Um, can you prevent some cases of this by locking up all the guns? Sure. Is that politically possible in the near-term in the United States? No. Uh, my problem with the gun control argument is that it so grossly simplifies what’s going on here, that this is, you know, we had tons and tons and tons of guns in this country and no school shootings for a long time. So, school shootings are not a necessary or inevitable consequence of having lots of guns.

Note that a key component of Gladwell’s answer is there have always been “tons and tons and tons of guns” in the U.S., but no school shootings. The shootings are a recent development which is “not a necessary or inevitable consequence of having lots of guns.” And he went on to show that a shift in culture — or a reduction in culture — is actually what is working itself out in the violence carried out against our fellow citizens with guns. Gladwell pointed to a “contagious, adolescent, uh, cultural pathology” in explaining this.

The conversation between Gladwell and the interviewer moved to a discussion on how his point is bolstered by the fact that people without guns use bombs. So the guns are not causal. In light of this, Gladwell said, “so it just seems to me people are looking for an easy solution here.”

Gladwell then caught himself and said: “Let me say one crucial thing here — this should in no way undermine the importance of gun control!”

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.