MSU professor illustrates problem with gun control advocates

The state of Michigan was likely to adopt gun control either this year or next regardless of any other factor. The shooting at Michigan State University, however, simply provided a handy pretext for anti-gun voices to rally around.

A prime example is one professor who issued his own call for gun control recently.

Marco Díaz-Muñoz, an assistant professor at Michigan State University whose classroom was attacked by a gunman, encouraged Michigan lawmakers Thursday to do the “right thing” and the “humane thing” by enacting new gun control measures.

Díaz-Muñoz, 64, was teaching a class in Berkey Hall about Cuban cultural identity on Feb. 13 when the gunman opened fire, killing two students. For the entirety of the evening, the mass shooting on the university campus in East Lansing left three students dead and wounded five others.

It was the darkest event of Díaz-Muñoz’s life, he told members of the Michigan Senate’s Civil Rights, Judiciary, and Public Safety Committee.

“Before the tragic events at MSU, I was already a supporter of sensible gun control laws,” Díaz-Muñoz said. “However, my experience that night has strongly solidified my belief that gun control laws are an absolute necessity to stop the senseless killings that occur on a daily basis in this country.”

First, I have to ask, how many people think a college professor at a major university teaching “cultural identity” didn’t support gun control before the shooting happened? Show of hands.

Yeah, kind of what I thought.

Of course, he kind of admits that when he says it “solidified” his belief, but anyway, that’s not what I want to talk about anyway.

See, Díaz-Muñoz’s comments are predicated on something that gun control advocates have seemingly been basing all their rhetoric on for years.

It’s like they actually think we agree that gun control works.

There’s nothing in Díaz-Muñoz’s comments that suggests that he’s trying to convince anyone that regulation is the right course of action. Instead, it looks as if, in his mind, the matter is already settled.

Look, “everybody knows” is a terrible way to argue in favor of something. It’s a pretty good Leonard Cohen song, but a terrible way to argue.

Now, Díaz-Muñoz is just one example, but he’s far from the first.

Anti-gunners love to stomp and scream that we need to pass gun control, and that failing to do so will result in “senseless killings” and such, but there’s no real argument there. There’s nothing to convince those of us who disagree to change our minds.

Unless, of course, they actually think we believe gun control works and are refusing to embrace it because of other reasons.

And even if I thought gun control worked, I’d likely still oppose it because our rights cannot be set aside so easily.

Yet I don’t think it works. Quite the contrary, actually, I’ve seen ample evidence to believe it doesn’t. But the arguments never seem to address this. For many of them, it’s a foregone conclusion, a universal truth, that gun control stops mass shootings.

Never you mind about the two in California just days apart. Don’t talk about how it failed to stop either them or the Buffalo killer, as just a couple of examples. No, those are irrelevant and you shouldn’t fret about those cases.

Instead, you should just…what? Take their word? Take the word of seriously flawed and biased studies?

Well, we don’t. We’re unconvinced, and when Díaz-Muñoz simply demand that we capitulate and give up our rights for their peace of mind, well, we’re even less convinced.

But this is what the gun control side’s arguments typically are. They’re people stomping and screaming like spoiled children because we won’t do what they tell us to, and about the only reason I can find for them to do such is because they think their position is so self-evident that they don’t need to defend it.

They’re quite wrong.