A few weeks ago, UtahPolicy.com published an article I wrote that was a short and relatively straightforward defense of thoughts and prayers in the wake of tragedy. Unfortunately, many on and off social media took it as an insensitive attack on those who point out that in the wake of tragedy, specifically mass shootings, too many people and politicians offer “insincere” thoughts and prayers instead of supporting “common sense gun reform.” Such reform, they claim, would help stop such tragedies, and thoughts and prayers are meaningless and rude without such reform.

So today I’ve chosen to address mass shootings (and mass killings in general). I do so to invite people to take a broader look at the tragic realities of the human experience, and I hope it will help them understand that thoughts and prayers are indeed a more effective response than shortsighted policies that fail to consider the realities of human nature and the dangers of an absolute government monopoly on violence. Any response that strengthens our shared sense of reality and promotes unity and healing from tragic circumstances is far more productive and functional than waving bloody T-shirts and demanding support for partisan priorities.

In recent modern history, we have seen pressure cookers, fertilizers, trucks, knives, firearms, and hijacked airplanes used by corrupt people to kill people. It should be obvious that these crimes are not simply a consequence of access to weapons or potential weapons. Mass killings are among the most planned crimes. Those who plan and commit such crimes operate from much deeper and more disturbing realities than just easy access to the means to carry out their plans.

The fact is that when someone gets it into their head that they want to kill, they will find a way to do it. Unfortunately, as the many stabbings that have occurred in the UK and elsewhere in Europe have shown, the inability to obtain a firearm does not magically turn a would-be murderer back into a peaceful, law-abiding citizen. The inability to obtain a firearm does not necessarily mitigate the deaths that may ensue.

The two worst mass shootings in modern American history are the 2017 Las Vegas shooting (58 killed, 413 injured) and the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting (49 killed, 53 injured). In terms of police deaths, the worst cases are the Dallas shooting (5 officers killed) and the 2009 Lakewood shooting (4 officers killed).

The 2016 truck attack in Nice, France, rivals both of the mass shootings above (86 dead, 458 injured), as do the 2004 Madrid train bombings (193 dead, 2,000 injured) and the 2015 Paris attacks (131 dead, 413 injured). In terms of officers killed, a Paris police station was attacked in 2019, killing four officers with stabbings. All of these events rival the 9/11 attacks, which left nearly 3,000 dead and over 25,000 injured (many of them first responders). The terrorists who hijacked the planes were armed only with box cutters and clay.

Apart from the above high-profile attacks, we in the West rarely connect the circumstances of mass shootings in our own countries with the ongoing violence and mass killings that are taking place all the time in the developing world. The reality is that mass killings are something we see throughout history, in every generation, and in every corner of the world. The tragic fact is that the psychological conditions that lead to mass murder are uniquely man reality. History documents them in the earliest written records, they have existed in every century, and they exist today in every country in the world. It is not unique to America.

And if we can be honest for a moment, despite these heartbreaking attacks, things are much better today than at any other time in history. Just a few centuries ago, government had a complete monopoly on violence and the tools to perpetrate it. Before human rights, including the right to self-defense and the right to bear arms, became sacred ideas of liberal government, mass killings were not only shockingly common, but often state policy. Even in American history, where such rights were supposedly valued, mass killings and campaigns of violence were committed or enabled by government, often as a direct result of disarmament.

Wounded Knee remains the largest mass shooting in American history, killing more than 250 people and wounding 51. It began as an order to disarm the Lakota Indians who were camping there. After the Civil War, Southern states passed the Black Codes, which, among other things, effectively made it illegal for African Americans to carry firearms. This enabled a literal reign of terror as the Ku Klux Klan killed and attacked thousands of African Americans who were not allowed to possess means of self-defense. (Even today, the Second Amendment rights of many African Americans, who tend to live in inner-city areas with very restrictive gun laws, are largely nonexistent. This likely plays a role in African Americans facing the most government-directed and criminal violence of any other segment of the American population.)

Again, I can’t say it any clearer: This is typical government behavior for most of human history. Most wars and conquests have ended in pillage, rape, and murder. Most regimes have kept their populations in check through brutal and indiscriminate violence. For most of human history, gun ownership has been the exclusive privilege of the ruling classes. As I mentioned earlier, this is a complete government monopoly on violence. History is full of examples of such a monopoly being used to commit crimes far more devastating than those committed by individuals today.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not the type to say “this is the price of freedom.” I’m not giving up and saying “nothing can be done.” I’m just pointing out that far too many people look at the issue of mass shootings from a very narrow perspective of history and the crimes themselves.

If we are to create ways to truly combat mass shootings, we need to recognize and understand certain realities. Mass shootings are just a narrow subsector of the broader category of mass murder, and such crimes have occurred throughout history and in all civilizations. They are not a uniquely American phenomenon that exists only as a pernicious consequence of a toxic gun culture. The idea that restoring an absolute government monopoly on violence and gun control will end mass murder is verifiably false, given the examples of history.

I am willing to admit that we can introduce some modest measures to keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and potential criminals. However, such measures should be only a very small part of a broader vision to ensure adequate security for likely targets, better proactive enforcement of existing laws, and rapid response to actual attacks.

The most important thing is to have a consistent and constant focus on legal gun ownership. stand in the way real solutions that could alleviate what is, unfortunately, the constant reality of the human condition. Because all of our political capital is spent either attacking or defending the rights of the law-abiding, there is very little oxygen left in the room to consider addressing the crimes, criminals, and subtext of human reality that ultimately must be faced and dealt with.

Justin Stapley is a graduate student at Utah Valley University studying constitutional government, civics, and law. He is the founder and executive director of the Freemen Foundation, editor-in-chief of the Freemen News-Letter, and state director of the Utah Reagan Caucus. @JustinWStapley

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