Violent crime is an unfortunate fact of life. From the time Cain slew Abel, violence has just been a part of the world. Some people don’t know how to live without trying to hurt others, either out of anger, greed, or some other base emotion.

Guns were never required for people to be horrible to one another.

Just go on X, formerly Twitter, for a glaring example.

Yet many want to change that. In and of itself, this is a noble goal. The problem is that they push narratives that seek to punish the innocent and do nothing to inhibit those who represent the actual problem.

For example, we have this stunt out of Iowa.

Cardboard tombstones with the names of real victims and demonstrators laid out, covered in what looks like blood, filled Washington Park in Dubuque on Wednesday. Demonstrators from the Dubuque Coalition for Non-Violence hosted the event, calling it a ‘die-in’. They say it’s meant to highlight the dangers gun violence presents.

“[Gun violence] is at least as much of a public health issue as for dying for lack of seatbelts,” Tim Moothart, President of the Coalition, said. “Or dying with tobacco and we were able to change our culture in order to correct those issues.”

*sigh*

OK, here we go yet again.

Both the lack of seatbelts and tobacco involved people making unwise choices. They believed they were making a smart one, though, or they figured they weren’t hurting anyone else so who cared? Making an effort to teach them the error of their ways so as to reduce negative health outcomes such as, you know, death makes a great deal of sense and sure, can constitution a public health issue.

The problem with so-called gun violence is that the violence is something one person does to another. They do it knowing what the results will be. Those results are the intention, in most cases. Guns aren’t killing by themselves or because bad things just happen that are beyond someone’s control. Guns are used to kill by people who are seeking to kill someone else.

That’s a whole different matter.

Now, is there room for public health approaches to violence? Yeah, there really are. Interventions designed to break the cycle of violence, for example, can make a huge difference and yes, reduce violent crime. Breaking the revenge cycle is a big step in the right direction.

Especially as it doesn’t focus on guns exclusively and looks at the underlying issue.

And this group could work toward that end without their silly “die-in” that simply tries to make people feel bad.

Yet that’s not what they really want.

Dubuque state senator and Senate Minority Leader Pam Jochum stopped by the park during the event. She says events like this highlight the importance of gun control.

“I do support the effort to bring about common sense gun safety measures in our state and throughout our country,” Senator Jochum shared. “Clearly this shows us that far too many people die every day because of gun violence.”

…

However while they want to bring awareness to the issue, Moothart says the battle for gun control in Iowa is one they’re losing.

Rather than focus on something that might actually work, Moothart and his buddies are going to try and infringe upon your right to keep and bear arms. They want to restrict guns because they can’t seem to separate guns and violent crime.

As such, they’re not worth taking seriously.