For a lot of people, it seems obvious that the issues we have in this country are the result of our gun laws being too lenient. Yes, the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms, but that isn't a suicide pact, they argue. We should have some restrictions or else we're going to have bigger problems.

In fact, every failure of gun control tends to be ascribed not to gun control failing, but to there just not being enough of it.

But former UFC fighter and Special Forces sniper Tim Kennedy isn't buying that.

Never one to shy away from offering his opinions, he's taking issue with a lot of the rhetoric around gun control.

Math is fun and facts matter.
We don’t have a gun problem.
We have a culture and people problem. pic.twitter.com/lvJfrRtxG9

— Tim Kennedy (@TimKennedyMMA) April 8, 2024

I mean, he's not wrong. It's a bit simplistic, but it's not inaccurate.

Honduras has a terrible homicide rate despite massive amounts of gun control. While Switzerland does have gun control as well, there's also plenty of firearms in people's homes and they have practically no homicides.

Many people will argue that this is a bad comparison due to economics, but I actually agree with Kennedy that the issue is cultural.

Switzerland has a culture of respecting people's lives. They don't tolerate criminality and don't accept anything less than good behavior from their citizens.

Honduras...isn't like that at all.

This isn't the first time Kennedy has offered his thoughts on the problems we face and it's not the first time he made a valid point on the subject, either.

Back in 2019, Kennedy made an appearance on FOX News to express his belief that the lack of masculinity being instilled in the young of this generation was the real cause of the surge of mass shootings in the US, rather than ease with which Americans can obtain automatic firearms.

He said:

''There is not enough masculinity, What we are doing to our boys now is stunting them. We are built, hard-wired to do incredible things -protect is one of them.''

Kennedy added:

''Everyone is made different, but men have to be men. And boys grow up to be men. You have to allow them to do that.''

I mean, he's making a valid observation here. We've devalued masculinity's protective instincts by devaluing masculinity itself. (This piece is stupid for saying we have easy access to automatic weapons, rather than semi-automatics, but it's a sports site. What can you expect?)

Yet I can't ignore the fact that Honduras has a machismo culture whereas Switzerland is more likely to follow the most passive version of "masculinity" that's so common in Europe. The difference here, though, is that Swiss men are more likely to settle their disagreements with either words or fists, whereas Honduran men prefer to settle them more permenantly.

That's not good, and it mirrors much of what we see here in the United States, where the homicide rate is typically higher in communities with a similar honor culture, where insults must be met with violence.

The issue, though, is that Honduras has tons of gun control, yet none of that is doing anything at all to prevent the bloodshed.

Switzerland has a ton of guns, and fewer homicides than on your typical children's television program.

Somehow, I think that lesson will go right over some people's heads.