Michael Laitman, On Quora: “What is the solution to gun violence without harming the liberty and freedom of gun-owners?“
First, I think that it is unrealistic to disarm hundreds of millions of people. The solution to gun violence is in education. Even if somebody had the power to forcibly confiscate everybody’s guns, gun violence would remain a problem. People who would want guns would find ways to get them.
There is no solution to gun violence other than through society’s gradual and systematic education in relation to what leads us to violence in the first place. We as a society need to reach the realization that killing others is bad. Although this message is already widely understood, for instance it is generally at the heart of major religions and spiritual practices, and it is voiced over and over again in a variety of ways, we nonetheless see that gun violence becomes a greater problem from one day to the next. The reason gun violence worsens is due to the continuous growth of human egoism, where the desire to serve oneself at the expense of others proliferates in many ways throughout society, and some people then grab their guns in order to fire back at this seemingly despicable society of egoists.
Therefore, I see no solution other than serious universal education, which begins from a young age and continues throughout our entire lives. Such education should lead us to a state where there is no room for violence. Anyone who raises their hand against another needs to be punished, and understand that they have no right to exert power over the life of others. We should rather relate to others solely in considerate and responsible ways, and lead by example. Nobody has any right to resort to violence. It is simply not within our rights. That is, we have no right to act against the will of other people. It is true that many have taught such principles throughout history, but we see that there is talk and there is action, and we then see several examples of people doing quite the opposite.
What is lacking in educational efforts to make such principles settle into society’s consciousness is the positive force of nature, i.e. the force of love, giving and connection that precedes and begets our existence. We can truly internalize the principle of doing no harm to others by attracting that force into our lives. Therefore, we need to teach the principles of mutual consideration, care, support and encouragement, or in other words, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” to every person without exception from a young age. Moreover, such education should be regular, on a daily basis, and take place on countrywide scales, with all educational systems and influential media involved in educating and promoting such principles. We would then bear witness to a dramatic decrease in gun violence, as such education would have a lasting positive impact.
If such an educational process entered society, then we would attract the positive force that dwells in nature into our lives, and we would also gain a clearer perception and sensation of who we really are, what goes on around us, what causes our suffering and problems, and where we are headed.
Again, such an education is beyond how we normally think about education. That is, it includes teaching of such principles in our commonly-known educational institutions like schools, colleges and universities, but in addition, it requires influential media creators, filmmakers, radio show hosts, creators of TV series’, journalists and writers of all kinds getting on board. All of our social and environmental influences should be primarily focused on communicating messages that lead us to happiness, peace and harmony. Otherwise, our egoism—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others and nature—will keep conjuring up forms that suit it, and we see the tragedies and the dead end that such an approach leads to.
Therefore, if we organize our education—our complex web of social and media influences—to create a society of mutually considerate, responsible, supportive and encouraging members, then the way we speak, communicate and think would take a positive shift. At the very least, the extreme tragedies of gun violence would cease, because there would be no room for such actions in a society that has increased in its awareness of why it is so important to rise above basic human egoistic drives in order to positively connect. That is, the desire to enact gun violence in such a society would simply not surface in people. The education itself would grow a common understanding and feeling in people that they would willingly restrict themselves from enacting gun violence, because it would go against everything they value and know.
Based on the video “What Is the Solution to Gun Violence?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Jane Palash on Unsplash.
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Comment: Eyewitnesses say that when the country of Israel appeared, there was a sense of a common family between the Jews who moved here.
