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Sunday, January 12th, 2014

Can Neuroscience Help Settle the Gun Control Debate?

Author:     TIM PHILLIPS
Source:     Salon
Publication Date:     Thursday, Jan 9, 2014 05:45 AM PST
 Link: Can Neuroscience Help Settle the Gun Control Debate?
Stephan:   According to CNN "The number of households owning guns has declined from almost 50% in 1973 to just over 32% in 2010, according to a 2011 study produced by The University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center. The number of gun owners has gone down almost 10% over the same period, the report found." Yet the number of guns has dramatically increased. Less than a third of the American population own firearms, yet there are in excess of 270 million guns in private hands. And they kill tens of thousands each year. Clearly the American gun psychosis arises from a deep seated sacred values issue. Something irrational untouched by the reality of facts. Now neuroscience is beginning to give us an understanding as to why a hobby that is practiced by a declining percentage of the population, and that is quite literally murderous, exercises such powerful influence over people's minds.

As we begin 2014, we still haven’t engaged in a conversation about gun control that brings both sides together.

Polls indicate a country more or less divided over how to prevent another school shooting. And while legislation has been proposed to reign in the gun lobby, sales of guns have soared.

This debate is not a new one in the United States, and while it intensifies with each tragic mass shooting, the conversation rarely advances. Frustration sets in as each new action causes the other side to dig in their heels even further.

We wonder: Is there another way to frame this issue?

For the last 20 years I have led an international organization that works in war torn countries to negotiate an end to conflict. In places like Northern Ireland, El Salvador, South Africa and the Balkans, groups once driven to violence to defend their beliefs have put down their weapons, sat down at a table, overcome their differences and negotiated. Moving beyond conflict is, indeed, possible.

One dynamic I have observed present in all successful negotiations – which is missing from our current debate over gun control – is a recognition of the role of sacred values.

Social scientists define sacred values as a […]

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