Musings on Life and Love

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Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past week, you’re aware that the latest talk of the Trump is the closing of our borders to all Muslims. Here are some of the arguments floating around:

“Muslims come from a culture that promotes violence against non-Muslims.”

“Muslims support ISIS and terrorism.”

“We can’t let in Syrian refugees, because ISIS.”

“We have to close our borders to Muslims until we find a way to prevent terrorists from entering the country.”

On a scale of 1-to-Ludicrous, I’m only going to address the last argument, because there is already a mountain of evidence out there debunking the first three, all of which fall on the “Ludicrous” end of said scale. The last one, though, I will acknowledge has some merit on the surface. More on that in a minute….

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for just a little bit longer than a week, you’re aware that gun control is a pretty hot topic these days, too.

And here’s where I noticed an interesting correlation:

The people who oppose gun control tend to be the same ones who support closing our borders to Muslims. Well, if you’re one such person, I’d like to point something out to you:

Closing our borders is the logical equivalent of banning all guns. The two ideas use the exact same line of reasoning.

Let’s take a look at gun control first. Opponents of gun control cite the following logic that banning guns will be ineffective:

• Most gun owners are responsible gun owners.
• The bad people who would use guns for violence will still manage to get them on the black market.
• Therefore, an outright ban will only prevent the good people from obtaining guns via legal means. It will do nothing to stop the bad people from obtaining guns.

Okay, that makes sense. So now, let’s get back to the border argument and apply the same exact logic:

• Most immigrants into the United States are honest people who just want to start a new life.
• The bad people who want to harm the United States will find a way to get into the country and attack us.
• Therefore, closing our borders will only prevent the good people from immigrating to the United States. It will do nothing to stop the bad people.

This line of reasoning doesn’t even account for the reality that we already have a stringent screening system in place for letting in refugees. ISIS infiltrators can’t just waltz into our country posing as refugees. Nor can they foxtrot, lindy hop, or even pop-and-lock their way in, for that matter.

Let’s be perfectly clear on that, okay? It is not easy to get into the United States via legal means. Are there loopholes? Of course. Are they easy to exploit? No*.

The chance that a refugee we let in turns out to be an ISIS agent is a negligible risk. This is what it actually looks like when Syrian refugees are accepted into a western nation.

As such, not only is closing our borders ultimately ineffective in preventing terrorism from striking our nation, it’s also wholly unnecessary. If you truly fear terrorist attacks on American soil, barring Muslims from entering the country is pretty much the most misguided solution you can go with.

Ultimately, here’s the problem with both banning all guns and banning all Muslims:

It is a blanket solution. It is absolute. It assumes that something or someone can only be an instrument of destruction, and it does not acknowledge that not all gun owners — like not all Muslims — are evil.

It also fails to recognize that absolute solutions are rarely viable in the real world.

For the record, I do not support an outright ban of all guns, despite what some people think. What I do support is more research on the issue and policies that will allow us to separate the good gun owners from the bad gun owners. Ultimately, though, we have to accept that some small number of guns will fall into the wrong hands. That’s reality, and an outright ban on all guns is unlikely to prevent that.

Similarly, it’s silly to push for a ban on all Muslims entering the country. Ultimately, we have to accept that there will likely be another terrorist attack on American soil at some point. It may be at the hands of Islamic extremists, but if we go by historical statistics, it will far more likely be at the hands of non-Muslims. That’s reality, and an outright ban on Muslims entering the country will not prevent that.

So there you have it. If you’re a passionate opponent of gun control, I sincerely hope you also oppose the closing of our borders.

Because, you know, hypocrisy.

And if you do support an outright ban on guns? Well, damn it, have some empathy for the refugees, will ya?

*As a sidenote to those who bring up the San Bernardino shooters and how the wife immigrated from Pakistan, keep in mind that she was only able to enter the country because she married an American-born citizen. The current biggest threat to American national security comes from… Americans.