Closed Systems, Social Symptoms, and Social Change

Shortly after a series of violent episodes in schools culminating in the deaths of fifteen students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, it appeared that a change might take place in the longstanding inability of the U.S. government to control the distribution of firearms. Much was made in the press of the horrors of the massacre in Littleton and the need for a response. Many thought Congress would have no choice but to enact legislation to control the access to guns that turned hatred and the associated violent impulses into murder on a large scale. They were wrong.

No more than two months after the Littleton shootings, even the most inconsequential limitation on access to guns was meeting with intense resistance on Capital Hill. Under the headline “House Undertakes Days-Long Battle on Youth Violence,” The New York Times reported on June 17: “A bitterly divided House plunged today into the nation's culture wars, passionately debating long into the night whether school prayer, a clampdown on violence in entertainment, stiff prison sentences or gun control was the answer to the spate of school shootings that have left teen-agers dead.”

On one side were gun control advocates, mainly Democrats, who might not believe that guns kill people, but remain convinced that limiting access to guns would reduce the likelihood that people with guns would kill people. The other side had lately turned to matters of religion and culture, one Congressman insisting that the “entertainment industry gets away literally with murder…. Anyone that doesn't think rotten movies, rotten rap lyrics, rotten video games aren't poisoning—toxically poisoning—our kid's minds and making some kids think that's acceptable, just isn't paying attention.” The House minority whip formulated the problem in religious terms: “What message is sent when it is illegal to pray in schools? … This rejection of God must change.” Out of all this rancor, the House succeeded in passing a measure a