(Ever since a college
class on physical chemistry, I retreat to the verities of thermodynamics when
confronted with the incomprehensibility of human behavior. There’s no understanding what happened in
Connecticut a few days ago--just trying to arrive at a mechanism that will
allow you to get through your day without hiding in a bunker to avoid every
other human being.)
Look, here’s a test tube of solvent with two solutes in
it.
One is a substrate—a chemical that
can undergo a reaction, but doesn’t readily do so. The other is an enzyme—a chemical that, when
it bumps into the substrate, makes it undergo the reaction.
Enzymes are proteins, noodle-like strings of amino acids
that must fold up into a specific shape to do their job. This process can, and does, go awry at a
certain rate; a defined proportion of a population of this enzyme will be
misfolded. If there are only a few molecules
of the enzyme, then it’s unlikely that you’ll find a single misfolded
enzyme. If there are thousands of
molecules of the enzyme, then you’ll find a couple misfolded enzymes. If there are millions of molecules of the
enzymes, then it’s a certainty that you’ll find a good number of misfolded
enzymes.
Now, the misfolded enzyme is evil. When it bumps into a molecule of substrate,
it makes it undergo the wrong
reaction, one that produces a lethal product.
Very simple. Since
the proportion of misfolded enzyme is constant, if you increase the amount of
enzyme in the jar, you will increase the amount of evil enzyme. There’s no way around that fact.
Let’s say that you keep the amount of enzyme in the jar
constant, but you increase the amount of substrate. You will increase the likelihood that a
molecule of evil enzyme will bump into a molecule of substrate, and make
something lethal. This is physical
chemistry, this is the way the world works, and arguing against it is like arguing against gravity.
(In the picture, I’m just looking at the "evil" reaction; the
“good” reaction still happens, but I’m more interested in the “evil” reaction
catalyzed by the evil enzyme.)
If you’ve had college biology, you may have encountered
enzyme kinetics. That’s what we’re
seeing here. You can make a graph
showing the relationship between substrate concentration and the rate at which
the reaction happens. Eventually, you
saturate the system, and the reaction goes as fast as possible.
There’s two ways you can avoid producing the lethal
product. Make the concentration of
enzyme really, really low—it will be less likely that you’ll have any of the
evil enzyme. Or, you can make the concentration
of substrate really, really low—it will be less likely that a molecule of
substrate will encounter a molecule of evil enzyme.
...........................
In any population of humans, there’s going to be a small
percentage that just ain’t right in the head.
If there’s only a thousand people in your population, and there’s a good
social support network, then there may not be any such troubled individuals. But, in a country of 300 million, there’s
going to be people who do evil. Unless
we reduce our country’s population to a thousand people, there will be psychopaths, just like in a
collection of millions of molecules of enzyme, there will be evil misfolded enzyme.
For a normal human being—for most of my neighbors here in a
pretty “red” part of the country—an encounter with the substrate in this
argument, a gun, is part of a recreational experience. People hunt, or practice marksmanship, or
just go plinking tin cans. Many of my
neighbors have the kind of semi-automatic weapons used in Clackamas and
Connecticut and Aurora and Milwaukee, and nothing bad happens.
But if you put the substrate of a
semi-automatic weapon into the hands of a psychopath, you get that lethal
reaction that we saw in Clackamas a week ago and in Connecticut a couple of
days ago.
If you increase the concentration of substrate—of guns,
especially those guns that are useless for hunting—you will increase the rate
of the reaction. This is reality, this
is how thermodynamics says the universe works, despite the idiot fantasies of
Dennis Richardson, the Oregon State Representative from Central Point, just
down the interstate from here:
“If I had been a teacher or the principal at the Sandy Hook
Elementary School and if the school district did not preclude me from having
access to a firearm, either by concealed carry or locked in my desk, most of
the murdered children would still be alive, and the gunman would still be dead,
and not by suicide…we need to ensure that our children are safe, and we can’t
do that by disarming those who are on the scene.”
I don’t know if Representative Richardson ever studied any
physical sciences in school; if he were taking introductory bio from he, he’d
have just failed. This is really simple
stuff.
As I’ve said, many or most of my neighbors have guns, mostly
for hunting. More than a few have
handguns (We once got our car towed by a guy who had his on the dashboard,
and who reminded me a little too much of the character John Goodman played in
“Barton Fink”*). Some have
semiautomatics. They tend to feel more
strongly about their weapons than I do about my most prized possession. They will all aver that they are of sound
mind and practice all the rules of gun safety.
Most will point to a highly ambiguous clause in the Constitution. A few of the fringier ones will maintain that
their ability to outgun government representatives is the bulwark that prevents
tyranny, which I’d find laughable if it didn’t reflect a cocktail of psychosis and
lethal force.
Reading and talking with gun enthusiasts, I’m struck by the
degree to which these weapons are signifiers of something transcendent and
essential to their self-regard. They try
for words to explain it to me, and give up—it ends up being like explaining
religion or love. Having not had their—I’m
at a loss for what to call it…epiphany? Love affair? revalation?...I’ll admit
that I utterly fail to understand their point of view. I’m fine with hunting rifles. But no one needs an automatic or
semiautomatic weapon, any more than they need a howitzer or Sherman tank.
Reading Representative Richardson’s remarks, two things are
clear: he wants lots of guns, and he
ardently wants dead children (just not as many). Other gun enthusiasts have basically said
that there’s no eliminating psychopaths, but the right to hyper-lethal weaponry
is sacrosanct—so, we just have to accept a certain baseline of slaughter. In their view, we’d be best off if we were in
the saturated region of the enzyme kinetics graph.
If we, as a society, want evil such as happened this week to
stop, the only way we can do it is to reduce the concentration of substrate—of
weapons whose designed purpose is to kill lots of humans—to zero. If we, as a society, don’t have the will to
do this, then we, as a society, are affirming that we want this to happen again, and again, and again.
This is not politics; this is really basic, simple physical
science. How we get there is
politics.
*I’ve heard it argued that a well-armed society is a polite
society. This is both true and utter
horse$#!+. I was very polite and most agreeable with the tow-truck driver. I did not feel especially freedom-y, and I
don’t think I would have felt any more freedom-y if I were also armed.
