Solving one problem with another

Some of the news that I've read today brought about a small enlightenment and a wonderful analogy to explain the controversy over the use of condoms to prevent AIDS. Today's Today Newspaper had an article entitled "Texas considers allowing guns on campuses". Apparently some politicians are trying to pass a bill in Texas to allow students to carry concealed guns on campus, to prevent another Virgina Tech incident from happening. In the article, the VP of the campus puts it so gently that "permitting guns would introduce a new set of potential challenges to campus safety" at the Waco university, "and therefore we don’t believe guns on our campus are a good idea generally." In another article, faculty staff members were considering the situation of "passin out Fs and Ds with somebody in the classroom having a gun".

"It’s basically just allowing the people who have concealed weapons to protect themselves wherever they go" - Joe Driver who is championing the bill.

The logic here astounds me. He is recommending that because there is a danger of someone bringing a concealed weapon into the school, others should be allowed to bring concealed weapons to protect themselves. The logical solution would be to ban guns (which kill people) so that I do not need to be afraid of someone bringing a gun to school. My self-protection would be my fist, because all the other person has is his fist. But of course that is the thinking of someone who comes from a society that has not allowed private ownership of guns. But in the USA where owning a gun is a constitutional right, gun control has been a big controversial issue with parties lobbying on both sides. So the best solution they can offer, would to be create an environment of danger where anyone can carry a gun on campus. Luckily the smarter people are on faculty and not in politics and realise that this bill would allow teenagers who get drunk and rowdy, and not fully in control of their passions to carry arms, which may result in more harm than good.

To me, this proposal was similar to the approach towards trying to control the spread of AIDS through the use of condoms. Instead of Safe Sex, lets promote a Safe School where everyone has "protection", just that the protection here is a gun instead of a condom.

But one thing that I realise from the gun control issue is the US, applies to the condom/AIDS issue, is that both sides have different views of what is a Right. For some carrying a gun is a Right. For some to have sex with anyone they want is a Right. So if I think that having sex is a Right, I can't propose to another person that the best solution to preventing AIDS is not to have casual sex, because I will be denying that person his/her Right. All I can do is make it as safe as possible. A Harvard Researcher which agreed with the Pope used the term Risk Compensation, where if through the use of technology the risks can be lowered, people are willing to take a higher risk, which erases the benefits.

Problem is the solution is to promote a value - abstinence. In this day, values are the hardest thing to try to teach or to get people to live out. So the easy way out would be to allow sin to corrupt people and say that there is nothing we can do about, so lets make it as harmless as possible, thus promoting immorality. So instead of helping people be in control of their animal passions, we deem them as animals unable to control themselves and give them "protection".

I probably am naive about the situation in Africa, and all that the health workers are trying to do. But I am actually referring to the state of the "western/liberalised" society that has given up its values and embraced a hedonistic life. Something which the Harvard Researcher article mentioned about showed that maybe the western aid they are giving is doing more harm. By promoting condoms, they were promoting their liberalised mindset towards sex. As Nike's famous tagline - "Just do it".

Just like the gun issue, if everybody was carrying "protection", doesn't it increase the likelihood that the protection will be used. If they can see that allowing students to carry guns would result in more harm, why can't they see that promoting condoms is going to encourage casual sex, the very thing that is causing the spread of AIDS. But then again, not everyone sees casual sex as wrong.