I wrote this after Newtown. It still applies. Every day. Every minute. This is not freedom.
America is chock full of guns – all types – including ones that slaughter and dismember handfuls of kindergartners in a matter of minutes.
America is also chock full of people – all types – including cowardly people, mean people, extremely confused people, sick people, willfully ignorant people, volatile people, violent people, abusive people, sociopathic people.
You name it.
Put them all together in one place — a bunch of slaughter machines and a bunch of people — and it should surprise no one that massacres occur. It’s not IF. It’s WHEN.
You don’t need to be a social scientist or do any research to figure this out. You don’t need to be an expert historian to know that it has ever been thus.
And you definitely don’t need more than a speck of common sense (or basic survival instinct, for that matter) to know that it would be a horrible idea to give a slaughter machine to the next guy you see having a bad day, whether he be a random stranger, an acquaintance, a neighbor, the road rage guy in traffic, the brooding lonely teenager on the bus, your moody brother-in-law, your fiery uncle, your demanding father, your controlling spouse. Whoever it is, you don’t wanna give him a slaughter machine!
Yet this is what we do in America. On a very large scale. Every single day. We effectively give slaughter machines to the next guy we see having a bad day.
Here ya go, guy!
On the matter of our American “freedom:” Guns hold us captive. They do not free us. A lone random bad guy with a gun, all by himself, can tie up a state’s law enforcement for weeks and can put a whole community on lock-down. One coward with a gun can tie up traffic (air traffic included) for hours. A threat of a gunman can lock-down a university.
This is not freedom. This is the opposite of freedom.
And heaven forbid a mom or celebrity or politician speak out against our subjugation to guns! The ensuing onslaught of even verbal threats by a gun-owners, violent and virulent, can be enough to bully plenty of us into fearful silence – no dialogue, intellect, or thoughtfulness permitted.
This is not freedom either! This too is the opposite of freedom.
On the matter of “our declining values:” We ignore history and reality, and are more than a little self-righteous, when we blame ‘declining moral values’ in the wake of mass shootings and/or of gun violence in general. Men have been killing, massacring, slaughtering, and dismembering innocents since they’ve had the means to do so.
Do we have no knowledge of history at all?
The difference now is that the means – to kill, massacre, slaughter, and dismember — is readily available to lots of people, and it’s easier and more efficient than ever. One guy can accomplish a full-on massacre in a matter of minutes.
Wow. Talk about values!
If we nevertheless insist on pointing to some current state of “declining values,” then we must also: (1) identify those points in history and/or those current societies wherein massacres were/are nonexistent, and (2) adopt those social structures, cultures, and values ASAP.
If we don’t, we are just talking the talk. And we are missing the meaning of our own argument, with tragic consequences. So, please let’s stop the self-serving and distracting pontifications on ‘values.’
Certainly, we can all at least agree that the toddler who accidentally kills her mom or grandma doesn’t do so because she lacks values. She does so because she comes upon a gun. The 9-year-old girl who kills an instructor at a firing range doesn’t do so because she lacks values either. She does so because she is handling a gun. It’s the gun that’s the problem. It’s not the toddler or 9-year-old’s values.
On the matter of mental health care: We must also be prepared to ‘walk the walk’ ASAP on mental health care if we insist that this, not guns, is the root of daily human slaughter in America.
Specifically, if mental health care is in fact the problem and the solution, we must be ready to immediately: (1) fund, promote, and institute wide-spread generalized mental health screenings, because mental health problems affect all races, ages, cultures, and socio-economic groups; (2) identify those groups most at risk for mental health issues tending toward human slaughter (white males between the ages of 14 and 60 perhaps?); (3) fund , promote, require, and institute treatment plans for individuals in these high-risk groups; and (4) fund, require, and institute a treatment monitoring system, to ensure that specified treatments are working to address each high-risk individual’s needs, so that none of them fall through the cracks and start slaughtering kindergarteners.
So, what’d’ya say?! You ready to fund this, talkers? You ready to fund and require widespread mental health screenings? You ready to identify high risk individuals and monitor and treat them long term?
You better be — if mental health care is indeed the problem — and if you care about the lives, liberty and happiness of innocent kindergarteners. There is no time to waste.
If not, if you can’t walk the walk, then you are exposed as disingenuous, and as using yet another shameless ploy to confuse and cloak the reality of gun violence in bloody shadow. Don’t kid yourself.
On the matter of self-defense: If self-defense is really truly what we are concerned about when we say we need guns, we should get ourselves tasers and stun-guns and take up martial arts. If we demand more than this, we in fact desire to attack and assault, not defend (hence the terms “assault weapon” and “assault rifle”). This desire is not acceptable. Period. An assault is a criminal act.
As it is, guns aren’t stopping bad guys with guns anyway. We see evidence and proof of this every single day. Bad guys with guns kill innocent people at police stations (For crying out loud!), and at firing ranges, and in buildings with armed guards, and everywhere. No one with even the slightest awareness of daily headlines can conclude that more guns equals more safe.
On the matter of the 2nd Amendment: The right to bear arms is afforded in order to form a more perfect MILITIA. It’s not described in the Constitution with no nearby qualifying language, and it needn’t be self-servingly interpreted as somehow completely open-ended, unconditional, and/or conferred upon the general population.
Constitutional rights aren’t open-ended and completely unconditional anyway! No rights are. How could they be? Rights are necessarily conceived in context, and must have limitations and must be afforded in balance with other obvious practicalities and responsibilities.
I mean, come on, people! Just because you claim a “right to assemble” doesn’t mean you and your large crowd of cohorts get to take over the local bank branch, without permission, to hold your meetings! This right has specific applications and limits!
And just because you claim a “right to “free speech” doesn’t mean you can’t get fired from your job as an upscale restaurant hostess if you say mean and horrible things to all the diners! This right also has specific applications and limits.
Likewise, just because you claim a “right to bear arms” does NOT mean you should get access to slaughter machines.
On the matter of some sort of tradition: If, on the other hand, we rely on the Constitution in a ‘traditional-time-honored-way-of-life sense’ to justify civilian gun ownership, then we shouldn’t permit ‘arms’ where the 2nd Amendment’s drafters did not. (Yes, rules and laws limiting the keeping and use of ‘arms’ did exist at the time – and before then, and after then.) And we shouldn’t permit ‘arms’ beyond those traditionally then available. If you’re honoring tradition, honor it.
On the matter of hunting for food: Nothing beyond hunting rifles and equipment, traps, and fishing nets and tools are necessary for those individuals who actually must hunt for food.
For those who don’t need to hunt for food, and who kill animals only for sport, it’s time to finally evolve. Individuals’ desires to maintain their hobby of killing living things should not outweigh the value of innocent life and intellectual evolution.
(Oh, and btw, for those who like to mindlessly cite the Constitution, the right to bear arms is not afforded “in order to facilitate hunting” anyway.)
On the matter of the American fascination with gun-toting tough guys: The truth lies in the reverse. Carrying a gun does not make a person braver or tougher than his neighbor who isn’t carrying one. It simply turns him into a person carrying a slaughter machine. Using a calculator does not make a child smarter at adding than the child who has no calculator. It simply makes him a child who is using an adding machine. Driving your car does not make you a speedier human than your friend who is biking. It simply makes you the person with the driving machine.
So, sorry. You are not tougher and braver than your fellow man because you have a gun. (Actually, come to think of it, you’re more of a fraidy cat! If you were tougher and braver in reality, you could exist without a gun.)
On the matter of background checks: If we are parents and we want to help manage our young kids’ soccer team, we are subject to background checks. We don’t hesitate. We accept it and follow through because this requirement may potentially help keep kids safe.
We don’t require statistical evidence indicating precisely how many predators have been put off and thwarted by the existence of a volunteer soccer manager background check. We don’t demand that studies be funded and proven. We don’t stomp around and have a tantrum about providing our personal information. We are happy for the requirement, because we care, because we have common sense, and because it just might help.
So who exactly is it that would resist an extensive background check when attempting to purchase a slaughter machine?! What kind of questionable human being has a problem with getting checked out under these circumstances?! And why would anyone want give this sort of human being access to a gun?!
On the matter of the NRA. Please very simply consider this: The NRA is a business association. Business, people! Not a community service organization. Not a rescue organization. Not a relief organization. Not a think tank. Not an institute of learning. Not a women’s shelter. A business! And with every massacre, NRA profits rise.
Hear it. The NRA profits from massacre.
The NRA profits from human slaughter. For the NRA, human slaughter is good business. For the NRA, the slaughter of 20 kindergarteners is good business.
So, how on earth can you possibly credit, condone, follow, believe, accept, trust, or support anything the NRA says or does?
How on earth can you possibly condone, follow, believe, accept, trust, or support anyone who sides with the NRA?
How on earth is your heart not breaking?
And how on earth can you call that freedom?
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justanothermom.me 