ENOUGH ALREADY

I am getting to the place where I can no longer be a part of the conversation that is going on in my country about guns. It is a tad stubborn on my part, I admit, but for me it’s a dialogue that has become so absurd, it’s hard to call the conversation anything but pointless. Yes, you heard me, I find arguing about the 'good of guns' utterly pointless and counter intuitive. 

The gun issue is out of control in the United States, and no matter how hard one tries to duck and dodge the cold reality of what is happening, there is no other country on earth where roughly 80 million people own guns (that’s 79 to 1 in comparison to law enforcement and military for those of you paranoid that the government is armed to the hilt). Not to mention, if one more person tries to defend the necessity of guns to me, my head may pop off. While I have tried in the past to understand the need for an American to so fiercely defend their second amendment right, I can never understand why these same individuals aren’t as fiercely protective over what is happening to our society, and our children due to guns and their accessibility to the average individual. Not to mention, where is my g*d damn right to avoid being shot when I’m out trying to buy milk. Where are my children’s rights to go to school and not be gunned down? What exactly are my rights when it comes to wanting to live in a more peaceful society that does not allow any Tom, Dick or Nutjob to obtain a gun faster than I can negotiate with my four year old on what to wear in the morning? 

For me, and for many others for that matter, it comes down to this: guns beget violence. Like it or not, they do. They are easy to attain (any dipshit can get one, let’s be frank) and are designed for one thing and one thing alone, TO KILL THINGS. As I see it, our jobs as human beings is to do whatever we can to lessen our violent tendencies and coexist in a place where instruments of violence are not so easy to attain. For those individuals that insist on continuing the diatribe that includes, ‘well people will just turn to knives;’ or ‘cars kill more people,’ or I need my guns to hunt.’ I say this, yes, human beings have an animalistic violence at their core (I’m hoping one day instead of accepting this, we can try to tackle the problem and teach our youth from an early age that violence isn’t the answer), and people will always exhibit certain behaviors that are harmful to the collective, but isn’t our job to do what we can to actually lessen the violence (and not facilitate it?!!) and lessen the ease of obtaining weapons that can cause mass destruction? Furthermore, am I to understand that because there are more deaths on the highway that this should clear the way for us all to roll around in our gun piles joyfully and say to hell with it? Cars kill people so let’s keep our guns too and kill even more people? It’s a rationality that my four year old would come up with.

We have become a lazy country of people willing to accept the status quo (and yes, mass shootings have become the status quo) instead of trying harder to be better human beings, be more attentive parents, and be more willing to join together and once and for all battle a problem that affects us all. So for those of you sitting back clutching onto your rifle until your dying breath, I say, it’s time to wake the hell up and accept we have a problem on our hands. Just because you’re responsible with your firearm doesn’t mean the rest of society it is. And not that I’d wish this upon anyone, but sooner or later, gun violence may affect you, or someone close to you and then and only then, you may wake up to the fact that no good comes from guns. DEATH and injury comes from guns, they are not friendly instruments that shoot out rainbows. And I don’t know about you, but this makes it all too easy for me to see them as a detriment and not an addition to society.

I realise that hoping for an ideal world where all countries could operate like the many that do where guns are illegal is a far fetched dream. In America, I realise this will never happen as the gun lobby is simply too strong and the gun industry is too lucrative. So, what I hope for is this, that we can somehow reach a place of co-existence and somehow find a place where controls are tightened so that those of us that do not support them, can feel safe in our own country and those that must bear arms, can take on some responsibility for what guns are doing to our country.

For those of you that still need to waffle on about your rights, here is some happy reading for you.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/pro-gun-myths-fact-check