This is America. Land of the Free. Home of the Brave. And if you want our guns, you’ll have to come and take them.
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If I am going to write about a controversial topic like gun ownership in the United States, then I am going to start with this sentiment:
Guns should NOT be owned by the common man, because the common man is too common, and guns should not be.
Period.
Still here? I’d wager the extremists have already stopped reading, the intense gun activists are ready to comment about how foolish and ignorant I am, the pro-gun owners are considering how un-American my viewpoint is, and possibly also blaming people like me for the reason this country is in such a bad state.
“These are my guns.” “How am I supposed to protect my family?” “So it’s OK for criminals to have guns, but I can’t?” “Why shouldn’t I be allowed to carry when ‘crazies’ can just walk into schools and shopping malls and movie theaters and just start shooting?”
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But really take a minute to put aside what you believe and peruse my words carefully— because the fact of the matter is, right now in America, you’re not getting rid of guns. You’re not increasing the difficulty of obtaining them, nor are you decreasing the fatality rate of gun related injuries. You may want to— thousands of us may want to, but it’s just not going to happen right now. Plain and simple.
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This is America. Land of the Free. Home of the Brave. And if you want our guns, you’ll have to come and take them.
The sheer ignorance of a statement like this shakes me to my very core. Yet I hear foolhardy sentiments from Americans everyday. “These are my guns.” “How am I supposed to protect my family?” “So it’s OK for criminals to have guns, but I can’t?” “Why shouldn’t I be allowed to carry when ‘crazies’ can just walk into schools and shopping malls and movie theaters and just start shooting?”
WE are the problem. Clear as day. A man in a school without a gun, is just a man in a school. Guns are power.
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Don’t misunderstand me just because our viewpoints appear to be conflicting, I want what you do: I agree that carrying a gun in an instance where another human being is about to cause serious harm to others would be of benefit. With it, you could save many lives— if only at the cost of one. Had a security officer or a teacher had a firearm at the Oregon shooting last week, the turn out may have been different. The shooter could have been taken down immediately. Chris Mintz wouldn’t have been shot trying to protect those that should never have been in danger in the first place. But remember what the threat is in these situations: Humans with guns.
WE are the problem. Clear as day. A man in a school without a gun, is just a man in a school. Guns are power. They represent someone’s ability to take a life or cause serious bodily harm, at the motion of a single finger. That is why we carry them. That is why they are dangerous.
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We could find reasons to argue all day; but these are the two major PRO-GUN arguing points I’ve found most common:
I need a gun for protection; for me, for my family— in case of an emergency I need to be able to keep those I love, or those in need, safe.
I need a gun because of the 2nd amendment. Passed by Congress September 25, 1789. Ratified December 15, 1791. Amendment II of the Bill of Rights states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
I will break these down and explain them each, because there seems to be some confusion among Americans:
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“I need a gun for protection.”
Yes. You’re right, you do. But why? Because your neighbor has a gun and you don’t trust him? Or because the man who has broken into your house has one to your wife’s head and is demanding all of your valuables? Or because a student at your daughter’s school killed dozens of kids and teachers and you want a gun to keep her safe? The only reason you would ever need a gun, is because someone else has a gun.
It’s Fear.
We disguise our fear by calling it preparedness; like we disguise our murder by calling it “self-defense.” At the end of the day, intention is what matters, but the intention doesn’t erase the act. Death is still death. It’s life extinguished, and not life helped— so then the question becomes; are we a race that solves it’s problems and disagreements with deletion? If so, let’s get Stephen Moffat to write us a Cyberman’s Guide to Deletion. Or are we a race that discusses our issues and finds the best solution to move forward?
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We are afraid. We are afraid because we don’t trust each other. We are afraid because we can’t trust each other.
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What if there were no guns and the man who broke in instead had a knife to your wife’s throat? You also had a knife— the field, as before with the gun, is even.
So why are you still afraid?
It’s because you don’t have the power you did before. What’s a knife compared to a gun? Before you even raised your arm to do anything, it’d be too late. We keep guns because we need to feel in control of our unknown future. Power is security.
We are afraid. We are afraid because we don’t trust each other. We are afraid because we can’t trust each other— a nation slowly receding from social interaction. We are afraid because we let our country get out of hand. We taught love of self, first and foremost. We taught chasing our dreams and never letting others stand in our way. We taught greed where there should have been kindness and selflessness. We constructed our society around the pursuit of wealth, status, power, and fame with every road to the end goal paved with the lower classes, and all media filling our heads with a blueprint of how the world is supposed to be.
How can you construct a society based on success— based on constant progress— with so much mental and emotionally taxing strife that we can barely function as individuals, never mind a whole? Our society is so selfish that we push each other to our limits— our suicide rate is higher than any other country in the world.
How, in a society like this, can we considering owning a gun a safe and natural practice?
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“I have a right to bear arms.”
The second reason, “the right to bear arms”— is an amendment to a bill written over 200 years ago. To put that into perspective: wars were fought on horseback with some of the first guns ever made. We had no tanks for protection; no cell phones or radios for communication. Our society was still trying to grow. The reason we had this amendment in the first place was so that the common man could be allowed ownership of a gun in the case of the necessity of a militia of the people. It was not intended to allow every man, woman, and child to carry firearms wherever they pleased— that is our fear warping the rules to play to our advantage, so that we may feel power and security at all times. It was made to allow the people the right to fight back against their government, or any other foreign body looking to take the common people’s liberties.
And those of you who still think your stockpile of guns will help defend you when/if the US government ever turns on its people, consider this:
America spent over $600 Billion this year alone on military funding. How much do you make in a year?
You really think when it comes down to it, that it’ll be a firefight between you and one other person with a gun? Chances are you and all of your guns will be blown to pieces with the rest of your family and your neighborhood.
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We are coming to a quarter-life crisis, so to speak; one where we as a people will have to decide exactly what kind of race we want to be.
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Even as our technology and science advances, we are falling more and more into chaos, under a system that promotes anarchy within itself. We are becoming divided. Directing our separate factions further and further from each other while we claim false unification.
America will stand united against a common threat, but we divide in disagreement.
To address the issue of guns is to address the issue of human nature itself; our constant desire for power and progression superseding our need for preservation and understanding of the world around us.
We fight where there should be discussing. We are violent where we should be kind. We wage war where we should be creating peace.
Humanity is a bloody race because we choose to be. We choose to solve our problems with killing. We choose to eliminate our opposition. We choose destruction over recreation.
As of this moment in time, I don’t believe America is ready to address our gun issues. We are still young in our understanding of life and of our place in the Universe. We are an infinitely small part of the whole, but that small part is still all we know. As time moves forward; as we move forward, change is going to find us, whether we are ready or not. Humanity may idle on the same moral ground for the next fifty years, but one day we are going to have to make a choice.
What kind of race are we going to be?
One who befriends the unknown; or one who opens fire on it….
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Photo:Flickr/ GUN CULTURE 2012
A hard case to make and a hard case to sell in America, but a good try. If, historically, America has been shorter and more conservative on ‘trust’, it has been longer and more liberal on pragmatism, compromise, & accommodation- maybe there’s some ground there.
Only a fool would give government a monopoly on violence. Read your history books. Pull your head out of your buttocks and join us in reality. Publish another gun grabbing piece and I’m getting g off this page. I’m here to learn to be a better man. This has nothing to do with it. In fact, being anti gun is a cowardly act that puts others in danger. Hardly a manly virtue.
Then why do police and Federal agents need military weapons and hardware to “serve and protect”? What exactly are they afraid of? Lt Col Robert Bateman is an Army officer who believes that “civilians” should only be allowed muskets, bolt action rifles and double barrel shotguns. The irony is that at one time they were all considered military weapons. The hypocrisy is that this would not apply to the government. Or to politicians who have armed bodyguards. Let’s have the same standards apply to everyone. What are your feelings about Tasers? 9-11 could have been just another day if the… Read more »
Who’s “we”? Wasn’t me. Was it you?
You’re right about trust. We don’t trust the government to protect us. The Supremes said there is no affirmative obligation for the police to do it. Besides, they can’t. Can’t be everywhere. And, we would like to be able to protect ourselves ourselves.
Armed or disarmed, the government isn’t going to do it. Could be worse. See Waco. The Branch Davidians, not the more recent shooting which some vets say sounded like all cops shooting. With no forensics or ballistics released.
Neither of those those groups were ready….
Thank you for writing this piece. It’s time we start thinking about America’s issues with gun violence in the context of our own evolution. The next phase of human evolution will occur when we collectively recognize the truth that we are all connected. Separation is an illusion.
Peace.