In Kansas City Missouri a young man, 16 years old, was supposed to pick up his brothers on his way home. He stopped at the wrong address, rang the doorbell, and was shot twice. In rural, upstate New York a car with four young women pulled into the wrong driveway, realized their mistake and were backing out when the homeowner fired twice, killing one of the passengers.
It’s impossible to say what triggered such a violent response to such innocuous events. Most of us were taught from a very young age it is wrong to kill people. What drives a person to feel so threatened by a doorbell, or an unfamiliar car in a driveway they feel the need to kill?
Fear is as good a guess as any. The NRA has been preaching a gospel of terror since late last century. There is no paucity of villains, democrats, intellectuals, immigrants, minorities. Or the government, though this one is particularly amusing since they have so many politicians on the payroll. When you can add Antifa and Black Lives Matter, you have a tasty blend of excuses to arm yourselves to the point of bankruptcy.
And, if you put enough firepower in enough hands, it becomes a “self-fulfilling prophecy”. People started shooting each other in record numbers. Nobody can feel safe anywhere, not in church, not in school, supermarkets, banks, every place has the potential to be the next blood-soaked monument to enhanced firepower.
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”[1]
What was left unsaid was how the NRA had done so much to put guns out in public. They didn’t want retailers to make distinctions as to who was buying them. Nobody was supposed to ask, “are you a bad guy?” when a customer was laying down some coin for a rifle and ammunition that had only one purpose, murder. They smiled and offered, “paper or plastic?” I’m probably giving them too much credit, they didn’t offer paper bags.
People were getting gunned down in a geometric progression of violence. It became an excuse. States rushed to pass laws to allow more guns, with less oversight. Guns became the reason to buy guns. We were told the only way to be safe was to be armed. Everybody could be an enemy, armed and dangerous. The number of people who died was a stark reminder of why you needed a gun.
And we’ve reached the point where nobody feels safe, even the people with guns. You can’t bring a gun to the NRA convention, it isn’t safe.
In Missouri and New York, the fear became too much, it turned accident into tragedy. There was nothing to be afraid of, but the echoes of imagined potential threats rang loud. Fear blinded them to reality. And they reacted savagely, and without reason. So much for the home of the brave.
When will the madness end? Will the madness end? I guess that’s the real question.
[1] Wayne LaPierre, CEO and Executive Vice President of the NRA
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Unsplash