Guns Sing America’s Song

Guns and US - part 3

Something is clearly wrong in this country. Too many people are dying from gunshot wounds.

In this series of essays, I am exploring some facets of the issue. I don’t expect to make many friends with this venture.

* * * * *

Some people do not see gun violence as a national crisis. Some people also maintain that global warming is a hoax, vaccinations are just a method of government control, pizza parlors are a cover for an international conspiracy of pederasts, and other howlers too looney to even mention.

Can we just get real about this? Is it possible for us to drop the political BS for a few moments and have a sane discussion about guns? (Or is it, like race, a subject America is just too afraid to talk about?)

It might be said that we cannot talk sanely about guns because we are so entrenched in our political positions that we don’t dare raise our heads above the trenches and even look at the other side, for fear of being, uh, shot.

More evidence, as if we needed it, that something is clearly wrong in this country.

From the left we hear, “It’s all about guns!”

From the right we hear, “It’s all about mental health!”

From the middle we hear whispers, “It’s about a lot of things all together.”

Indeed, several social factors are invoked.

Many people feel alienated right now – from society in general, from their government, from other people. They don’t know how to overcome their alienation. They don’t know what to do to fit in, if fitting in is really what they want to do.

Most shooters are men. A lot of men apparently don’t know what it means to be a man anymore. Changing demands for education and job training have left many men in the lurch. Changing social patterns bewilder them. Some think they can get lessons from the likes of MANLY MAN! Josh Hawley. Others wonder if even Tom Cruise has it together. How about Ken from Barbieland?

Does wearing a holster make you a man? Does deliberately not wearing a holster make you a man? (Remember the days of Shakespearean plays when men wore elaborate codpieces to shout their manhood? Of course, they often carried swords and daggers, too.)

Does driving a loud vehicle (loud exhaust, loud speakers, squealing tires, whatever) make you a man? Or is manhood more than something you drive?

Ours is a time of rising rates of loneliness and alienation, alcohol and drug dependency, mental illness and so on. From the way some people tell it, you’d think that nobody is happy. But why do some unhappy people turn to guns to solve their personal issues?

Some factors:

“Everybody” has a gun.

Guns are easy to get.

TV, movies, videogames and books often glamorize guns and sell the Idea that guns are a quick solution to almost any problem.

Some of us fear people who are “different.”

Some of us fear people who carry guns openly.

A “good guy” carrying a gun might stop a bad guy with a gun. He might just as easily get himself shot by police in the confusion surrounding a gun encounter.

Most gun owners likely would never use a gun to harm someone.

Many gun restrictions likely have little impact on gun abuse. But do they really impose an undue burden on law abiding gun owners, or are they little more than a nuisance that some people love to gripe about?

Polls show overwhelming public support for criminal background checks, raising the minimum age for owning a gun to 21, and adopting “red flag” laws that keep guns from those shown to be a risk at misusing them (most likely to kill an estranged lover).

Gun advocates loudly oppose all three of those measures.

Loose regulations on gun shows invite terrorists and criminals to buy guns. Gun sellers at these shows might as well be gun runners (though they might think twice before selling to someone who’s Black or looks like a Taliban supporter).

Texas now requires an armed guard at schools. This is how we “educate” our children about life in America. Guns rule.

That stupid TV show “American Idol” has it all wrong. It’s not about a singer. Guns are America’s idol. Guns sing America’s song.

Next: What about the Second Amendment?