Guns Kill People

As far as I can remember, I have never gotten political on my blog.  Not this one or Goddess In The Machine.  I think I may have written a couple of posts a few years ago on homeschooling.  I may have even let loose a bit of vitriol about the subject once or twice.  When I was still fiery and opinionated.   Loud and pretentious. You know how I get sometimes. 

But political?  Never.  I don’t think I am going to do it now, either.  But we will see how my wordcrafting blooms this afternoon. 

I know a little bit about people.  Their behaviors.  I know a little bit about government.  And its response to the behavior of its people.  And I know that as long as both of those things remain mutually exclusively broken, they will remain broken together.  And due to the imperfect nature of those living souls with self-awareness and free will, one of the few things I know is that human behavior will remain broken.  Forever.  The way we behave individually.  As a society.  Globally.  Publically.  Esoterically.  Perfectly broken.   It is what makes life fascinating and exciting.  It makes us question everything and search for answers.  It makes us try.  It makes us love and want to be loved. 

It also makes us horrible.  Inexcusably so.  It breeds hate and intolerance.  It breeds anger disproportionately.  It cultivates envy and selfishness.  It is that thing that boils inside all of us.  A potential for evil, in any definition you choose to use. 

But that is the nature of intelligent life.  It is inevitable.  The beauty and the sorrow.  The sweetness and the evil.  All of it is part and parcel of the human experience.  All of it.  Even the worst. 

And so my question is this.  Why have we asked for and allowed a government to imprison us with laws and drown us in litigious anticriminality in the guise of “domestic safety?” 

We have lost our faith in our own humanity.   We have forgotten ourselves.  Our common sense.  Courtesy.  Fortitude.  Social graces.  Empathy and sympathy.   We have come to believe that laying down our freedoms is worth a feeling of security, even if that feeling is false. 

When we see things like the Aurora shooting and the shooting at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, why is our first reaction to scream at anyone who will listen our demands for more restrictions on our rights and freedoms? Do we truly believe that is the answer?  To chain ourselves evermore?  It just makes no sense.  Aside from the mere fact that a gun was used to shoot the bullets, I fail to see what the gun has to do with it.  I don’t understand.  The lengths we have gone to in blaming the gun itself.  The background checks and waiting times.  The silly laws regarding what kind of guns we can buy and own.  The laws about where and how we can carry it.  

What would happen if somehow, there was a way we could see.  Somehow.  It is impossible, of course.  But somehow, look backward in a crystal ball and see the number of crimes these laws have actually curtailed?  And what if that look into the crystal ball showed us absolutely nothing?  I am very, very inclined to believe this is true.  I honestly do not believe that gun laws and regulations have done anything at all to curb violence in this country.  Nothing at all.  Not a single goddamned crime. 

If someone wants to kill a motherfucker.  The motherfucker is gonna get killed.  Full stop.  It doesn’t matter what weapons are or are not available.  It just doesn’t.  At all. 

It’s like trying to eliminate car accidents by outlawing cars.  It makes no goddamned sense.  None.  At all. 

So why are we doing this?  Why are so many people calling foul against the instrument even more so than wielder?    

Did Prohibition work at eliminating alcohol and alcohol-related incidents? 

Is the illegalization of marijuana working at eradicating those who smoke it? 

Has taking anything away from anyone in an attempt to curb an undesired activity ever worked in any situation ever in the history of ever? 

Humans need a big fix.  An easy button.  The shortest distance between two points.   And they are so fucking desperate for it, they are willing to convince themselves of anything.  And not only that, they are willing to squander away their own freedoms in search of it.  And that is sad.  It is sad and disheartening. 

Murderers and criminals and gun-toting nutjobs are as individual as the number of drops of rain in a cloud.  Their motivations and situations and thought processes.  If we were to look to this, in the direction of perpetrators, for answers to our questions of personal safety, the answers we seek would be just as varied as those drops of rain.   Questions like, how could this have been prevented?  How could the anger this person carried have been assuaged?  How could the cracks in this person’s psyche been repaired?

Eternal questions of the ages.  No right answers.  Very few wrong ones.  Frustration.  Dissatisfaction.   Unfixable.  Unanswerable. 

That would require humans to settle for answers like, “Shit happens.”  “It just sucks.”  “I don’t understand, and we probably never will.”  No one wants to hear this.  Especially those who lost loved ones.  These are not answers.  They are unacceptable.  To those who refuse to accept them. 

Those who lose loved ones or are affected by violence need something so much more than closure.  They need a soapbox.  They need a cause.  They need to start charities and foundations in the name of their loved one.  They need to march to congress and make noise.  They need to feel useful.  They need this.  Need it.  Desperately.  

But if they could not blame the gun, what else would they write on their signs?  It is harsh, yes.  Absolutely.  As harsh as the crimes committed.  As harsh as the sickening disdain for human life that seems to ooze so freely from sick minds.  But it is harsh because it is true. 

Sick minds have been born since the dawning of our species.  Sick crimes have been committed.  No decade or century is any worse for the wear.  Humans will always believe they are currently in a period of runaway criminals simply because the present is in their face and history requires research.   

Is it a coincidence that violent crime arose right alongside the dawn of homosapiens?  Yes.  That is supposed to be deeply sarcastic.  But true, nonetheless.   

Guns kill people.  

But so do ropes

and candlesticks

and lead pipes

and wrenches

and daggers. 

Guns kill people.

But so does water

and penicillin

and bees

and peanut butter

and clothes dryers.

Guns kill people.

But so do people.

and cars

and pregnancy

and carbon monoxide

and the Sun.

What would happen if we outlawed all of those things?