Our Strange Addiction: Guns

I want to talk about guns.

Scratch that, I want to talk about gun violence.

That’s not it either, I want to talk about America’s obsession with guns. Actually I think obsession is the wrong word. I think addiction is the right one to use. America is addicted to guns and it is killing all of us. Much like any addiction it is bad and it should be dealt with as we deal with any addiction.

In fact, this should not be a discussion. Like some things in life there really is no discussion it is just a known fact that we do not do those things. Yet we continue to run into people who think guns are the answer. So instead of treating this situation like we treat a 1-year-old standing on wobbly chairs we allow gun owners to totter wildly until the chair comes crashing to the floor and someone gets hurt. Instead of thinking perhaps we shouldn’t stand on wobbly chairs, we all get wobblier chairs and start playing musical chairs while juggling live grenades.

Just think about that for a second. We react to horrible situations like what happened at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut by buying more of the thing that does the killing. When there is a reported case of mad cow we stop buying beef, because it can kill you. Yet there have only been 4 reported cases of Mad Cow Disease in the United States and it cost the beef industry close to $5 billion. After Sandy Hook the gun industry took in about $630 million. So if the beef industry loses $5 billion dollars for 4 cases and the gun industry gains about $630 million after each mass shooting let’s do the math.

998 mass shootings since Sandy Hook (why don’t we round that to a nice neat 1000) x 630 million = $630 billion dollars in 3 years and six months (the time between Sandy Hook and Orlando). What the inconceivable fuck! I am trying not to curse. To keep this as family friendly as possible but sometimes I just lose my mind.

You know what you can do with $630 billion? A lot of stuff that’s for sure. I mean a slice of pizza at Costco only costs $1. I could give everyone in the world 84 pieces of pizza. Hell, I could buy Costco and give out the pizza for free and still make money off all the groceries and other stuff. In fact, with $630 billion I could afford to buy Donald J. Trump’s “empire”, which he says is worth only $10 billion. Perhaps though instead I will just run for president against him. I could literally fund every candidates campaign and still have over $620 billion to live off of (using the total amounts of $10 billion spent in 2012).

I have gotten off track with this money thing but in truth have I? Think about how much money that is for just a second and realize that these are the people dumping money into our politician’s pockets. They can literally fund every single candidates campaign and in the end walk away with a profit and no fear of losing out on any future profit because Every. Single. Politician. Is in their hands. So how can we expect anything to change when it comes to gun control laws?

Granted what I have presented to you is purely a hypothetical, at least them giving money to every politician. The amount is hypothetical to a degree but it is not hard to assume that the number spike after each shooting. It would still most likely more money than Donald J. Trump has, or will ever have. So how do we combat this sort of thing? Why does this keep happening? Why can’t we agree on anything?

The answer to the first question is a lot harder than you think because we don’t truly understand the answer to number three yet. The second question though is easily answered. This keeps happening because we allow money to control our decisions. I know this seems like an over simplification of the problem but in truth if we stopped allowing money to do the talking when it came to our politicians we might actually get something done in this country.

That being said I know that most people would blame the wording of the second amendment as the answer to the third question and they would be mostly right. The second amendment has caused way more problems for our country then it has solved. Just look at the wording and see why it is such a problem, “A well regulated militia,being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people tokeep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” 

To best understand why this sort of amendment was placed in the bill of rights we have to look at the record of human history. Up until this point in time (1776) there had never been a truly democratic state. Or at least a democratic state in which the people had power (although the majority of people would not have full rights until the 20^th century). A free state not ruled by a king or queen. A nation built by the people for the people. So in the best interest of not allowing some power hungry fool (Donald Trump?) to claim himself king they wanted the people to be able to rise up and take back the country. They just had one problem. The people most afraid of that happening were the ones who took power in the first place and laid the foundation for all future generations.

The founding fathers meant well when they wrote it and signed it into law but they never could imagine a world where a person would be able to fire more than 2 rounds per minute, let alone 30. So they could not even fathom a world where a crazy lunatic, fancying himself after the Joker, bursts into a theater and murders 12 people. They could imagine a world where the locals would have to rise up and defend themselves against an oppressive force looking to subjugate them. They knew that if that were to happen and the people didn’t have access to firearms they may never get their freedom back.

Why do we still have the second amendment? Why, when we have a well regulated militia (e.g. the five branches of the military) and a police force in every municipality across the country. Should we not be able to trust those in the armed services and the police to protect us and keep us safe? You may think that with police shootings and the almost militarization of said police forces that perhaps the police are not to be trusted. Hollywood would have you believe that the military will just follow along with the whims of some tiny king dictator (Trump?) to oppress the people of this country. What we fail to recognize is that those in the military may be taught to follow orders but that doesn’t make them heartless and stupid.

The people in the military are taught to defend our country not attack it. I find it hard to believe that those in the armed services would actually attack the citizens of the United States of America. Of course this is all conjecture but think about the people who are afraid of this happening and insist on having guns and then think about the people who join the military... They tend to be cut from the same cloth. So why would they take up arms against each other?

In the end it really comes down to something that people like former Justice Scalia and other Originalist judges never think about it that the founders meant muskets not assault rifles. They meant farmers and blacksmiths running through the forest fighting men in red coats not a young man in an elementary school shooting children. The Originalist judges would have you believe that it is the intent not the actual meaning of the words that should be taken as the law but should we not think about the world the founders lived in when they had that intent? Should we not think about the time and place that it was written and not assume that they just meant every killing machine to be thought of and manufactured in the next 240 years?

The world is a much different place then it was 240 years ago. We don’t know what the founding fathers intended. Yet why should we think of what they intended and not how they intended it to be interpreted? Perhaps I am going over your head. The constitution and the Bill of Rights should not be taken as gospel, ever the same, they are living documents and sometimes a living document needs to be adjusted to fit the needs of those reading it. Think prohibition, then repealing prohibition. Think giving African Americans and women the right to vote. Think abolishing slavery. We have changed the constitution before because it needed to be changed so why not now?

In fact, Jefferson (a founding father) supported rewriting the constitution every 19 years. Think about that for just a second. That would mean we would be almost onto our 13^th version of the constitution right now. That of course is a discussion for another day but it would really change the way we viewed our politics and reshape the very fabric of our country.

It seems as if I have veered off again into other topics but it all comes down to guns and the second amendment. We are addicted to guns in this country and it is because a bunch of guys in wigs wanted to keep themselves from being taken over by the King of England. Because a bunch of guys in wigs wrote it down 240 years ago we get to deal with it mentally unstable people shooting up elementary schools. Because some people are just to addicted to their guns we can’t feel safe in public places anymore.

We have an addiction and it is sickening. We must fight the addiction but most people are unwilling to admit they have a problem. You would think that after Columbine we would have hit rock bottom, but that didn’t happen we just blamed it on video games and not a strict enough dress code. So we took away the baggy pants, put metal detectors in all the schools, and started rating all our video games. That should stop the problem, they said, but it didn’t.

You would think rock bottom would be rock bottom when 32 college students were killed at Virginia Tech. Nope, that would be absurd. So instead we bought more guns and blamed it on his mental illness. We mourned and we asked for reform but nothing happened.

You would think that he deaths of 20 first grade students would be rock bottom. I mean how could it not be? 20 that is a big number. 6 and 7-year-olds every last one of them. How could the death of all those tiny babies not be the breaking point? How could we not make more common sense gun laws and make it so no more babies were killed by lunatics with a right to have a gun? No we bought more guns and started talking about arming the teachers. “If the teachers had all been armed this would not have happened.” This is where the myth of the good guy with a gun comes into play. Also a discussion for another day but also a false ploy to sell more guns.

You would have thought the other 21 shootings since Newtown and the 400+ deaths would be the moment we as a nation hit rock bottom. Nope, now when people try to make a statement about gun violence they are yelled down as politicizing a tragedy. Congress and the Senate hold moments of silence, we have candlelight vigils, we protest and nothing happens because 240 years ago some guys wanted to make sure people were able to keep their muskets.

So now after too many deaths and not enough reform we sit silently waiting for something to happen. Waiting for the country to hit rock bottom and admit they have a problem. Well it doesn’t seem to be working so I propose an intervention. A sit down with the country. An airing of grievances. A chance to see if we can put the country on a new course. Will it work, probably not because we are addicts and we just can’t stop shooting up (sorry for the pun but it had to be done).

When will we hit rock bottom? What will finally be the driving force that pushed even the most die hard gun addicts over the edge? Will it be when one of their own falls prey to the hot lead of a bullet? Or will that just reinforce their need for more guns and more bullets? Will nothing ever be done to stop this epidemic that is sweeping our country? Is the second amendment purely to blame or is something else, something even more nefarious, at work?

I am hoping that if anything should ever happen to these people’s children or friends they might see the light and understand why this is such an unhealthy addiction. Sure more people die in car accidents every year but car accidents are exactly that, accidents. When was the last time they reported a mass shooting as an accidental mass shooting? Never. You cannot accidentally open fire in a packed movie theater. Or say you slipped and pulled the trigger 20 times to a judge when she asks about why you shot up a first grade classroom. There are no accidents when it comes to guns just negligence.

I know what you are going to say, “No really it was an accident when that 3-year-old shot his older sister.” I would say yes it was an accident on the 3-year-old's part but the adult whose gun was left unsecured like a dirty needle in a crack den was not an accident it was negligence. “Oh, the kid will never find it.” “I only turned my back for a second.” Any time you leave a gun loaded you are negligent. Any time you fail to lock up the gun, you are negligent. The kid may have accidentally shot their brother, sister, father, mother, or themselves but at the end of the day. Just like an addict leaving their paraphernalia out they are negligent and responsible for that death or injury.

I could go on and on about the similarities between guns and drugs but I will leave you for now to think on this. We could very easily live in a country where guns are not such a scary and threatening issue. We have the power to stand up and say, “No More!” We don’t. We wait until the next mass shooting in a church, school, or night club to spur us into action. We must continue to fight for guns to be eliminated from the American psyche or we will never hit rock bottom. If we do not look at truly getting rid of guns, then we will never end the violence. Guns are never the answer and they never will be.