country from the British and the French, as well as the indigenous peoples from whom we had just brutally stolen “our” land, should keep their black-powder weapons at the ready, in case we need to form up the militia once again, should we be invaded by such an enemy. Unfortunately for the gun enthusiasts, this amendment is simply rendered moot by two undeniable factors. It was written in a time when we (a) were potentially in danger of a foreign military invasion and (b) were wielding muzzle-loading guns that an expert could fire perhaps five times a minute if he or she was very nimble. In other words, this amendment was penned when the revolver was still several decades away from ready availability, let alone the massacre machine that is the automatic weapon. The rather loud machismo of the NRA (methinks the lady doth protest too much?) on the topic of assault weapons seems like yet another antiquated, fear-based position that is being slowly eroded by a more genteel attitude of decency and compassion. It’s worth noting that I don’t see a lot of people who aren’t white hollering about needing their guns to protect themselves. Which brings me to a theory.
Human beings are not simple. We are, in fact, quite complicated. In recent American history, we have engaged in such contradictions as owning slaves, while declaring all people to have equal rights, while heading to church to pray for peace and tranquility, while dropping bombs on Middle Eastern nations to secure the oil we need to fuel our vehicles in order to drive to church. We’re a mess, and we have to count ourselves as part of the whole, because we’re all complicit. So when I think about that time that we established our nation and economy while indulging in the unthinkable brutality of slavery, and then we also actively exterminated the Native American tribes across the continent because they stood in the way of our real estate plans, and then we
freed
the slaves and didn’t manage to wipe out all the indigenous people, in fact we made them and every other race besides white people our “equals” as citizens, at least on paper, so they could come over to our houses and look us in the eye if they so choose, I can then understand why we’re scared. It gives me fear as well to imagine the recompense that might be visited upon us, should the suppressed rage of all the victims of the Manifest Destiny be brought to bear upon our doorsteps. It makes us cry with secret terror that we want our mommies or our guns, or both.
But then here’s this other point of view: When unspeakable violence is enacted upon innocents, say, in a school or movie theater, and the survivors and the families of the victims, in the throes of pain and anguish, want to ask, “Why did this happen?,” “How did this happen?,” and “What can we do to prevent this from happening again?,” and one of the areas upon which they (still we) focus their scrutiny is that of the highly efficient weapons of warfare that are casuallyavailable to us citizens of the United States, then we frightened gun lovers have the chance to be human and say, “Okay, this is a horrible tragedy. Let’s open up a conversation here.” Instead, I’m surmising, out of fear, we throw up our defenses and behave in a very confrontational way toward such a conversation, citing the Second Amendment as the ultimate protection of our rights, no matter how ridiculously murderous the firearm, which, unfortunately, makes us look like total dicks.
Clearly, if we could magically remove all the guns from the planet, we as a species would still occasionally want to kill one another. We’re animalistic that way, because, despite having Netflix, we’re animals. Taking away all the guns is not going to stop murder, just like making us remove our shoes at the airport is not going to stop terrorist acts. We may be animals, but we’re exceedingly clever animals, so we’ll find a way to do as we please, despite the law.
Human beings are not simple. We are, in fact, quite complicated. In recent American history, we have engaged in such contradictions as owning slaves, while declaring all people to have equal rights, while heading to church to pray for peace and tranquility, while dropping bombs on Middle Eastern nations to secure the oil we need to fuel our vehicles in order to drive to church. We’re a mess, and we have to count ourselves as part of the whole, because we’re all complicit. So when I think about that time that we established our nation and economy while indulging in the unthinkable brutality of slavery, and then we also actively exterminated the Native American tribes across the continent because they stood in the way of our real estate plans, and then we
freed
the slaves and didn’t manage to wipe out all the indigenous people, in fact we made them and every other race besides white people our “equals” as citizens, at least on paper, so they could come over to our houses and look us in the eye if they so choose, I can then understand why we’re scared. It gives me fear as well to imagine the recompense that might be visited upon us, should the suppressed rage of all the victims of the Manifest Destiny be brought to bear upon our doorsteps. It makes us cry with secret terror that we want our mommies or our guns, or both.
But then here’s this other point of view: When unspeakable violence is enacted upon innocents, say, in a school or movie theater, and the survivors and the families of the victims, in the throes of pain and anguish, want to ask, “Why did this happen?,” “How did this happen?,” and “What can we do to prevent this from happening again?,” and one of the areas upon which they (still we) focus their scrutiny is that of the highly efficient weapons of warfare that are casuallyavailable to us citizens of the United States, then we frightened gun lovers have the chance to be human and say, “Okay, this is a horrible tragedy. Let’s open up a conversation here.” Instead, I’m surmising, out of fear, we throw up our defenses and behave in a very confrontational way toward such a conversation, citing the Second Amendment as the ultimate protection of our rights, no matter how ridiculously murderous the firearm, which, unfortunately, makes us look like total dicks.
Clearly, if we could magically remove all the guns from the planet, we as a species would still occasionally want to kill one another. We’re animalistic that way, because, despite having Netflix, we’re animals. Taking away all the guns is not going to stop murder, just like making us remove our shoes at the airport is not going to stop terrorist acts. We may be animals, but we’re exceedingly clever animals, so we’ll find a way to do as we please, despite the law.
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