Now, my own views on guns for civilian use can be summed up in the word: meh. I have never felt any particular need to own a gun, and I've never understood very clearly the need that others felt to own them either, though I do understand that they would want them for protection against some shadowy figure that Gun Rights advocates never really seemed to give a name to.
I understand very clearly that Gun Control advocates want to limit the procuring of guns by civilians for safety reasons, to combat the rampant gun violence in the U.S., which from what I understand is higher than it is in any other advanced industrial nation.
The conundrum here is that Gun Rights advocates want to retain the open gun markets for the exact same reasons, to promote the safety of the American public; it should be quite obvious to anyone who pays even an ounce of attention to this debate, that no one really knows how to combat gun violence... mainly because until very recently gun violence research was prohibited.
But I digress.
I was on my way to school this morning.
As I listened to this conversation on NPR, one statement jumped out at me. It was a reason that a Gun Rights advocate had given to explain his fervent refusal to accept any infringement on the Second Amendment right, especially in the case of a military-grade weapons ban.
He said: the Second Amendment was created, not to defend ourselves against our fellow citizens, but against government tyranny, and to discourage it. I'm paraphrasing, but I'm sure you'll get the gist of the argument. I have always shied away from the Gun Rights debate, simply because the idea of taking up arms against one another really made me sick, and simply sealed in my mind the idea that guns are only an item which symbolized the divisiveness in our society which is eating away at our own strength.
But this argument stuck, not because I feel the need to take up arms and begin another Civil War, but because it put forth this idea that perhaps the American Public is a figurative "fourth branch" of the American government, the Bill of Rights - necessarily including the 2nd Amendment - our claws. The most powerful of the branches, and unfortunately in the last thirty years, the most complaisant and the most absent.
But it gave me some hope that now perhaps We, the People, could change our country for the better. Not only because we are the most powerful "branch", should we choose to once again be active in our own lives and communities, but because we are also by extension the most to blame for the poor state of our nation.
That statement struck me deeply, and I found myself nodding my head and agreeing with that statement. I was surprised this morning, for that was the concise, powerful, and persuasive argument I had been looking for in the Gun Rights advocates. Now, for that reason stated above, I am pro-Gun Rights completely. That reason alone. (...Although the second amendment doesn't say anything about the government being prohibited from regulating guns and so forth...but that is for another post.)
But now comes the hard part, because I don't believe that the best alternative is to arm everyone, everywhere, to protect against violence.
Now, we have to confront the reason for the violence in the first place. A broken mental health system, which I talked about in my previous post, Mental Health and Mass Murder: the Elephant in the Room, the quick and constant increase of income inequality, and most importantly, the double-edged sword that is our extremely polarized political system and the deteriorating sense of community within our communities.
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Look out for my next few posts, which will be addressing these rifts within the U.S. systems, questions that need to be posed, and ideas on how to start fixing them. ALSO!!! If you are interested in creating a community with me, to help get the effort started, LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS! I value your opinion and I love you. I promise o.o!
(>^_^)>#
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