America, We Need To Talk
America, we need to talk.
We’re not going to want to have this talk, but we need to talk.
I can tell you don’t want to have this talk because of the way you’re acting right now. The papers and news shows are all waiting and asking “Why?” Why did this guy do this? Why did he shoot up a country music festival? Why?” The answer, of course, is never that he had access to guns he never should have had access to. No. That’s never the answer. The answer is always ‘mental illness’ or ‘internet radicalization’ or ‘abusive childhood’ or . . . we’ll wait. We wait for the answer after every one of these.
As if getting an answer will release us from the heavy burden of having to have this talk. And when we have a satisfactory “why?” we’ll drop it and move on to Trump’s latest stupid Tweet. Because that’s easier to talk about. We can all laugh about it or express disgust. It’s unifying.
But this talk we need to have? This one? This one causes instant division. Say the words ‘gun control’ and someone will smug back with, “Should we just ban ______ since they kill people too?” Even though no one said the word ‘ban’. Instant, and unthinking, division that has been specifically cultivated. Make no mistake about that. The division on this issue has been purposefully created because it sells more guns.
Cars are not deadly weapons. Yet we recognize that in negligent, unsuited, uneducated hands they can be quite deadly. So we require people take a written test to demonstrate proficiency in the laws around the road and cars and driving. We require people take a driving test to show proficiency behind the wheel and that they know how to operate a vehicle. We require them to get their vehicle inspected for safety purposes and we require they carry insurance on said vehicle.
We do it with alcohol, we do it with medication, we do it with building codes. We do it with a lot of things that aren’t, on their surface, deadly, but in the wrong hands could definitely be. We regulate and control these things because we recognize that people are stupid animals and will do stupid things unless we institute rules that regulate the way they act around things that could be deadly.
So why don’t we do those things with guns? Why, when anyone says ‘gun control, please?’ a certain contingent freaks out and starts yelling about SECOND AMENDMENT DON’T YOU TAKE MY GUNS OBAMA!
Look, I’m going to let my conservative friends and family in on a little secret. There are lots of liberal gun owners. LOTS. I know plenty. Probably a dozen, just in my circle of friends and I sure didn’t meet them because we had guns in common. No one, NO ONE, is coming to get your guns. No one is going to ban your guns. In order to ban guns we’d have to get rid of the 2nd Amendment. Good luck finding bipartisan support for that. Because you need it. A lot of it. And there isn’t even a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening. If you believe there is, congratulations on letting someone else tell you what to think instead of doing your own.
That whole idea of liberals coming to take your guns is a scare tactic courtesy of the new, more fucked up, NRA. It’s utter garbage. And it works really well! I’ll give them that. But it’s only a fairy tale with no basis in reality. No one is coming to take your guns. No one wants them and the liberal gun owners in this country would never stand for it. And there are a lot of liberal gun owners. There are whole nationwide clubs dedicated to the idea. You conservative folks don’t hold the market here. Not even close. But the NRA would love for you to think you do so that when they start Chicken Little-ing about liberals coming to get your guns you go out and buy more of them.
America, you are being played.
So I’ll tell you what, let’s make a deal. When you figure out that you’re being scammed and played for fools, come see me, and let’s have a real discussion about gun control. Sensible, reasonable, common sense gun control, America. When you wise up, come tap me on the shoulder and let’s finally have this conversation so we can stop writing articles about ‘lone wolf’ gunmen and holding our collective breath for that ‘why’ that will let us off the hook, once more, from having to deal with this incredible, deadly problem.