What everyone but the NRA needs in the gun debate is power
How you like me now? I go blaow
It’s that shit that moves crowds making every ghetto foul
I might have took your first child
Scarred your life, or crippled your style
I gave you power, I made you buck-wild
- Nas “I Gave You Power”
Here we go again. No more guns! No, more guns! The debate that’s cropped back up after the Florida school shooting might seem like a Republican v. Democrat thing, but it’s really just two opposing reactions to the same feeling: powerlessness.
Those of us demanding policy reform know deep inside that most of our elected representatives have been bought by the wealthy, Wall Street, and large corporations. We know that the National Rifle Association, which represents the gun industry, is organized and flush with cash. Our arguments for why gun control just makes sense and that people who don’t agree are so dumb are like bringing a pencil to a gunfight.
I’m for more gun control, despite its racist origins — after the Black Panthers protested at the California capitol building in 1967, then-Governor Ronald Reagan prohibited open carry of weapons in public and set off a chain reaction of legislation.
But how many times are we going to run into the same wall? How many times are we going to assume that this time it will be different?
Those who want more guns, cops, and security cameras, who even want to arm teachers, are afraid too. “Thoughts and prayers” and calls for “family values” are good, but they do nothing to address our sick society because they are weak compared to the organized power gun manufacturers wield to keep the status quo: the sale of more and more guns.
I grew up with guns — I own a few shotguns and rifles kept at my parents’ house in rural southern Maryland. They are useful in some areas of the country, and they give you a sense of power that subdues some of the fear of being out there alone. But every new gun is profit for a handful of corporate executives and investors and yet another that could end up in the hands of someone feeling powerless and afraid enough to take it out on the world.
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What those of us that want a freer and safer society — for everyone, regardless of the color of their skin, what neighborhood they were born in, how intelligent they are, or how hard they can work — need is power.
We need power to support the #MeToo movement and continue to expose and end patriarchy, which drives the fear that makes some folks demand more guns, police, and “security” because “manning up” is how we’ve been taught to relate to our fear. “Boys will be boys” culture drives a wedge between men and women (and others), leaving many young men lonely, reactive, and afraid.
When I see the eyes of Nikolas Cruz, the suspected Florida shooter, I don’t see evil or “crazy,” I think of these words I recently read:
“My body has become nothing but a cage, a source of pain and constant problems. The illness I have has caused me pain that not even the strongest medicines could dull, and there is no cure. All day, every day, a screaming agony in every nerve ending in my body, it is nothing short of torture. My mind is a wasteland, filled with visions of incredible horror, unceasing depression, and crippling anxiety, even with all of the medications the doctors dare give.”
These agonizing sentences are from the suicide note of Daniel Somers, an Iraq war veteran suffering from PTSD who took his life in 2013. That’s the sound of a lost human being in a male body, unable to heal his psychological wounds or open up enough to be healed by others.
The thread between the two is a society in which the toxic aspects of masculinity —suppressing emotions and avoiding vulnerability — appear to be the only escape from feeling powerless. A society in which those that sent Daniel Somers to an illegal war and those that sold guns to Nikolas Cruz profit from this myth of “being a man.”
We need power to regulate and tax the owners of gun corporations who are sitting comfy right now in their gated “communities” counting their money as their bullets rip daily through human flesh.
We need power to make healthcare a free public good, including mental health and substance abuse treatment, paid for by taxing those owners and other rich people like private equity investor Steven Schwarzman who pocketed $786 million last year. The stigma against therapy, let alone simply asking someone for help, is killing us.
So what does this power we need look like? In this society, it looks like labor unions, tenant associations, community organizations, co-operatives, and political parties that are actually democratically run. It looks like collective, democratic power, which is messy and hard to imagine.
Messy and hard to imagine, but worth it because we learn how to be human together. British Buddhist teacher Thanissara describes how the Thai Buddhist monk Ajahn Chah once visited a monastery and asked how everyone was doing. “Oh, very good, we’re getting along very well,” said one of the monks. “Well, there won’t be much wisdom here then,” Ajahn Chah replied.
Messy and hard to imagine, but terrifying to the rich people who rule our society. Here’s Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA the other day:
“On college campuses, The Communist Manifesto is one of the most frequently assigned texts. Karl Marx is the most assigned economist. And there are now over 100 chapters of Young Democratic Socialists of America at many universities, and students are even earning academic credit for promoting socialist causes.”
These people are afraid of us organizing together to demand change because they might lose their power.
Let’s channel all of our fear and frustration into building the collective power we need to actually change things. That’s what it will take to transform our communities and start to heal a society that so needs our help.
