GUN.
America suffers from a diseased societal belief. We ignore shootings for the same reasons a leper wears a glove on a rotting hand: fear of what’s beneath. No matter the horrors that befall us — evidenced by our continued indifference after unthinkable tragedy to the most innocent and pure among us at Sandy Hook — we still fear the loss of Gun more.
Our relationship with Gun is obsessive, destructive, and addictive.
American society’s desire to enable the commonplace and uninhibited existence of Gun says a thing about us we’d rather not face: societally speaking, we are children.
A workout regimen isn’t required to benefit from Gun, and neither is a platform — Gun does the work for you. Anyone hanging out with Gun, and those near, are befit with gun goggles patented by American culture. A protagonist with Gun is injected with more heroism, an antagonist with more menace, and every misfit or altruist in between more capable. We’re convinced this translates into lived reality without allowance for interpretation.
Gun stirs power and ego to a dangerous point of potential combustion, held back only by literal and figurative triggers. Power is instantly intoxicating — and the power of life and death in one’s hand is power unfiltered, and at its most potent. Power concentrates ego, ensuring damning effects whether believed or masqueraded by its host. Gun is a shortcut, circumventing real to feed the fake — you’re right and you’re capable of proving it.
But the truth of Gun is that it’s a crutch; it’s a weapon of mass destruction and great distraction. Permitting Gun to hold a position of reverence in our society doesn’t just stunt growth, it reverses it. Ravenously engorging power and ego spurs their mutation into desensitization and nihilism — the summit of selfishness.
A society obsessed with Gun is incapable of progression. Once a tool required for safety; Gun is now an ideology, a conflict-ender, a rage expresser, a sidekick of the evil, and a hobby. Gun is instant, accessible, and instantly accessible. Allowing open access to this weapon gives the hesitant to evolve the means and the power not to. We aren’t at war with an enemy, we’re at war with the uncertainty of equality — if Gun doesn’t make me better than you, what does? Thus we aren’t at war with nearby evil, we’re at war with the hunt for self-admiration.
A stagnant society that has embellished the presence of Gun must face discomforting truths to demystify it. Masculinity isn’t the hoarding of power or the ability to prescribe fear; it’s the basis understanding that power which sacrifices equality is a lie. American society relies on linear definitions of human characteristics (it has done so for centuries); and though fights continue for women’s rights, rights of African Americans, and LGBTQ rights — those lines are slowly, rightfully being reconsidered. So must Gun’s.
The moment we start viewing Gun for what it is — by being honest about what it conceals and the detour to evolution it provides — its power shrinks. When the mysticism of Gun is hollowed, we’ll finally be capable of having the far overdue discussion of its place in a society committed to progress.
