Yes - a post about guns. But probably not in the way you would expect from me at this point. A couple of years ago, after yet another mass shooting and another long, drawn out argument with people I was surrounded by, it struck me that none of us had very many facts. There are a lot of reasons for this, not the least of which is that the US works pretty hard on behalf of companies to *not* study gun-related tragedy. And many of us are manipulated by our emotions, pretty hard-pressed to maintain a cool head when you see the names of little kids being murdered while at the same time politicians are screaming at you that your liberty is under attack - from the president to terrorists. We're not robots after all.
However this *has* been studied by many, many other people without the aid of government. And this realization happened at the same time someone recommended this podcast to me, which in turn sent me down a long path of research that challenged many of the things that I thought about gun control. It's not a particularly easy task to undertake un-brainwashing yourself in whatever degree it needs to happen. At this point most of us are pretty aware we have stupid thoughts about things we didn't even realize. Be it guns, sex workers, multi-gender bathrooms - you name it. A lot of us have to unlearn stupid shit, usually on our own.
Now don't get me wrong. A measure of gun control would serve to mitigate some of the effects of firearm related death in the United States, just probably not in the way that you think. It certainly wasn't in the way that I thought. Some of it was obvious and some of it wasn't. And it's pretty hard to admit to yourself that we live in a country that not only tells us it's our right to own guns but it's our privilege to kill people, as we devalue life here on a pretty regular basis - our own and others. And of course, we know the people who convince us our liberty is under threat are taking it from us, not by way of the second amendment, but by pressing that boot down a little harder in easier to miss ways: voter id laws, arming police forces with military grade weapons, making it illegal to protest in certain places, etc... They don't need guns to do it.
I want to live in world without guns. This will not happen in my lifetime. Maybe it will happen never. But it can be worked for, and that, in turn, can make things better and safer for many, many of us. Including gun owners, who by and large support gun control measures. This is true, you can easily look this up. They don't want to be shot any more than anyone else.
There will always be these people who will be the outliers, who kill many people for seemingly no reason. But there are reasons - you just can't always see them unless you look deeper. And it's complicated, visceral, and at times terrifying. Knowing that not all these mass shootings can be prevented is also something you're going to learn. Not to say some of them can't be, but not all of them can be. Again. We're not robots, we are flawed, broken human beings.
But at this point the conversation needs to change.
There is a very real discussion to be had about mental illness and guns and it has little to do with mass shootings and everything to do with firearm-related suicide that numbers into the double digit thousands every year in this country. Most of those 30,000 deaths you hear about are not because of school shootings. And yes, the conversation needs to happen about why 19 years olds have access to military grade weapons-obviously-don't only react when it happens. Take the time to learn. Things will change. It is not easy and it is challenging and it will make you angry, sad, and defeated. But it will also open up your eyes that one seemingly simple solution doesn't exist and yes, someone will always scream about the second amendment, in turn missing the entire point of both freedom and liberty but that's okay because that's not your audience anymore.
I encourage you to use this Two-Part episode (Starting at #39 titled Guns) as a jumping off point. And if you really want to know, get past the first pages of research that is only from places like Fox News and the NY Times and learn: