Guns! Guns! Guns!

I was trying as best I could to get comfortable. When the troop handlers told us to pack our sleeping bags we thought them insane, but after the desert sun had set and the temperatures had dropped we were thankful that we'd followed what had seemed like a ridiculous order at the time.  Every newly minted Marine happily stuffed himself into the warmth of the thick down sleeping bag he'd been forced to pack under threat of court martial or at least a write up.
         Getting comfortable proved difficult because each of us had to have in his bag his new girlfriend better known as his M-16 A2.  It was a cold piece of steel and plastic for which each of us was held responsible and which would have set us back $1500 and a good month in the brig had we lost her. Some of us gave names to the ones we had in basic. I'd named mine Charlene, not as an homage to the movie Full Metal Jacket, but rather to the bottom heavy cheerleader with whom I had NO CHANCE in hell in high school.  The weapon I had in combat training was simply an inconvenience.  Even if you didn't fire it, you had to clean her at least three times a day because of the dust in the lovely area of southern California in which we found ourselves.
          If at the end of the week the armorers didn't think your weapon was clean enough your weekend liberty was cancelled until it was. The happiest part of the end of combat training was simply giving the Corps back its damned weapon.  I've disliked the M-16A2 ever since then and whenever I see some guy at a sporting goods store or gun show buying an AR-15 (the cheap floozy kid sister of the M-16A2 )  I try not to laugh and think: "You must really love cleaning rifles bud."
        Over the past several years I've turned on the news and seen multiple shootings committed by various idiots and whenever it does the same thing happens.  Whomever the president is says how tragic it is, a bunch of well meaning pundits express their grief then the political debate begins. The left points out how easy it is to have a gun, the right points out how the constitution gives each American the RIGHT to own as many as he can afford. They argue until a new news item takes the front page only to resume when the NEXT gun tragedy occurs.

        Sad facts? Simply having access to guns DOES NOT mean someone is more likely to commit a criminal act. Most gun owners aren't shooting up the streets on a daily basis; conversely, it is remarkably easy to legally procure a weapon in these United States. Contrary to the popular opinion of many liberals, the average person doesn't have access to fully automatic weapons, and simply being able to fire more rounds DOESN'T mean you're going on a killing spree.
         But if I may be blunt with my conservative counterparts, the 2nd amendment is the shortest and most VAGUELY written amendment IN the Bill of Rights.  You can CORRECTLY argue that the words "shall not be infringed" means precisely what it states, but be honest and admit that the founding fathers wanted us to have weapons in the event that we had to rise and for militias as they did NOT want a standing army AND they realized that many hunted for food in the 18th century.  Also please stop pretending that the same founding fathers who didn't want us to directly elect senators or the president would have been cool with us having fully automatic weapons, flame throwers and grenade launchers.  Does anyone actually believe that had they known what kinds of weapons we'd develop they wouldn't have made the 2nd amendment FAR more specific?
         The far right however does raise a very interesting point about killers not needing a gun in order to kill.  Human life is very fragile. You can kill another human being with anything you can physically handle and if you can't find anything to pick up, you can use your bare hands.

            America's problem ISN'T Guns and access them, nor is it Indians,  The British, The  Mexican army,  Rebels,  Chinese Immigrants, Irish immigrants, Italian Immigrants, The Kaiser,  Communists,  Negroes,  Illegal Immigrants or members of a particular religion. It's VIOLENCE. We Americans solve every other problem with violence. This country was taken from it's first inhabitants with violence.  Africans were forced to build the south (and part of the north) with violence and psychological torture. Irish, Italian and Chinese immigrants were met with low wages and violence upon their arrival and more often than not the robber barons of the 19th and 20th century settled labor disputes with violence.
            Martin Luther King Jr. is considered a hero by many because he championed non violence as a means of getting unjust laws changed. The unjust laws were kept in place with acts of violence. We canonize King and vilify those who tell us to defend ourselves "By any means necessary."  Because at our core we've accepted violence as part of who we are as Americans.   Our movies involve explosions and our heroes are armed with high calibre weapons. We pay hard earned money to see grown men locked into steel cages and pummel one another.
            We Americans are a violent people and we simply don't want to accept that. Accepting that fact would require us to use more thought when resolving our problems. It would deprive us of the opportunity to solve problems with our fists and trigger fingers. It would deprive us of scapegoats and boogie men and require us as a nation to engage in some retrospective.  We need to accept that violence begets violence and as long as we are a culture of violence there will be mass shootings in our schools, theatres, clubs, office buildings, streets and shopping malls.  We need to clear our heads and dedicate some time to have that existential moment when we as a nation see ourselves for who we are and figure out what our next move will be. Perhaps we'll have that great epiphany while field striping and cleaning our AR-15s.