Cowboys and Indians

He told the story of how his mind was changed. He and his wife Michelle were being chauffeured through a desolate stretch of rural American back-country highway. The low rolling hills barely had any definition against the chasmic moonless sky and they held hands. They both gazed comfortably out of their windows when they each happened noticed a faint light piercing the darkness in the distance. It seemed to blink, as a lighthouse does, yet yellowish-orange in the distance it fluttered like a trapped firefly in the web of empty night, of course, the flashing was an illusion. Well, it was Michelle that broke the silence. From what I recall she said something like, “I can imagine being alone there…”

“Hmmm,” he responded, prodding her on.

“Imagine it was me. Home alone. And up that long dirt road comes a stranger-really out of nowhere,” she exaggerated the empty panorama with her hands.

“Yeah,”
"There's a prison near here."
"Yes."

“Well, I guess I’d want a gun.”

They were silent for a few seconds and she added, “Even if there were no prison. And not that I would use it-“

“I understand,” he agreed, knowing her as he knew himself.

And also knowing there are always two sides, light and dark, rural and urban, and weighing them accurately is a skill. Perhaps the true measure of a leader, or President. This was the story told by the Frmr. President Barack Obama, I don’t remember when or where-I was half listening. Note: this retelling has been embellished by my memory. And he said this following the worst school shooting in US history during his two-term reign as Chief. Now again, we face another school or mass shooting in America. Seventeen dead. Revenge, anger, justice, righteousness is on everyone's lips.

There have been 'lockdowns', a drill we did not have when I was in school, at each of my children's schools growing up (elementary, middle and high school) and all were real threats, not merely drills. I used to be grateful that the images and stories of war-torn and violent, dilapidated and bombed out places where all 'other places'. I felt safe here in America. Now I know safety is my own luggage. Admittedly, I have recently become envious of peaceful and prosperous, kind and progressive places that exist on this red earth. I don’t own a passport and this often makes me feel chained here. Enslaved, under the thumb, perhaps by money-but that’s another type of loaded gun. 

The thing is-the aim is off in this country. America is angry, and very often the anger is pointed the wrong way, such as at guns-like today. 

Of course, the N.R.A., the Constitution and its protection of our right to ‘bear arms’ are as well sewn into to our flag as a cowboys hat stays on his head, but really, Rights and groups holding up Ideals are not tangible things to aim at.

A firearm is aptly named. Man/woman-kind treats this apparatus as if it were an add-on appendage, a firing-arm. And according to capital H-History, we created fire, hence these implements of Dr. Death, the ones that exterminate, are inherently ours to have and to hold-like Liberty.

I understand the anger. I learned how to shoot a gun just in case I found myself in a situation where I had to use a gun to save my own life (or my childrens). It made me feel powerful. Our household has an airsoft BB gun and a rifle BB gun in the camping equipment-other than that we have plenty of garden variety weapons, a machete, a hoe, an ax and all that, but no real gun. A friend who is single with no kids or girlfriend has one and goes to the shooting range often. The thought of spending money on ammunition is about as fun as buying toilet paper to me. To each their own. Hobbies that involve blowing things up were not created by guns. 

Do guns make people crazy or is it just crazy people that shouldn’t have guns?
Many people scream for all guns to be banned (maybe banned only for private citizens-but clearly the implementation of body cams on law enforcement is an indicator that authority often has their own ill-bred issues with guns and power). Banning guns won't keep us safe. It is not guns that kill people anyway, it is people that kill people.

In grade school, one single gum chewer can ruin a little freedom for the whole class. This is an early lesson in democracy. That kid, the one that took away privileges for all, he doesn’t care about the consequences for others, he/she may even relish sharing the pain (caused by them) with their peers. So you see, the problems are all caused by the people, the sheeple. Call it operator error, misuse or abuse, murder is murder. There can be no further growth in the canopy of humanity unless we examine the roots of the tree.

Let’s just take school shootings-how did the perpetrator(s) get the guns? Who taught them –and not just about guns and death, but about life and health? Is that a parent? Sorry-but often this is where the problems are created. This kid had problems. They tried to get him help, his mother knew he was a bad seed, even dangerous-but what can be done until he does something bad? She watched his wick burn down. She did not know what to do. It is sad, she tried, but not hard enough. Even law enforcement was handcuffed, and the FBI, well, I guess they have been suffering from a lack of updates in the decision theory software. 

I have a neighbor whose young adult daughter recently overdosed and died. The girl was violent-toward herself. She had been in serious trouble before. It was sad, but I was not surprised. Opioids, heroin, and other lethal drugs offer the same illusion of power as a gun. It is life in our hands, to make or break, to shoot or shoot up-it is the same. It is the audacity of the human to dangle life-even our own from our fingertips.

Safety, security, trust, these things are like marriage, if you believe in them they are as real as Jesus. I don’t have a strong faith-especially, not in humanity. As a species, we have been focused on controlling the weather, each other, the future, the past, and have stagnated when it comes to self-control and furthering our potential. Murder prevails, disasters ensue, we pick up the pieces, draw the chalk outlines, put the evidence and offender in a box, wash our hands and move on to the next human tragedy touting strength and survival against the odds.

Seriously, deadly serious, gun control is in the hands of the human. A trigger has been designed for the human fingertip, the barrel for our handshake. It is an object arisen out of a deal with the devil, but one we made nonetheless and cannot ever undo. We must come to the fine print terms. 

If we want solutions, we cannot blame the objects of our desire, the drugs in our veins, the guns on the street, the knives in the chopping block, the poison in the drive thru's, the rope in the tree-which we seem to always have just enough of, just in case.



Painting By Glyn Warren Philpot RA (5 October 1884 – 16 December 1937) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.