So the hoary bumper sticker slogan says. Shouldn't that be
"guns don't kill people; people do?" Don't neglect the
semi-colon! Thing is, the sentiment isn't exactly wrong. But ask
someone, okay, so in that case, what can we do about the problem?
don't expect a response more cogent than MOAR GUNZ, or possibly a
malignant cyst like mike huckabee burbling about the need for more
Christian theocracy. It's not meant to start a debate; it's meant to
shut it down.
So we have this individualist American
cowboy mythos that will not die. And the NRA has capitalized on that
by shrieking about how you need guns to protect yourself from the
hordes of slavering invaders just outside your gate and getting the
idea of ever-more-powerful firearms all mixed up in our ideas of
masculinity in incredibly toxic ways (okay, it's hard to imagine a
way that wouldn't be toxic), and mainstreaming
violent rhetoric about cold dead hands and watering the tree of
liberty. And then you have increasing atomization and isolation
brought on by late capitalism making people feel like helpless
failures. And on top of this you have a political
party that makes up at least forty percent of the country constantly
pounding on this vile, dehumanizing rhetoric about foreigners
or immigrants or non-whites or anyone perceived as Other. But where
does all the gun violence come from?!? This seems like a reeeeal
case for Slylock Fox.
So, yeah. Starting with gun control is
in a sense getting it backwards; we really just need to fix all the
above stuff--after which, sensibly stringent regulation of firearms
will just come naturally. I do think it's naive to imagine that we
can effectively solve the problem by only addressing the symptoms and
ignoring the underlying causes. But GOOD FUCKING LUCK with those
causes. You can think in terms of long-term cultural trends, but in
the here and now, I can't even begin to imagine how I would fix them.
Even though meaningful gun control isn't politically tenable, it
sure as hell seems more so than all that other stuff, so it only
makes sense that that's what people would push for.
Point being, if gun enthusiasts would
pitch in to help us destroy capitalism and fundamentally rework our
cultural infrastructure, we wouldn't need to talk about taking their
weapons. But since basically all of them unreflectively support
these things, well, it is what it is.
