It's Not About The Guns. Or Is It?
(This is part two of an ongoing series where TRBT staff discusses their thoughts on the Second Amendment)
After the Parkland shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas on February 14, 2018, I rushed to start this article. Then it hit me: whenever I write about gun violence in America, it will never be too soon or too late. There will be another victim before I finishing typing this sentence, before you finish reading this piece. That’s gun life in America.
I grew up with guns. Living on a farm, a gun is a necessity. When an animal or pet is severely injured and dying, the “twenty-two cent solution” as my father calls it is the only humane way to solve the problem. In addition, when the sheriff’s deputy for your county may not reach your home in thirty minutes or more, a gun is necessary protection. My dad had a shotgun and a .22 revolver at the time. He’s acquired a few more guns since. He taught me to shoot when I was about 12 or 13. I wasn’t particularly interested; guns were tools and I had no need for those particular tools.
If I’d wanted to get out of school for the first week of deer hunting season, I could have become more proficient and sat in a blind off the back field and tried my luck, but there was really no point. I liked school better than getting up at 4am to sit outside in the cold. Amazingly, we didn’t have school shootings, either. All the students and teachers who hunted would bring their guns into school and secure them in their lockers. Since no one wanted to lose hunting privileges, everyone was careful and practiced good gun sense. However, don’t rush to think that guns in schools are the answer to our current problems. They are not for a variety of reasons. Don’t rush to think I’m advocating getting rid of guns. I’m not for a variety of reasons.
It wasn’t until December 14, 2012 that I really thought much about guns again. In my forties with my eldest child in kindergarten, my major concerns previously had revolved around getting through the day without my back seizing up on me and trying to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up. That day I drove a hundred miles to meet my dear friend from childhood, Kim. We were seeing the first installation of The Hobbit and on the highway (totally going the speed limit!) on the way up, I’d been listening to my iPod. When I arrived at the theater, I turned on NPR and there was news of a school shooting. I sighed. Then more information came in and the numbers of the dead and the fact that they were five or six, the age of my precious child, hit me like a gut punch. How I managed to sit through a nearly three hour movie and then have dinner with my friend and drive home without losing my mind, I’m not sure. That winter, I joined Moms Demand Action. It was a good place for me to be at the time. There were many other women who cared about the same things I cared about, who didn’t see why guns were so necessary in American life, who wanted to stop the carnage in homes and in public, whether it was accidental or purposeful. MDA had good resources for learning the statistics around shootings in this country, whether accidental or not, and it felt good to have a purpose. It’s true that the NRA in this country has a strangle-hold on our politicians and political discourse, so fighting that behemoth was a challenge worth tackling.
Then Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown and so many other civilians were gunned down by law enforcement, and when Sam DuBose was murdered by a University of Cincinnati cop a mile off campus in 2015, I’d had enough. My energies refocused on police brutality. In doing so, I started organizing with activists of all political stripes, and they often openly carried guns at rallies and protests. At first I was freaked out, but then I realized that these activists all practiced “gun sense” and were responsible (unlike a lot of 3pers and other militia groups we counter-protested). Also, since Ohio is an open carry state, the police were less likely to rush and tackle any protester openly carrying in a crowd. The gun became a tool for self-defense once more. I still don’t love guns. I still view guns as a tool. What I tell people is that if they ever see me walking by with a gun in my hand, and I’m not at the range, they’d better run. See, my upbringing taught me that you only pick up a gun if you intend to shoot it.
Here’s the thing: we’ve jumped the shark on guns. There is no way to ban anything at this point. It’s all out there already and if it isn’t, there will soon be a black market for it. But what if it’s as the gun owners say? What if people really do kill people? It’s a simplistic truth that guns don’t kill people. Every gun owner claims she or he is responsible. They’re the most responsible people ever. Guns are always locked up tight in a safe with ammunition elsewhere and no one but the gun owner knows how to access any of it and…just stop. Even if we didn’t have these horrific mass shootings every month at every location imaginable, even if we didn’t have legislators debating “bump stock” bans without even really knowing what a “bump stock” is, even if we didn’t have people insanely arguing for arming every man woman and child in this country, we’d still have people being injured or dying from guns. Accidental shootings, suicides, domestic violence, and just routine murders would still happen. Meanwhile, everyone would swear on their lives that they were responsible.
Okay. Put your fucking money where your mouth is, Responsible American.
You want your fucking guns? You can have them. I don’t give a fuck if you have canons, even. Have a motherfucking bazooka. Have an arsenal of every firearm ever known to man. Invent a few new ones yourself. Have at it. Go wild. There’s no stopping you now.
Ah, but there’s one small catch. Everyone claims to be responsible, yet so few truly are. Whether it is the person who looks down the barrel of the gun to check something or the person who leaves their guns loaded and lying around the house or the person who keeps a gun in the night stand or glove compartment or in their purse…NONE of you are responsible. Oh, I’m not taking your guns. If over twenty dead five year olds in suburban Connecticut couldn’t do that, nothing can.
What do I want? Gun insurance. Don’t tell me you can’t afford it. Let’s make it reasonable to start, cheap even. I’d say a nominal rate per gun might be $10/year. Hell, I’m in a good mood; let’s say $1/year per gun. If your gun injures or kills someone accidentally or not within the act of pure self defense, the insurance would pay the victim. That’s fair, right? It would also pay your legal expenses, should you go to court. How awesome is that, huh? This is like the best thing ever, yeah? But here’s where it gets a bit tricky for all you “responsible” gun owners: if the gun causes injury or death while being in the hands of someone who isn’t the registered owner, your annual insurance per gun goes up. Way up. $100/gun? $1000/gun? How badly do you need or want your guns? What are they truly worth to you?
And don’t tell me that “criminals don’t follow the law” blah blah blah. You know where the criminal most likely got their gun? From your glove compartment or your nightstand or on top of your refrigerator or whatever other fool-ass place you put it and didn’t keep it secured. Don’t worry, though. If a person commits a crime where another person is injured or killed while using a gun that isn’t registered to them and without the owner’s permission, that’s an automatic ten year prison sentence. Regardless of guilt or innocence, they’re going to prison. You’re going to pay a lot more to keep your other guns, but at least you won’t be going to prison with them in that case.
Think about it and get back to me. Really think about what you want out of life. How important is your gun? I know people will say that this negatively affects poor people, but gun violence ALREADY disproportionately affects poor people negatively. Maybe if easy access to stolen or cheap guns was curtailed, maybe if insurance was available to cover hospital bills or funeral costs, maybe poor people might not experience all the stupid gun violence in their communities. But seriously, keep your damn guns. All you need to do is pay for them. How hard is that?