My father taught me about guns when I was 10 years old. And he did a damn good job.

You see, his side of the family came to America in the 1600’s. We have very strong roots here.

When it comes to the topic of firearms, I refer, and truly believe in the U.S. constitution’s interpretation of our right to keep and bare arms. This right is granted so we, as humans, are given the legal right to equally defend ourselves from all enemies, foreign and domestic*.

* This is what I presume we all can agree on. Read on…

We need to talk about that.

To those who have followed me for any amount of time here, you’ll quickly conclude that I’m fairly “left” leaning, in general. But let me tell you something.

Nobody wants to be oppressed. Nobody wants to be slaughtered by their own people. Just look at what’s happening right now in the world.

We all have the right to defend ourselves and those we wish to protect, if it comes down to that.

But honestly, this isn’t about guns, whether it’s a .22 or an AR-15. It’s about revenge, and anger, and mental illness, and cult-esque mentality, and disconnectedness to our fellow humans.

It’s also about lack of proper education of the respect, safety and proper use of firearms…as well as the cultured and deeply important early history of guns in America. It’s about the result in the lack of education, by children and adults alike, who are careless with their weapons, who don’t understand that when you pull that trigger, you better be damn sure that you understand the long-lived consequences of hitting whatever you’re looking at through those sights.

We need to fix our culture. This didn’t used to happen.

It’s about the motivation all of these kids have to actually pull off such a fucking crazy act of violence at school, who lack the emotional and empathetic maturity to digest the widespread consequences of their self-centered act. It’s about the mentally ill and easily influenced with dark, violent tendencies who are chosen to be taken advantage of by those who wish to be puppetmasters, who go out into a concert or parade and kill the innocent, just because, at the core, they disagree with their life choices.

It’s about political extremism that’s so incredibly charged right now. It’s about the actual decision of the human being to kill other human beings. That’s what needs to be eliminated – the motivation. If we cared about each other more, there would be far less motivation to do harm.

The tool used doesn’t fucking matter. People will a way to do it. aren’t available, there’s knives to stab with, there’s cars to run over with, there are planes to crash into buildings, there are 3D printers and basic ingredients that, when combined or used in a context not intended, can do harm… We can’t outlaw everything. So why bother with guns at all? The 2nd amendment still applies. We have the right to defense. Not to mention the many other use cases, including sport.

The societal, political, and in many cases cultural bankruptcy we all experience as Americans is not as well handled by some than with others. Of course people are going to act like this. We need to understand why, and mitigate the shit out of it.

Categorised as: Blogs | Philosophy | Political | Psychology