A Space Without Guns

“Each one of us matters, has a role to play, and makes a difference. Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other.” –Jane Goodall

I hear Second Amendment advocates already screaming: “What about our right to bear arms?”

And I hear you and acknowledge you and would ask in return that you hear me.

For just one moment…

I hope that our point of intersect would be our desire to save lives. I hope that we haven’t gotten so bitter and angry and divided that we can’t at least acknowledge one point of commonality.

At its core, isn’t the Second Amendment really about our ability to protect ourselves against tyranny and danger?

So, I find it ironic that this very amendment the Founding Father’s created has itself become tyrannical. The Second Amendment has itself become a weapon. It has become a wall that stops all conversation and meaningful change.

When it was written, those guys couldn’t begin to imagine what a gun would transform into. In their day, guns were unreliable and clunky. Load, shoot, re-load, shoot. In all, a person shooting a musket could shoot about 3 times in 1 minute.

Consider 2019 and the Dayton, Ohio shooter. He used a .223-caliber high-capacity rifle with 100-round drum magazines. He was shot and killed by police within 30 seconds; and within that 30 seconds, he killed 9 and injured 27.

30 seconds = 9 dead and 27 injured.

That should cause us all to pause.

And so I ask, why are we not trying to be better? Why are we not trying something, anything, to save lives? When did the killing of children and humans in general, become okay?

If one person could be saved…just one, why aren’t we doing that thing that will save them?

In every other part of life, we do this all the time. It’s called progress.

Consider the actions taken after 9/11. Immediately, all flights were grounded. All of them. No one flew for days. No one! And then came the changes to planes: lock cockpit doors, no gathering around restrooms. And think about the changes to airports and our check-in process. We could no longer pass through security if we didn’t have a ticket. We now do body scans, we have to remove our shoes, and can’t carry liquid over 3oz in our carry-on.

We improved our processes to improve our safety.

And what about cars? We improved safety by improving how cars were built and began to require seatbelts. We have to take a test to drive a car, pay for insurance, and have a valid driver’s license. We have to work for it.

And what about cigarettes, and the obesity and opioid crises? We’re not just idly standing around and saying: thoughts and prayers. We’re doing something. We’re researching and informing and educating and making it more difficult and more expensive to get those items. We’re educating folks about the dangers of sugar and making exercise fun! Yay for kale!

We are actively engaged in change.

So why are guns any different? They are deadly. They kill. So getting one should be one of the hardest things in the world to do. And if you really are a responsible gun owner, like so many claim to be, then nothing would be able to stop you from getting one. 

Nothing.

If you are responsible, you can get a gun, and those who seek to do harm would not be able to get one. And, oh by the way, no one should be able to get an assault rifle, ever. Why in the world would you need it? Why? Certainly not for hunting, you wouldn’t have an animal left if you used it on them. We limit folks all the time. I don’t see a race car driving 100 miles an hour on the highway for a reason.

I hear all the time from Second Amendment supporters that in many cases restricting gun laws wouldn’t have helped. What does that even mean? It would be like me saying, “Hey, that murderer got off, so let’s just throw out the entire justice system. Just because OJ Simpson got off, let’s just stop prosecuting murders, because look, in this instance, it didn’t work. So let’s just let people commit murder”.

Gun laws are no different. Just because they won’t stop every single killing doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have them.

We need to do something! These deaths keep happening, so obviously the way we’ve been doing it up until now isn’t cutting it. The Walmart shooting was in Texas, which is an open-carry state; meaning many people were walking around with a gun in full-view on their hip.

They could have just reached down and grabbed it and used it.

But they didn’t.

All told, 22 people died and 25+ were injured.

If more guns really do make us safer, then why did so many people in Texas die that day?  And why do so many Americans die every year from gun-related deaths?

As a mother and wife and human being, all I’m asking is for us to try something different. This road we’ve been going down isn’t working. Obviously.

Americans are dying. In 2016, 37,200 people were killed by guns. And as of August 5 of this year, the US has had over 255 mass shootings. (Mass shootings typically mean a single incident, at the same location and time, where 4 or more people [not including the shooter] are shot or killed.)

37,200. 255. Let those numbers sink in.

Doesn’t that piss you off?

There are so many amazing and intelligent people in America. Surely, if we can get a man to the moon and create the Declaration of Independence and elect a black President and build an electric car, surely, certainly, we can find a way to stop the killings.

Other countries have figured it out. Other countries don’t have mass shootings and mass deaths like we do.

The truth is, we already know what needs to be done. I only hope that we have the courage do it. I still hope…

Yes, despite my anger and frustration, I still have hope! Why? Despite the horror of it all, I’ve seen too much goodness in humanity to give up entirely. I’ve seen what happens when the best of us rises to the occasion. I see what happens when we do go high…so very high!

I’ll leave you with a poem to keep your hope alive!

And a poem by Mary Oliver called Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”

Go in strength, dear friends, go in love. And above all, have courage!

Call to Action: What is one thing that you can do today to keep your hope alive?