This morning, a gunman killed a former co-worker and injured eight others outside the Empire State Building in New York City. Details are still emerging about what triggered the attack but it looks like it was a dispute. A dispute? A dispute is when you get angry at someone, shout at them, and maybe shove them a little. A dispute is not taking out a gun and shooting indiscriminately in a jam-packed metropolis at rush hour. That's not a dispute, that's barbarism and insanity.
I have written multiple pieces on gun control since the Colorado shooting but this piece is not just about that -- it's about the wider gun culture in the United States. Whether it's the gunmen in Colorado, Wisconsin, Texas and now New York, the anarchists threatening to attack the political conventions, or the militias training like small armies in a remote part of the country in preparation for some government-sponsored genocide, we clearly live in a society that is becoming increasingly psychotic and trigger-happy.
The U.S. has long had a love affair with weapons and what they represent -- the cowboy. From the flintlock fowlers used in Colonial America to the modern AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, Americans across generations have not only used guns for hunting and self-defense but to experience a sense of control and power that only a firearm can impart. Having been shooting at a gun range myself, I can attest to that feeling. However, the romantic vision of the cowboy as a heroic outlaw is a romantic vision for a reason, namely, not everyone who fancies himself a cowboy has the character of a Gary Cooper or John Wayne. Most self-styled anarchists are not committed to any greater cause than their own imagined fears and a desperate need for control, and most outlaws are not heroes but simple criminals.
As Americans, we have to take responsibility not just for our actions but for our views, since those views lead to the creation of a culture that has very real consequences in the physical world. Today's shooting is a case in point. Whether the shooter was just settling a "dispute" with someone or whether he was a madman intent on wreaking havoc, the fact remains that he believed in the power of violence and yes, the gun. Supporters of the Second Amendment will make the case that this has nothing to do with guns, but it absolutely does, because guns are a powerful symbol of free-wheeling aggression.
Even more disturbingly, they are glamorized as a form of the American spirit. Guns are instruments created for a specific purpose and nothing more, yet to millions of Americans they represent freedom, and therein lies the problem.
Tying guns to freedom is the most twisted interpretation of our fundamental right that I have ever heard of. Freedom is a state of a society and a state of mind, but it has nothing to do with guns. Guns do not protect our freedom because there will always be someone else with an even more powerful gun or more ammunition waiting around the corner to take away our freedom. What will we do then, move on to rocket launchers and grenades? It's an unwinnable battle that violates common sense. The real freedom we need is the freedom to be able to walk around without the fear of our fellow citizens shooting us by design or accident.
I can accept that excessive law-making will not necessarily solve the bigger issue of our mindset, but the irony is that the very same people who yell about how gun control would strip them of their freedom, how a communist government might show up at their door one day to suppress them, and how our declining moral values are creating the violence in society, are the ones who elevate guns and the mindless violence they represent from the inanimate tools that they are to something sacred that was handed down to us by God.
Nobody likes or wants more laws than are strictly necessary to run a peaceful and fair country, but in the absence of people reining in their irresponsible worship of guns, the government will have no choice but to apply more regulation to this arena. When it suits their purpose, gun rights advocates say that guns are no different from any other weapon such a knife or even a baseball bat, yet they continue to use guns as the pre-eminent symbol of liberty. If guns are indeed nothing special, then why are they symbols of anything except good engineering, and in that case, why are they so important to the integrity of our nation in the first place?
Sanjay Sanghoee is the author of two thriller novels. Please visit www.sanghoee.com for more details and to sign up for updates.
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Well, I've used an ATM, so let me tell you about how it feels to be a banker.
Every argument presented in this article is a straw man or an outright lie. You should be ashamed of yourself for trying to pass this off as journalism.
Yeeehaw we're all cowboys! Wooo hooo toot tooot. Get real. All you know about the US gun culture is from TV, movies and your SINGLE trip to one gun range. Good day, sir!
How about stabbing us?
Poisoning?
Running over?
Slashing with box cutters?
Punching?
The author has certainly tried to convince us he knows what he's talking about. But, it still rings hollow. Why doesn't he trust me to have the ability to defend myself?
If guns are the problem then explain this chart. http://i48.tinypic.com/vo5p8y.jpg
In addition, there has been no increase in mass shootings in a VERY long time. (we're talking decades) http://oi49.tinypic.com/35aw3n4.jpg
I believe I've posted this in response to your articles before, but it seems I need to again.
Your entire understanding of the situation is based on what appears to make sense, but actually is completely wrong. You think that removing guns from the equation will make us safer. The problem is...that's not true at all, quite the opposite. By removing legally owned and carried firearms, the result that consistantly happens is this: more murders by other weapons, more rapes, more assaults, more robberies, more home invasions, etc.
Read the book More Guns, Less Crime, by Dr. John Lott. It's analysis of government crime statistics (FBI, DOJ, police, etc), and not just from the USA, but also from places such as England and Australia.
When you ban guns, and prevent people from legally carrying them, you're making it safer for criminals, and you're enforcing the rule of might makes right.
A 250lbs rapist
A 100lbs woman with a gun
Take away the gun. Who did you just protect?
The cops wounded those people, NOT the shooter.
its obvious that you no nothing of guns or american culture...for millions of us guns cannot be separated from family or friends..they are that much a part of our lives...
millions of us remember when we got our "first" gun...usually we got it about the time we got our own dog vs. the family dog...we remember the first time we killed something with our gun and we remember our dog beaming with pride at being told "good dog" for retrieving our recently deceased quarry...
you just don't get it sanjay....you will not ever get it....
No, it has to do with our culture of glorifying violence, to include glorifying revenge. IF firearms were such a problem, we would see far more than 0.002% of them being misused in such a fashion, but we don't.
As I have stated time and time again, for the last 75+ years we have tried it your way, by focussing on and addressing the tool used -- the symptom -- and ignored the behavior and its actual causes. For the last 75+ years we have passed increasingly strict firearm laws limiting what you can have, who can have them, how you have to buy them and it has not worked. The normally anti-gun/pro-control Centers for Disease Control even looked at more than 50 studies of gun control laws and could not find evidence that they work.
And yet every time something bad happens involving a firearm, the first thing the sheep start bleating is "we need more gun control". WAKE UP!
The more we focus on the object used, the more we give implicit approval for the behavior and its actual causes. Meaning this approach does NOT reduce the problem and can actually MAKE THE PROBLEM WORSE!
We need to recognize that this is not working and we need to try a different approach.
http://onlygunsandmoney.blogspot.com/2012/08/mass-shooting-indeed.html
So maybe your bold facing should say this:
The real freedom we need is the freedom to be able to walk around without the fear of our police shooting us by design or accident.
No, it has to do with our culture of glorifying violence, to include glorifying revenge. IF firearms were such a problem, we would see far more than 0.002% of them being misused in such a fashion, but we don't.
As I have stated time and time again, for the last 75+ years we have tried it your way, by focussing on and addressing the tool used -- the symptom -- and ignored the behavior and its actual causes. For the last 75+ years we have passed increasingly strict firearm laws limiting what you can have, who can have them, how you have to buy them and it has not worked. The normally anti-gun/pro-control Centers for Disease Control even looked at more than 50 studies of gun control laws and could not find evidence that they work.
And yet every time something bad happens involving a firearm, the first thing the sheep start bleating is "we need more gun control". WAKE UP!
The more we focus on the object used, the more we give implicit approval for the behavior and its actual causes. Meaning this approach does NOT reduce the problem and can actually MAKE THE PROBLEM WORSE!
We need to recognize that this is not working and we need to try a different approach.