For the love of guns

The power of ideas never ceases to amaze me. And the deeper ideas are embedded in our culture, in our most basic unspoken, indeed unidentified assumptions, the more powerful they are. Because they shape the way we see absolutely everything. They supply meaning to the sensory perceptions that makeup our conscious reality.

What else can possibly explain the surreal situation we have in this county with firearms? This image from today's NY Times makes my head spin. What are we as a nation thinking when we allow the public sale of arsenals such as this? (Lest I be accused of hyperbole, I checked my spelling of arsenal against her poster in the background.) And what can she possibly be thinking proudly wearing a shirt displaying a skull and crossbones, a symbol of death, connected to the word "GUNS" in large red letters?

The retorts are as asinine as they are well known. "The skull is obviously a symbol of freedom, and if you can't see that you must not love this country, you're not a patriot! If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Dum dee dum dee dum." Dumb. More like insane - we have completely lost any rational sense of this issue.

But it gets worse.

Reflect for a minute on the subtext on this front page story from today's NY Times. (Pause for reflection...)

The only issue being considered TO BE an issue here is the fact that these guns are moving south across the border. As if it were that they somehow stayed in the good old USA everything would be just hunky dory! Then life would be fine, both the good guys and the bad would be armed to the teeth and the universe would be in balance. Insane.

At least Bob Herbert hasn't lost his perspective on this issue. Terrorists kill 3,000 Americans on 9/11 and we get fired up enough to go start two wars and expend billions of dollars. But we kill 120,000 of our own, ourselves, and we scarcely notice. Insane.

I love this country with every fiber of my being. Daily I gain new perspective on the truly unbelievable blessings I'm afforded simply by having been born in the United States. I won the lottery at conception. But our love affair with guns is the blackest of black, blind spots in our national character. We must do better in this area. Somehow. And I believe we can, because I believe in life. Through some miracle, life has come to exist in this universe, despite all odds. That Truth is indisputeable and unstoppable and all the forces, the cultures, the twisted ideas of death cannot contain the life that is present in our reality. Life prevails. Nations rise and fall, but life goes on.

An even deeper American idea than gun control is that of progress. Our Constitution uses the word pursuit. Though I have absolutely no idea of how to "progress" in this area (Where do we begin to change a national mindset?), I remain hopeful that life will prevail and bring our country to its senses, before we kill ourselves.