To supplement my scant resident’s salary, I work as a private tutor in Long Island on Sundays. I will mention that this job is exceptionally easier than my job with the hospital, because the kids I teach are already brilliant. They aren’t sitting with me to keep up with their classes but to stay perpetually ahead of the flock. Their personal essays are glimpses of our future saviors: mission trips in Ecuador and Haiti; ideas to change healthcare in America; research to end cancer and cure HIV; advocacy for immigration reform. These are the high schoolers who would rather be purifying water in Africa than sneaking into bars. They are standing at the cusp of their futures, still growing taller every day, hopeful and unimpeded, so willing to improve a world that — frankly — does not deserve them.
I don’t highlight their traits to set them apart from their peers, but to extol and excuse the nerd persona (more re: my own dorky high school days in a later post). Whenever I hear about a massive school shooting — which is, horrifically, every few weeks — I imagine the inspiring kids I’ve gotten to know. I imagine their parents and friends attempting to cope with the void their losses would leave. I try not to incite the political without first making it intimately, mortally personal.
“Shooting” could not be a more inappropriate term. When a person bereft of humanity brings a military-grade weapon into a populated building and sets fire, the term is “slaughter.” Shooting is what one does to a breeze — nothing else.
Too many Americans at the dawn of these frequent slaughters reach to grip their guns tighter. “Arm the teachers!” they demand. “The liberal media at it again!” they decide. This is not a gentle reproach for those red-white-blue-collar Americans, their whole-milk frothing at the mouth, their harebrained conspiracy theories, their childlike obsession with dangerous toys, their blatant entitlement and selfishness.
This is about why the safety of guns matters abundantly less than the safety of children. Why no citizen should have military arsenal in their homes. Why the mentally ill should not own arms. Why the constitution should not be used to defend senseless and brutal violence. So, staunch gun addict, here’s aimin’ at you:
1. Your gun is not immunity to your government
Obama is not coming for your guns; nor is Hillary. But imagine if they were. Imagine if that damned liberal government did decide to take your guns (not that they would ever — nor can they now, thanks to your vote). All of your guns, rifles, knives, grenades, and let’s even say — to add something I care about, too — your alcohol.
What the hell will your paperweight AR-15 do then? Against a government-scale attack on your private property, the magazine of your assault rifle is as threatening as a caterpillar. Owning a gun cannot and will not prevent the government from doing whatever it wants to you; that is how living in any country works.
You are at the mercy of Washington. Your healthcare and medicines, the foods imported to your dinner table, the water you drink, the language you learn, the roads you drive on, the clothes on your back, and the weapons you are allowed to have fall at the mercy of our government. If Washington decided to aim a nuke at your city because it wanted your guns, you will either die with wet pants or surrender. That is the reality.
Your inflated sense of self — “I can prevent the government from doing what it wants to me” — is narcissistic, a learned entitlement that has racial and political implications (a deconstruction for a different day). None of that matters because it is totally contrived. It is imagined and false. You are a single citizen along with over 300 million others. If we assigned a numerical value to your significance or mine, it would be less than 1/300,000,000. Owning a gun does not improve your value or make you immune to the actions of your government.
2. Guns are political gambling pieces, not automatic rights
Accordingly, your government is the only entity responsible for reducing gun violence in the country (note the word “reduce,” not “end”). The reason Washington continually refuses to impose restrictions is because guns are lucrative gambling pieces that pull in millions of filthy lobby dollars each year. Their only motivation to keep guns open and accessible is this money. The National Rifle Association (NRA) has spent millions on candidate campaigns and already-elected officials.
If this healthy cash flow stopped, stricter gun control would be far less complicated. Most Americans don’t even own guns (only 34% do), and an overwhelming majority of Americans support background checks prior to gun sales. In the face of these facts, government officials continue to offer prayers to the victims of slaughters they can easily prevent by passing laws and enforcing restrictions.
Their motivation has nothing to do with your favorite amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. Even the most liberal candidates with the most passionate anti-gun arguments have never called for (nor attempted to create) a law to “take” your guns away. The right to bear arms is guaranteed to you, but only if your gun does not stand in the way of an innocent bystander living a free and independent life.
If your violent gun use prevents “a more perfect union,” threatens “domestic tranquility” and “general welfare,” or prevents someone from receiving the “blessings of liberty,” you are in direct opposition with the core of the Constitution.
3. Reasonable gun control likely does not apply to you
If you aren’t planning to slaughter people in a movie theater, mall, school, parade, concert, or any other public dwelling, why are you worried about stricter gun control? Laws that will prevent the mentally disturbed from purchasing fire arms will not prevent you from hunting quail or shooting cans off your backyard fence.
Reasonable gun control does mean:
* Thorough health and social background checks before you buy a gun
* Free and mandatory mental health assessment if a health background check is not available
* A week-long course on gun use, gun violence, and how to safely use a gun prior to purchase
* An enforced methodology for registering and tracking assault rifle/other military-grade arsenal purchases
* Denial of gun sales throughout all states if a you are deemed unfit for any reason
4. Restriction enables freedom
As a citizen, your decision to purchase or use an assault rifle is yours because your government has allowed you to make it. But the moment that decision ends a life — specifically, a child’s life — then your ability and freedom to make such decisions must be rightfully questioned. Your gun is less important than a child’s life. Most pro-gun Americans mirror that same argument against pro-choice advocates (“Your right to your body is less important than a child’s life”). This conscious contradiction, this inherent belief that your dangerous piece of metal matters more than another living, breathing, fully-functioning human, is a mental illness all its own. It is self-centered and inhumane. In 2018 in America, a gun-owner can walk to any public event and slaughter dozens of people, but a woman is continually restricted (at the federal and state level!) from ending an almost-life in her own body.
I want to circle back to the alcohol I banned earlier. I love alcohol but I use it responsibly. I could not make the decision to purchase or consume alcohol until I was 21. I am not allowed to drive under the influence of alcohol because I might kill another human. What makes purchasing guns different? I’ll add that — even with these restrictions — in 2015, over nine thousand people still died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes. Imagine if each car had a breathalyzer that prevented a drunk from revving the engine. We’d eliminate those deaths. I can still drink, of course, but I sure as hell won’t get behind the wheel and wipe out innocent people. Restriction enables freedom (the freedom of those I might hurt); it does not prevent my freedom (the freedom of enjoying a drink).
5. Stop the defense of white terrorism
If we are to demonize entire [brown] races due to the sole actions of a few — and if we refuse to deny gun sales to those who are truly mentally disturbed — then we must also immediately stop using “mental illness” as a catch-all defense for our favorite white terrorists. Words like “lone wolf” or “misunderstood teen” cannot selectively apply to white terrorists. Claiming that evil people will find a way to access guns and kill people anyway is a wild speculation that has no basis in reality, because it’s never been tried. In every single country that has enforced stricter gun control laws, gun violence has also exponentially decreased. America is not the exception.
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