Hardware
America's Gun Mess
Newtown Versus Chitown
Ironically, post-Sandy Hook gun hysteria,
promulgated almost entirely by the NRA, has
fostered a needless gold rush on guns and ammo.
Everybody from the paper boy to great grandma is
strapping up, arming themselves with everything
from .22’s to assault weapons. Gun stores
routinely report running out of ammunition as
gun owners, paranoid about President Obama’s
proposed (and now failed) gun legislation (but
not taking the time to actually read it) horde
ammunition, turning garages in quiet
neighborhoods and dense population areas into
virtual ammo dumps which could have tragic
consequences in the event of a fire or lightning
strike. It’s been Gun Nut Fever, all day, every
day, since Sandy Hook, as people who’d never
even considered carrying a gun before are now
rushing to buy one out of fear of that
constitutional right being taken away.
Nobody needs to carry a gun. People usually
carry guns because they fear other people with
guns. Everybody strapping up, turning the nation
into the Wild, Wild West, is just asking for
wholesale tragedy. There is a part of me that is
absolutely convinced my life will end when the
paranoid, racist white woman down the street,
who spends virtually all of her time broiling
over invented wrongs perpetrated by me and who
interprets every single, solitary thing I do (up
to and including my smiling and waving to her)
as somehow evil or threatening, pulls out her
legally purchased pistol and shoots me as I pass
her house on my way to Walmart. And the Sheriff
will believe her story that I, minding my own
business and passing her in my own car, was
somehow a threat to her. This is what we are in
for, with these (mostly) white people now
rushing to buy guns in fear that the president
is about to take that right away.
I’m worried about the dentists, the
receptionists with pistols who can’t tell the
difference between me and Chief Keef. I’m afraid
of people arming themselves without educating
themselves about the culture they are moving
through. I’m worried about legalized open
warfare on young black males, virtually all of
whom look suspicious to white people who have no
black friends whose knowledge of us comes from
episodes of Oz and The Wire (note Trayvon
Martin).
The real problem we should be solving is the
dumping of an unimaginable number of handguns in
urban areas like Chicago. There’s not a word
about this in the current legislation. Where are
these guns coming from? It seems like every
pre-teen on Chicago’s streets is packing
something, usually cheap, crappy handguns they
bought off the street. My guess is the president
could even get the NRA to saddle up to put a
stop to that. Thirteen-year old gang bangers are
not registering their handguns or applying for
permits. They are not submitting to background
or psychological checks. Worse, these kids don’t
go to the range, are not trained in handgun
safety. They live on the razor edge of volatile
teen emotions agitated further by hormonal
swings and drug use. They do what they see on TV
and in violent games like Grand Theft Auto: they
pull their strap and start blasting. They can’t
aim, their sights are misaligned (if they use
them at all), and they’re just as likely to put
their own eye out with the ejecting shell as
they are to actually hit who they are aiming
for.
Gun violence in Chicago is surely at the
forefront of the president’s mind. Politically,
he cannot bemoan the sad truth that the
twenty-six deaths in Newtown are worth far more
than the over 500 deaths in Chicago, 80% of
whose victims were African American. Little
black kids are murdered on those streets every
day, but America’s outrage was not mustered
until little white children were murdered by a
deranged individual. Addressing the mental
health side: my perception is that a great many
of Chicago African American youth are deranged
individuals, scarred by things they’ve seen or
experienced. For every kid arrested for gun
violence, I’m betting there are ten or more
who’ve managed to escape, for the moment, police
attention. Many of these kids are emotionally
scarred, living with the consequence of having
committed or participated in or witnessed some
grievous act of violence. Committing or
witnessing a murder is a huge weight for a
twelve-year old to carry around with them. In
this new debate over guns and mental health
issues, I’ve not heard anyone taking about that,
about an entire generation of African American
males emotionally devastated at so young an age.
These boys cannot talk about their experiences
or their trauma without fearing arrest by police
or retribution by the neighborhood. So they just
swallow it, the damage growing like a tumor as
these young boys become dangerous and
dysfunctional young men.
These people are the problem. These are the
people to worry about, for their sake and for
ours: irrational, irresponsible, or immature
people with fluid, unrestricted and routine
access to guns (see sidebar). These are the
individuals middle-class Americans and soccer
moms are now arming up against: home invaders,
car jackers, street thugs.
The newly-armed dentists, soccer moms and, yes,
school teachers wandering the streets with
loaded pistols are another huge danger. Many of
these people have spent most of their life
insulated out in the ‘burbs. Few have ever had a
street fight. Not hair-pulling “cry Uncle,” but
lose-your-life struggle. These people are prone
to panic, and God only knows what they will
actually do in a real life-or-death situation.
Additionally, many of these people will sway
toward the George Zimmerman mentality of
inventing a problem where none exists. In my
personal experience, many of these types of
people cannot tell a gang banger from an
ordinary black teen minding his own business.
Looking feral and dangerous, like gangbangers,
is a universal dress code among urban youth of
varying ethnicities, including whites. You
really have to know the culture and, yes, the
street, in order to tell who’s banging and who’s
a civilian. The kids all know and conduct
themselves in accordance to tribal rules few
outsiders could possibly understand. To the
uneducated, like this George Zimmerman idiot, a
thug is a thug is a thug or, more honestly, a
nigger is a nigger. Zimmerman got it wrong. Some
soccer mom is going to get it wrong. Some
nervous secretary in an express elevator is
going to get it wrong. I’m not all that worried
about the gangbangers, I’m worried about the
dentists, the receptionists with pistols who
can’t tell the difference between me and Chief Keef. I’m afraid of people arming themselves
without educating themselves about the culture
they are moving through. I am persuaded I have a
higher likelihood of being shot by some nervous
secretary than some gangbanger. In fact, the
gangbanger would probably give me a lift to the
hospital.
Idiots: Chief Keef (right) is a major role model to urban teens.
Toys
In this gun debate, nobody’s being honest. No one is telling the
simple truth. I would guess for 99.9% of civilian gun owners,
guns are toys. Toys. Period. That’s why they own more than one.
More than several. Why they collect them, compare them. Just
holding a gun in your hand spikes your pulse rate a little.
They’re sexy. You not only one to own them, you want to show
them off. If we could, we’d just walk around all day with
pistols strapped on, an AR-15 slung over our shoulder.
Ironically, most of these people really don’t actually want to
hurt anybody, and they themselves are typically not all that
afraid of being hurt. Despite all the rhetoric and yelling,
fairly little of any of this has anything to do with
self-defense or home protection, or warding off the government
or what have you. Guns are cool. Why? Because we saw them on TV.
Because few action films are going to open big without a poster
of a movie star brandishing a gun. Which huge gun will
Schwarzenegger have this time?
It’s not an honest debate. Liberals like to denigrate gun
enthusiasts as “gun nuts,” implying some level of mental
instability or deficiency. The truth is, the main difference
between a so-called “gun nut” and the average Joe is largely
perception. Most men love guns. The “gun nuts” are just being
honest about it. Even people who don’t own an actual gun love
guns. How do I know? I can read the box office grosses. Movies
with guns outperform movies without guns. Video games with
violence and mayhem trounce hopping bullfrog games and such.
Many if not most of the non-gun owners would never think of
actually hurting someone, but our culture is inclined to
violence. We worship violence, deify violence. Ralph Cramden,
routinely threatening his beloved Alice with a clenched fist.
Why is that funny? Scapegoating the good ol’ boys who make no
secret of their affection for their iron and steel is entirely
hypocritical. We all love guns, even those of us who don’t own
one or particularly want or need one.
This is what concerns me most about the gold rush of people now
arming themselves around the country because they’re afraid
Barack Obama and Joe Biden are going to somehow rescind the
Second Amendment. Gun enthusiasts are usually better informed,
better educated, and, frankly, better shots, than the
accountants and taxi drivers now rushing to the gun stores. The
“gun nuts” are, in fact, safer than the nervous soccer moms now
packing in their fanny packs. The next level of tragedy will be
the innocent shoppers and children caught in the crossfire
between a convenience store owner, a hold-up crew, and the
newly-armed, inexperienced, untrained nervous shoppers who jam
their eyes shut as they squeeze off round after round, praying
they hit something. This is where things are heading. More guns
is not the answer.
A Pathetic Campaign: Why should we have to beg idiots to stop shooting?
Would Jesus Carry?
I’ve never had peace about the notion of Christians carrying
guns. The biblical model is Jesus was unarmed. It is unclear if
His disciples routinely carried weapons, but scripture tells us
Peter, whom Jesus anointed as the first pastor, “Upon this rock,
I will build my church…” [Matthew 16:18] carried a sword, as he cut off a
centurion’s ear when the Romans came to arrest Jesus [John 18:10].
Beyond Jesus’ admonition to turn the other cheek [Luke 6:29] and that
those who live by the sword will die by it [Matt 26:52], there seems to
be no specific prohibition against weapons while clearly
advocating peace and non-violence as our preferred course in
life. Our key verse, listed top of page one, comes from the Last
Supper, where Jesus reverses His earlier teaching:
Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you
without purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?”
“Nothing,” they answered. He said to them, “But now if you have
a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword,
sell your cloak and buy one.”
This seems to suggest Jesus advocated Christians carrying
weapons to defend themselves, but it doesn’t. Read the context:
“It is written: ‘And he was numbered with
the transgressors;’ and I tell you that this must be fulfilled
in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its
fulfillment.”
Jesus is clearly speaking prophetically, about completing His
role in fulfilling Old Testament scripture. In other words,
these instructions were for a specific purpose and time. Verse
38:
The disciples said, "”See, Lord, here are
two swords.” “That is enough,” he replied.
Enough for what? To fight off a full complement of Roman
centurions? If Jesus’ intent, in this passage, was for His
disciples to fight for Him, why admonish Peter for cutting off
the centurion’s ear? Matthew 26:52-54:
“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus
said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.
Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put
at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then
would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in
this way?”
The point of Jesus’ arming the disciples was largely cosmetic,
that they may be “numbered with the transgressors.” There is no
record of Jesus carrying a weapon of any kind or advocating
violence or self-defense. To the contrary, the more consistent
teaching by Christ is peace and love.
Right-wing “Christian” extremists who violently oppose abortion,
to the point of wreaking violence upon abortion doctors, while
strongly advocating the death penalty, are simply lost. These
are mostly conservative whites (though many blacks are caught up
in this as well) practicing a kind of idolatry that claims
Christian theology while rejecting Christ’s message. Christians
should oppose murder of any kind. Anybody running around still
trying to sell the nonsense that President Obama is Muslim while
making excuses for voting for a Mormon is not a Christian. These
are deceived people practicing idolatry. This is the demographic
most virulently defensive of the “right to bear arms,” the
people “clinging to their guns and religion,” as the president
so rightly characterized them. Jesus was never, ever, about
religion but about relationship. The hateful,
abusive, mean-spirited, racial epitaph-spewing,
violence-threatening, gun-toting bigots are not, under any
circumstances, Christians. People who blow up abortion clinics
demonstrably do not know Christ.
Most of these lunatics are armed. A good percentage of this
demographic casts a suspicious eye toward every black person
passing them in a store or on the street. Mainstream i.e. White
America, able to sleep peaceably through year after year of mass
murder in the hundreds on the urban streets of cities like
Pittsburgh and Chicago, has been finally awakened from her
slumber by the tragic and shocking deaths of 26 innocents in
Newtown. Sadly, our most violently blighted urban communities
would actually celebrate a mere 26 innocent deaths as
compared to the several hundred these places suffer year after
year, only to be ignored. And now this mad rush of people who
really should not be carrying guns is likely making the
situation much worse, with now tens of thousands of potential
Trayvon Martins on the horizon as nervous and inexperienced
civilians suddenly see themselves as Wyatt Earp.
Ironically, the gunmen making the headlines are, more often than
not, deranged young white males, men these new gun-toters would
pass on the street without taking a second look. But it will be
young black males who will, increasingly, have targets painted
on their backs.
Christopher J. Priest
27 January 2013 (Original)
12 April 2013 (Updated, Page One)
editor@praisenet.org
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