Hitting where you aim

Bernie Sanders.  I'm voting for him.  I agree with him on 99% of issues and I think he focuses on things that are really important to resolve in our society.  If it matters who gets my endorsement, there you have it.

But, he's not perfect, and sadly there are some on the left who might be tempted to rethink who they support based on one of his policies:

Gun control - or rather, the lack thereof.

You see, Bernie is not a supporter of gun control.  Nevermind that the NRA gave him an F rating - as a liberal, all you have to do to earn an F rating is to NOT be in favor of AK-47 vending machines in schools, it seems.  While people on both the right and left think he's diametrically opposed to their views, he tries to take what seems to me a more sensible middle ground.

That is, some gun control makes sense and is acceptable, but it shouldn't significantly impact the 2nd amendment in the process.

I have personally had a long and storied history with the 2nd amendment. I used to love guns, and learned how to properly care for them, fire them, etc., as a kid.  I learned early on that guns must always be treated as loaded (and why).  But, when I hit my late teenage years and became suicidal, it seemed important not to have any guns around myself, despite my interest in them.  They are simply too quick and too lethal - meaning, if I had one bad day, that could be the end of it.  Since I still suffer from bouts of depression, even though those thoughts are tempered greatly, it still wouldn't be worth the risk.

Recognizing that, though, I also have to recognize that I can make that decision because gun ownership is my right.  If it was not, then the whole argument would be moot.

As a former neocon, I believed wholeheartedly in the need to keep guns as a way of defending myself and my family against governmental tyranny - as if even a group of Internet Tough Guys with SMGs could stop a fully-armed army invasion.  Heck, even our police forces these days are better armed than most countries.  As some friends on Facebook have pointed out - unless we make drones with stinger missiles and JDAMs available to the general public, we can't reasonably defend ourselves against government tyranny by way of arms.  We can only do so by way of voices.

Then there are other arguments, which I addressed here.  Some of those are actually fairly good.  As I noted there, you have about a 4-in-1,000 chance of having your home broken into by an armed robber in a given year.  This may make it seem like guns are a good idea.  Many would argue that the chances of accidental shooting are too high to risk it, but you have about a 4-in-300,000 chance of having someone in your household die from an accidental shooting if you keep a gun in the house.  So, the only way that you're NOT playing the odds from just those two things is if people shoot armed robbers in fewer than 1 in every 300 break-ins, which seems unreasonably low (although there are no stats I can find for such a thing). 

You could, however, argue that intentional shootings are much higher than that. 

You see, guns pose a risk that has nothing to do with the gun itself and everything to do with what the gun represents. 

In our society, we see guns as not merely a tool for protection and, occasionally, food.  (I have eaten deer that was hunted for sport, though I would never personally hunt.  At that point, the animal's already dead, I figure, and at least it can be used for a good cause.)  We also see guns as our salvation - against tyranny and armed robbers, as I mentioned, but also against injustice.  Our movies celebrate guns used to "save the day" from bad people.  If you read my article on Firefly, you'll see constant references to Richard Slotkin, who talks about the role guns play in American mythology as the tool of the gunslinger - "a good man with a gun" who solves society's problems via redemptive violence.  Is it any wonder that, in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings, NRA president LaPierre said, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun" (Source)?  Is it any wonder that LaPierre's quote and Slotkin's quote are only off by one word - the use of "man" vs. "guy"?  LaPierre seems to have unknowingly tapped into the same mythology Slotkin describes, although for LaPierre, he genuinely believes it.

This becomes a problem when you take into consideration who the "good guy" is.

For gun supporters, the belief seems to be that if they have their guns in public places, they will be able to be the hero and save the day from "bad guys." 

In "The Dresden Files," by Jim Butcher, a wizard named Anastasia helps explain the problem with this thought:

No one is an unjust villain in his own mind, Harry.  Even - perhaps even especially - those who are the worst of us.  Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices that they would call 'hard but necessary steps' for the good of their nation.  We're all the hero of our own story. (source)

Each of us sees the world in terms of our own stories - we are the only actors of the story because we can only know our own thoughts.  While we may recognize the free will of other people (though certainly not all of us do), we cannot possibly understand another person's thoughts or how they arrived at them or where they'll be going with them next.  In our own minds, we have a concept of justice - one that notably often benefits us - and we may justify anything to arrive at that concept.

And this could lead a person to do horrible things if he or she believes they are justified (and let's face it, it's usually "he" in the social construction that describes this, as we can see by LaPierre and Slotkin's wordings).  It could lead a man who feels bullied to lash out at the bullies, to dehumanize them and see them as merely his tormenters rather than human beings who have a right to life.  It could lead a man who feels cheated on by a love interest (spouse or otherwise) to see himself as the victim of her actions, and to feel that she will not only escape justice but benefit from them.  It can lead a man to believe that people of other races are unfairly taking away his rights (you can read about my own descent into such thoughts here). 

And if such a person comes to such conclusions, he may also come to the conclusion that the only way to have justice for such perceived wrongs is to take that justice into his own hands.  We have many stories that celebrate the vigilante who does just this - Batman, Superman, Spiderman, and all the rest of our Superheroes also notably have a supernatural ability to distinguish right from wrong and to always be on the side of right (though some of the best of those stories blur those lines and make us question such vigilantism).  This natural ability is the same shared by the heroes of Ayn Rand's stories. 

As such, I think it'd be safe to claim that in every instance of gun violence, the shooter believes he or she is the "good guy with a gun."

How can we resolve this?  Well, sadly, guns are still necessary in some places, as the only tool capable of solving certain issues (such as a lack of natural predators for certain species). But, I think as long as we celebrate stories of "the good man with a gun" or of redemptive violence, we either have to accept that such stories will backfire horribly and result in the deaths of millions unnecessarily, or we have to ban guns entirely to prevent them from occurring.  Or, we can construct a new story, one that shows gun violence to be hard on everyone, one that finds redemption through legal justice and society banding together, while rejecting the violent stories of our past. 

And in the mean time, we can seek common ground with those who wish to keep everything Status Quo.  Republicans seem to be in favor of expanded mental health services so long as those expansions help identify people who might "go crazy and start shooting" and block their access to guns so that the rest of the population (all those people who are "good guys with guns") can continue drinking from the gunmetal fountains pouring out of Madison, NC.  It's a great place to start.