My Gun Sadness

MY GUN SADNESS

Sat. Feb. 21st, 2015

Government control over gun ownership by private citizens has been a huge bleeding-point in the culture wars in the USA.  Not so much in some other countries.  What is the disagreement in the USA?  I think it is a disagreement about the Most Disgusting Thing.  Liberals and conservatives have deep-seated angers about wrongful gun killings, but the things that disgust and anger them the most are not the same thing.  The type of wrongful gun killing which angers conservatives the most is when the law prevents a law-abiding man from equipping himself to shoot back at a criminal.  The type of wrongful gun killing that angers liberals the most is when a law-abiding man who is minding his own business is carelessly killed by a law enforcement official or a gun-toting conservative who imagined that they were acting in self-defense.  Killed by a man who believes in doing unto others before they do unto you.  Killed by a man who is held harmless by a society that believes that if you want to protect the real right of self-defense, you have to protect the right of a man who uses deadly force when he thinks he's threatened although he's not.

The disagreement is whether it is more repugnant to be killed when you don't have the right to bear arms, or more repugnant to be killed by someone who can't read the signs correctly in a split second when you're minding your own business.

I'm a liberal about this, in favor of gun control.  I am more afraid of trigger-happy people than I am of criminals.  My gun sadness is that I know this giant divide between liberals and conservatives will never be bridged in my lifetime; maybe not in ten generations.

But -- there is something here which seems worth doing to me -- something which my country hardly seems to be trying to do, from what I have observed.  That is, trying to express your position in words free of threats, words which the other side can understand.  If your country is deeply divided by a culture war, and an outside enemy attacks, would you rather be fighting side by side with someone whose deep-seated beliefs have been explained to you, or side by side with a man whose deep-seated beliefs have never been explained to you, whom you consider irrational and whom you hated until the minute before the war broke out?

My response is, our country would be stronger if we would make an effort to clear the muddy waters of the river between us in the culture wars.

I read and hear foreign news less often, and with less understanding, than American news.  But I've heard enough foreign news in my life to believe that every country in the world is fighting its own version of the culture wars.  I don't believe the culture wars are winnable or endable, but I do believe that if they were reported more rationally and less emotionally, we might live in a less nervous and more hopeful world.

Though they are disgusted by different things, both liberals and conservatives are human beings.