What I Think About Guns (by Jane Smiley at HuffPost)

[marmar]

Jane Smiley

04.16.2007
What I Think About Guns (21 comments )

Some years ago, I was talking to a man about guns. At the time, I didn't really know anyone with guns (still don't), but he did. He had had guns himself. He said, "I gave my gun away, because when I had it, every time something happened that made me mad, my mind would start circling around that gun, and I would be thinking about using it.

So I got rid of it and I'm glad I did." Right up front I will say that I am opposed to casual gun ownership, but I also realize that Americans will always have guns. Period. It's a national fetish. But the mental state my interlocutor was describing years ago is the price we have to pay, along with, of course, the accidental deaths of children and other unprepared and careless people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and in proximity to the wrong gun. What I would like is for the gun-toting right wing to admit that there is a price we pay, that senseless accidental deaths and traumas are a national cost and that it's not so clear that it's worth it, but hey, we pay it anyway because so many guns are in the hands of so many people that there would never be any getting rid of them. I would like the right wing to admit that guns are not "good" and that the right to bear arms is not an absolute virtue and that the deaths in the US caused by guns are at least as problematic, philosophically, as abortion. But I'm not holding my breath.

I hadn't intended to write about guns today--my original source of outrage was the op-ed in the New York Times that related the saga of Georgia Thompson, who worked for the State of Wisconsin. In the course of doing her job, she put the state's travel business out for bids. She chose the lowest bidder, but because, unbeknownst to her, the travel agency making that bid had donated to the Democratic candidate, the Republican campaign accused her of corruption, and--pay attention, this is the scary part--the federal prosecuting attorney drummed up a case against her, and got her put in jail. Right before the election. As part of the Republican gubernatorial campaign. Imagine how Kafka-esque all of this seemed to Ms. Thompson--the Republicans (possibly at the behest of Washington) destroyed her life for no reason other than political gain, and with so little evidence that the appeals court who just released her was appalled and astonished.
...(snip)...

But that's how it is with the right wing, isn't it? Grievance is something they do, no matter how much power they have. They are shocked, shocked, that they don't have all the power, shocked and victimized and angry. You could tell it in Bush's response to today's shooting. First he said he was shocked and saddened. Then he said everyone has the right to bear arms. He wouldn't want to let any of those NRA-types imagine for a second that any amount of senseless killing could possibly shake his commitment to a fully-armed populace.

Here's what I think about guns--guns have no other purpose than killing someone or something. All the other murder weapons Americans use, from automobiles to blunt objects, exist for another purpose and sometimes are used to kill. But guns are manufactured and bought to kill. They invite their owners to think about killing, to practice killing, and, eventually, to kill, if not other people, then animals. They are objects of temptation, and every so often, someone comes along who cannot resist the temptation--someone who would not have murdered, or murdered so many, if he did not have a gun, if he were reduced to a knife or a bludgeon or his own strength. I wish that the right wing would admit that, while people kill people and even an "automatic" weapon needs a shooter, people with guns kill more people than people without guns do. ......

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/what-i-think-about-guns_b_46037.html

[billbuckhead]

1. "people with guns kill more people than people without guns do. ......"

We have an answer.

[frazzled]

5. Amen

And I wish more people had the guts to say this: especially our own party, who abandoned the issue of guns altogether ... I guess because it is not "popular."

[billbuckhead]

7. Most of the typical victims aren't white college students

It's like someone with guns killed the whole Duke LaCrosse team. That's why they have to demonize urban youth as gangbangers or ho's.

[SteveM]

8. What's the answer? Prohibition? Like pot?

Ms. Smiley is more obsessed with the character, morals, and psychology of gun owners than about guns. Her views are very typical of the self-righteous prohibitionist: gnashing her teeth because she can't get the salt out of the sea.

[billbuckhead]

12. Japan has no guns, no gun crime and way less murder, so it does work

Look it up. BTW, Switzerland is witching to EU style gun laws.

[Demeter]

2. Couldn't Agree More

If and when the day comes that I buy a gun, and in this BushWorld Fantasy, I have comtemplated it more than I like to admit, it will be because I have decided that shooting someone is the only solution to the problem.

There are no pacifists in a civil war. Not live ones, anyway.

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Really interesting read. Esp. this line - "Americans will always have guns. Period.

It's a national fetish." That really made me think. Why is that? Some things I just can't understand. We are all different, but I would never, ever contemplate owning a gun. I would never, ever contemplate shooting anyone, anything at any time. I just don't know what this fetish is, what it is that people want power over things. Was Michael Moore right in Bowling for Columbine - is it because we are just inherently fearful? Yes, I know this is a naieve view, but it is my view. Just because we have a right for something doesn't make it right, in my mind. At least not right for me....today just brings crushing sadness. Such waste.

[Irreverend IX]

4. Sounds like this guy had problems.

My mind has never "circled around" a gun. For most owners, they're a source of fun blowing up bottles and phone books and paper targets, and an insurance policy against dangers that will hopefully never come to pass. Remember, only 20% of gun owners hunt.

Also, a great many guns are not "designed to kill." Look up any gun manufacturer's site, and you'll see pages and pages of guns customized for target competitions. Often they're too bulky and awkward for practical combat use, but they're very good for punching holes in small groups at a distance.

And if I went off the deep end and really wanted to inflict mass death, I wouldn't use a gun. I would work on getting Aconitum to grow in my local climate.

[billbuckhead]

6. The fun of blowing up bottles is worth 30,000 deaths a year?

We have a serious conflict of morality.

[Irreverend IX]

10. Why don't you work on legalizing drugs, Bill?

Most murderers who use guns have prior criminal records, which means that their firearm ownership was already illegal. Good luck stopping that with more laws. Roughly 85% of all violent crime is linked to the drug war, which is something the legislature can quite easily fix.

And blowing up bottles, like hunting, is just a fringe benefit of the right to self-defense.

[billbuckhead]

11. That's just bullshit. Any links? Most murderers are law abiding till they kill

[Irreverend IX]

13. Straight from the FBI's mouth.

You should really think harder before you post baseless claims like "most murderers are law abiding till they kill." It makes you look kind of silly.

http://www.guncite.com/gun_control_gcgvmurd.html

An FBI data run of murder arrestees nationally over a four year period in the 1960s found 74.7% to have had prior arrests for violent felony or burglary. In one study, the Bureau of Criminal Statistics found that 76.7% of murder arrestees had criminal histories as did 78% of defendants in murder prosecutions nationally. In another FBI data run of murder arrestees over a one year period, 77.9% had prior criminal records . Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Rep. 38 (1971).

[billbuckhead]

14. Writing bad checks is a felony or selling weed

No breakdown of violent offenders or drug offenders or white collar criminals. You guys always fight for promiscuous gun laws and then blame both the victims.

[cdnwannabe]

9. And we will always pay for that fetish....

because others insist on the right to own them, despite all the damage they do to the community. But of course it's the ingrained mindsight as much as it is the existence of guns. We're a sick society.

I would rather be dead than live in a country where I have to protect myself with a gun. So if/when it comes to that...