guns are shit

Coming in hot from 2012... (posted eight years later, because why not?)

The past several months have seen me horrified by violent acts against children that have been all over the media. The Krim children murdered by their nanny. The children killed in Newtown. The young boy held hostage in an underground bunker in Alabama.

As all of these horrible things have happened, there has been this debate about guns wafting around as well. I have family members and friends who love their guns, and hate those damn liberals for wanting to take their freedoms. I have watched politicians talk about wanting to protect children and society by passing more regulations, and listened to the debates about responsible gun owners needing to be protected.

I have mostly stayed out of things, because I just don't want to deal with the debate. But I'm just over all of it.

Here is the thing - I absolutely, with deep conviction, despise guns. I think that the glorification of violence has been so rooted in our culture that people are expected to understand that others want to recreationally (and of course safely) fire massive weapons. That mothers get a rush from firing assault rifles on a shooting range, and that people feel safer when they have that handgun (licensed, and educated and all properly in order) in their home.

I call bullshit.

I'm not trying to create a huge debate, because honestly, I don't think I am going to win over anyone. I don't think I have an answer to the problem of violence. I don't think that this is going to get anywhere even with the people that I love who think guns are great.

But I fucking hate guns. I hate explosives. I hate handguns and rifles and shotguns and machine guns. I hate fucking fireworks that symbolically glorify war. I hate that we are, as a society, just fine with allowing the idea of guns and weapons being empowering. Bullshit. It's violence, whether you are shooting at a target shaped like a person or not. The purpose of these weapons is to hurt things. Period. If you are "practicing" then you are functionally honing a skill that has at its very root the purpose of killing things.

I am not a vegetarian. I understand and accept that I eat things that have been killed. But let's be real - even when we are killing animals for food, we are killing. Rifles and shotguns that are kept by those who hunt for the purpose of hunting food are weapons to kill things. Handguns are weapons for killing people. Assault rifles, however the hell you want to define that, are made for the purpose of killing.

It's bullshit.

Yes, take the guns the fuck away. All of the guns. If you feel the need to make an exception for hunters who want to hunt food for eating, well fine. But close the firing ranges, close the skeet clubs, close the gun shows and get the guns the fuck out of our culture. Get rid of the video games that make killing people a sport. Get rid of violent movies, get rid of violent books. Make violence not fucking sexy. It's not cool, it's not OK.

No, I dont really believe if getting rid of everything. I do actually believe in free speech, and freedoms, and that's why I don't have a damn answer to the problem. I am just disgusted by our culture. I am disgusted by the celebration of violence in the military, in the media, in life. I am disheartened that the whole conversation about violence devolved so quickly into "but the liberals are cool with guns, just not all guns and we really don't want crazy people having guns, that's all." That's fucking weak. And it's fucking weak to have the other side bitching and moaning about their freedoms, and no one calling anyone out on the whole glorification of violence that we all participate in all the damn time. And no, I don't  think people need handguns at home, and I don't take the President more seriously if he's into skeet shooting.

I'm pissed at the moment. I read the full recap today of what happened to a boy, exactly the same age WITHIN A DAY of my eldest, who also has Asperger's, when a guy who rants about the government attacked a school bus and took him hostage. The issue here is not having guards to keep others from doing this, it's not trying to keep guns away from crazy people (because defining that is a whole other thing, and the debate around it is also bullshit), it's about changing our culture so that the answer for that guy isn't violence, and isn't so accessible. Yeah, the crazy guy in Norway, I know - but that was a fucking anomaly there, and this other business here - it happens all the damn time.