Perhaps it’s time for pro-gun people to seriously examine why they believe what they believe.
(CALGARY, Alberta) - You may remember Walter Koenig, who played a Russian crew member on the original Star Trek from the 1960s. Last week, during the Olympics, his 41 year-old son Andrew committed suicide in Vancouver. Andrew had played “Boner” in the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains.
I remembered the name, but nothing about it (maybe I’d never watched it) but I assumed that Google would find something on it to jog my memory. The search came up with several items, one of which was an article called Growing Pains by Brian McCombie.
The picture is of people at a picnic or barbeque, with some wearing handguns in holsters. The man in white almost made me laugh, he looked so ludicrous. He immediately gave me an image: Affectation:
an effort to appear to have a quality not really or fully possessed; the pretense of actual possession: an affectation of interest in art; affectation of great wealth.conspicuous artificiality of manner or appearance; effort to attract notice by pretense, assumption, or any assumed peculiarity.a trait, action, or expression characterized by such artificiality: a man of a thousand affectations.
This may seem like an attack on gun owners/carriers, but I am trying to show how non-gun people often see the gun aficionados strutting around with their armaments. It raises, to me, a fundamental question to which I am still seeking a reasonable answer: Why do ostensibly civilized people feel the need to arm themselves with weapons to kill (when necessary or provoked) their fellow citizens?
Like almost all Canadians, Brits, Europeans and citizens of many other nations, I don’t believe that walking around with a gun in a holster is a socially positive act. I’m trying to understand the mentality of the armed American. Perhaps through your comments, you can give me further insight.
1. I see gun-carrying as a form of paranoia—the whole world is potentially out to get me. Even though they are probably a tiny minority, they all look alike and I can’t tell them apart.
2. By carrying a gun, people believe they are exercising their freedom when, in fact, they are losing some of their freedom. They are letting their fear of criminals dictate how they live their lives.
3. They are also saying—civilized society does not work. Each citizen must look after their own safety.
If this is true, why aren’t gun-carriers pushing for the disbandment of police forces across the nation? At a time when the economy is in such parlous condition, the savings to the taxpayers would run into the tens of billions of dollars. Let individuals themselves choose to what degree they wish to be armed. People could also band together into neighbourhood militias (Call it a militia and there would be no conflict with the Second Amendment. You’re automatically covered).
4. I am really trying to understand what is behind the gun mentality. You don’t see citizens in Canada, the UK or the EC pushing for gun ownership on a wide, or even narrow, scale. Only in the U.S. does this phenomenon exist. But perhaps I am missing the obvious point—compared to other developed nations, perhaps the U.S. is that scary.
It was Socrates who said so many centuries ago: The unexamined life is not worth living. Perhaps it’s time for pro-gun people to seriously examine why they believe what they believe.
I am looking for reasoned, rational explanations from gun owners and gun carriers on the points I brought up.
============================================Daniel Johnson was born near the midpoint of the twentieth century in Calgary, Alberta. In his teens he knew he was going to be a writer, which is why he was one of only a handful of boys in his high school typing class — a skill he knew was going to be necessary. He defines himself as a social reformer, not a left winger, the latter being an ideological label which, he says, is why he is not an ideologue. From 1975 to 1981 he was reporter, photographer, then editor of the weekly Airdrie Echo. For more than ten years after that he worked with Peter C. Newman, Canada’s top business writer (notably on a series of books, The Canadian Establishment). Through this period Daniel also did some national radio and TV broadcasting. He gave up journalism in the early 1980s because he had no interest in being a hack writer for the mainstream media and became a software developer and programmer. He retired from computers last year and is now back to doing what he loves — writing and trying to make the world a better place
Socrates' GunSalem-News.com