I grew up in a house with guns in it. My dad is a hunter.
I remember as an adolescent: shooting a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol at a stationary target, practicing to be the hunter I was never going to be. I remember the kick of the shotgun, the recoil of the pistol. I remember the fear. I remember the dislike. Even lying on the floor completely taken apart post cleaning, guns were not my thing.
I grew up in a small southern town in Kentucky. I remember the back windows of many a pickup truck parked in my high school parking lot covered by racks, hung with guns. It wasn’t odd. It was an everyday part of life. However, it never crossed my mind that anyone would take the rifle or shotgun out of their truck and enter the school with it, intent on killing any of us.
So here I am, nearly 30 years since I graduated and left that parking lot for the last time as a student, and school is no longer a safe place. Sure, there was always the chance a fight might break out. And bullying was an issue even then. Hell, getting your car keyed was even a possibility. Been there, lived that...dad paid the repair bill. But those situations are completely different than sitting in a classroom studying algebra one minute and dodging bullets the next.
I have family members who work in the school system. I have family members who are currently students. Some of them live close enough to the recent Marshall County, Kentucky, school shooting that anxiety must be palpable. I doubt they are even aware of the anxiety it gives me from afar.
I’ve seen many discussions via Facebook and Twitter since the most recent mass shooting occurred in Parkland, Florida—the most recent in a long American line. One of the ideas bandied about is that stricter gun laws won’t work to stop the gun violence; that it is society that needs to change.
Okay, so let’s take all the onus off stricter gun laws and place it all on society. The question still remains: shouldn’t we try something?
I keep thinking about how as a child my parents tried different things to get me to behave in a certain way e.g. stop throwing tantrums, stop talking back, clean my room, stop cheating at the board game Sorry!, etc. They took Sorry! away from me for a week once, and I was grounded FROM my bedroom due to its lack of tidiness on more than one occasion. I learned my lessons. But not without my parents' penalties instigating the change.
I realize the above situations are trivial compared to gun violence but they are examples of how we can change, how we can adapt to new or different situations. (We do all take our shoes off at the airport before going through security now.) Society is not going to change on its own. If all the previous mass shootings haven’t made us change then we have to try something else.
In order to change the way society behaves (for this piece: in respect to guns) maybe what’s causing the behavior needs to be modified. So how do we modify it? That question should kick off a conversation. Now is the time to talk about it.
I find myself more than ever conversing with people on the subject, always clear to state that I don’t know what the answer is but that something has to change. I hate the conflict that comes with our differing opinions, but I have found that I’m trying to listen and see their point of view, hoping in return that they are listening and seeing mine.
I keep seeing the argument that bans have worked in virtually every country that has chosen to ban guns. Okay. But here in America, we will be up against major push back from Second Amendment devotees and card-carrying supporters of the NRA before the word “ban” can even be heard by people sitting in the back row of a town hall meeting. But what if...? What if there was a ban on automatic and semi-automatic weapons that prevented civilians from purchasing them? Why would that be such a horrible idea? Of course, that question opens up the floor for debate about those already purchased AR-15’s (or any other gun like it), and plants my foot firmly in the sticky goo of criticism by those who don’t want to buy an AR-15 but want the right nonetheless. I don’t have an answer, just a lack of understanding as to why any civilian needs one.
Reaching back into my southern roots as a former churchgoer I recall that a pastor is supposed to help his congregation stay on the straight and narrow, right? There are leaders and there are followers but there are followers who need to find their courage to lead. Our country is much divided right now—on more than this one issue. I don’t know what the compromise is. But there has to be one. Maybe honest conversations like the ones I’ve been having, where we are disagreeing, but not arguing, merely speaking civilly to each other, sharing our thoughts, ideas, and points-of-view, are the way to start. You may think I’m being naive and that’s your prerogative. But sometimes the simple answer is the right answer.
This situation is not black and white. It is the grayest of grays. The process will not be simple. But we have to be willing to meet each other halfway and listen to each other without the current, all too typically immediate deterioration into name-calling and finger-pointing. (Guilty.) It has to start with a conversation and with listening.
I still don’t like guns. They make me uncomfortable. But I don’t think I have the right to tell someone else whether or not guns should play a part in their life. I do believe, however, that semi-automatic and automatic weapons do not belong in mainstream society. Let’s talk about it.
