Gun Safety verus Gun Control

There was an interesting discussion about gun violence today on The Diane Rehm Show.  I was particularly interested by some comments by guest Dr. Liza Gold who compared gun deaths to motor vehicle deaths.  Because I didn’t have a written text in front of me, this is not an exact quotation, but basically, she said, “In 2009 there were nine states where gun deaths exceeded motor vehicle deaths….By 2011, fourteen states and the District of Columbia had more deaths by firearms that they had deaths by motor vehicles.”  She went on to say that because so many people were dying in cars, “We have initiated more interventions on multiple levels to decrease motor vehicle deaths.”  We worked on motor vehicle safety.  The United States has about 30,000 gun deaths yearly.  Gold would like to see us stop talking about gun control and start talking about gun safety.  She has an interesting perspective.

Guns as Symbols

Ever since I started writing about guns, I have been quoting Adam Gopnik, a writer for The New Yorker and an astute writer about gun issues.  In his most recent article at the New Yorker site, he compares the symbolism of cars and guns.  Both, he says, are symbols of freedom and autonomy.  I recommend the article, and below (spoiler alert) I’m going to include a piece of his conclusion:

For the deeper truth is that cars are not, or not only, symbols of autonomy. They are, in every sense, vehicles of it. Guns, however, have an almost entirely symbolic function. No lives are saved, and no intruders are repelled; the dense and hysterical mythology of gun love has been refuted again and again….The few useful social functions that guns do have—in hunting or in killing varmints, as a rural man such as my father has to do—can be preserved even with tight regulations, as in Canada. Cars have to be, and are, controlled: we license their users and insist (or should) that they regularly prove their skills; we look out for and punish drunken or reckless users. If we only achieved, in the next few years, a regulation of guns equal to that of cars, we would be moving toward the real purpose of autonomy, which is to secure the freedom from fear as much as the freedom to act. Symbols matter. Lives matter more.

Perspective

I was doing a little skimming of statics about this blog.  My first post was September 9, 2015, so soon to be ten years ago. There are a total of 543 posts.  That means there have been an average of 54 posts a year or about one a week. My stats also show that I have a relatively low readership.  This summer, I went a full month without a post.  I’m not sure why I do this, but it satisfies something in me.  It’s not like a diary—more like an opportunity to affirm or figure out what I believe.  On rare occasions I look at old posts and usually, I’m pleased to see that it is an insight that still means something to me. 

At some point in those ten years, I must have posted a picture of the earth and the sky.  I was thinking recently about those views of earth and how unfathomable it is to imagine being part of that.  When I mentioned this to my meditation teacher, he said, “Not part of it, you are it.”

 Maybe.  From another perspective, I can stand on the earth and look at clouds.  The clouds help me see the depth behind them, help me see what I’m part of or what I am.

Going for the Throat

Between the World and Me by Na-Nehisi Coates is powerful.  Written as a letter to his son Samori, Coates talks about how living as an African American is living in constant danger.  Coates is one of my favorite writers, but it is hard for me to write about this book, probably because I don’t yet know exactly how I feel about it.  Or, because the book precipitates feelings more than words and thoughts.

For now, I’ll just use this description from Tressie McMillan Cottom in part of an Atlantic article she wrote:  "[Part of Coates’ text] wants readers for whom thinking about the necessary ugliness of America is novel…. Coates goes for that audience’s throat. He wants them to feel the strangulation of struggle, to rob them of breath for one heartbeat longer than is comfortable….This is the “gut-wrenching” prose with which many white reviewers are wrestling." 

Also, here is a link to an NPR interview with Coates about the book.  It contains a short reading.