Talking Across the Divide About Guns
Alright y’all. Liberals who want to get rid of all guns, this is for you.
I wrote about the guns vs. toxic masculinity problem after the Las Vegas shooting.
Part of the reason I did this was to point out that (while I support gun control legislation and it DOES save lives), gun control alone will not solve the problem. It’s also about our ideologies.
BUT ALSO, it’s about our inability to empathize beyond our tribe. Liberals, WE are guilty of this too. (We too were targeted by Russian trolls during the election to divide us against each other as liberals — as well as against the other side — and that was apparently SO EASY.) If you’re fed up with the lack of action on common sense gun reforms, GREAT. Keep agitating. Keep harassing your bought off lawmakers.
BUT DON’T DO EXACTLY WHAT WE HATE ABOUT PARTS OF THE OTHERSIDE: stereotype and vilify people we don’t understand and who we don’t believe deserve our empathy. Not all gun owners are conservative. Not all conservatives or gun owners are racist or live up to the stereotypes propagated by the worst (and unfortunately highest profile) examples.
DO NOT DOUBLE DOWN ON TRIBALISM. They are not our enemy. When we do this we are also self-righteous deplorables who cannot be convinced of the humanity of people with different opinions than our own. No, I don’t offer compassion to racists or misogynists or queerphobic types. I’m not advocating that. But I *am* suggesting that we are sometimes caught up in our own assumptions about people unlike ourselves that lead to similarly dehumanizing behavior.
If you’ve gone with me this far, then I encourage you to rethink your angry backlash about ALL. TEH. GUNZ.
This was originally a response to a FRIEND who argued similarly. I’ve moved it here [edit: and then here to Medium] because I think it’s important and I’m uniquely positioned to negotiate between these two worlds as a queer ultra-liberal, raised by an Idahoan farm family, former New Yorker now living in rural Nevada.
If you’ve never lived more than 50 miles from services, you will NEVER understand why some people are libertarians and feel the *need* to own guns. I live in rural Nevada. In a house built in 1987. We just got fire hydrants installed on our street THIS YEAR. There is a fire station close by, but what were they going to do if my house was on fire and no fire hydrants? They exist primarily to fight wild fires and do rescues. I’m a minimum of 30 minutes from emergency health and police services. So the fire station can send an ambulance if I need one, but the closest “hospital” is 30 minutes. If I need something serious I’d have to be med-evac-ed to Reno (because that’s a 75 minute drive). My home doesn’t have deadbolt locks on it. Like at all. If someone forces entry to my home, it will take Douglas county sheriff at least 30 minutes to arrive. 20 if I’m lucky and someone was ticketing south of town. We live with large packs of coyotes and an occasional mountain lion and a bunch of stray dogs. Under these conditions, YES: many people feel safer with a gun. They don’t live in suburbia or an urban area where pack safety is a thing. They live out in the wild — and some live much more remotely still — and would rather take their chances with a gun and wild animals (or I suppose the hypothetical home invader) than live in a more populated area. Some must for their living (cattle ranchers, for example). Many are veterans living with PTSD after life in a war zone, and they LITERALLY feel safer with less people and a gun gives them peace of mind, “just in case.”
(Incidentally these are also people who don’t like to pay taxes and who want smaller government BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT LITERALLY DOES LESS FOR THEM. Not all of our roads are paved. Services can’t reach us. We’ve had several water outages lately or boil water notices and just had to DEAL WITH IT FOR DAYS. We don’t have sewer or municipal water — its a system of shared wells. I can’t get food delivered to my house under any conditions of bribery — that’s how far away we live. When the government doesn’t have a positive, helpful profile in your life, of course people think it’s really just a scam.)
But here was the real point: you don’t get these people and their commitments partly because you have never had to live like they do. Of course their arguments sound absurd inside your life. But some people live radically different lives. AND THESE PEOPLE SUPPORT THE SAME GUN REFORMS YOU WANT. They also might legitimately have to shoot a predatory or rabid animal endangering their family. So, demanding they give up their guns is only going to reinforce the false divide between TWO SIDES THAT LARGELY AGREE.
The DIVIDE is propaganda designed to make both sides feel like nothing can be done because no one can agree. Incorrect. We [edit: almost] all agree. It is the NRA and lawmakers in their pockets who can’t be brought to the same reason most of the rest if us are at, whether we own guns or not.
While I can completely understand the frustrated sentiment of wanting to eliminate all guns because Americans can’t seem to get their act together, I’ll reiterate: the HUGE MAJORITY of gun owners support the same common sense gun reforms you want. It’s the NRA and the extremists who hold up legislation that literally 70–90% of EVERYONE supports. But of course if we come for people who agree with us just because they responsibly own guns, then we aren’t going after the ones who are really stopping the legislation we need.
I can appreciate all the arguments against guns. I can appreciate all your personal boundaries. I’ve made the same arguments about guns in classrooms/on campus.
Gun violence is the biggest killer in primarily 3 situations: suicide, toxic masculinity (whether it’s DV or mass shooters), and police brutality. If we don’t fix those problems while also instituting gun reforms we will still be seeing people die. Disproportionately women and people of color and queer and trans folk. I firmly believe this.
Don’t listen to the TROLLS — whether they’re Russian, paid lobbyists or their Washington lackies, or bona fide home-grown cis-het-white-toxic-masculinity terrorists. The PEOPLE largely agree. And we will only overthrow the trolls if we work together. Which we cannot do if we continue to dehumanize those who are different from ourselves, because then we are no better than the Nazis — classic or 2.0.
This was originally a Facebook response turned post that I have moved here and edited for some clarity and in order to provide hyperlinked citations.
