—-"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."
— Anton Chekhov (From S. Shchukin, Memoirs. 1911.)
Happens almost every day: a crime committed, a culprit on the run, a warning that the suspect should be considered armed and dangerous.
Judging from news sources, I conclude that damn near everyone in America should be considered armed and dangerous. Has a day gone by in your neck of the woods that someone hasn’t shot someone else for whatever reason? Or no reason at all? Recently, a six-year-old shot his teacher. Not to be outdone, man’s best friend, his dog, stepped on a loaded rifle and put a bullet through the man’s back, killing him. So let’s assume that everyone is packing a weapon and may shoot you if you make a threatening move, even that Girl Scout selling cookies in front of the Safeway. Heck, she might get the drop on you if you reach for your wallet too quickly. Be careful. We hit record numbers of casualties via gun violence in 2021 and 2022, and the numbers promise to rise even further as we become accepting and desensitized to the latest harvesting of human life in schools, shopping centers, dance halls, and night spots. You consider the possibility that you may be shot and killed if you go to the local mall to buy a pair of shoes because shopping malls are notorious killing zones in America. Don’t go there. Stay home and watch the news of the killings on television.
No secret that in our country guns outnumber people. We love guns. Figures from Pew Research Center show that we are devoted gun people, about 120 guns for every 100 people. Mass shootings have become commonplace. After some meth-fueled shooter kills a dozen people, the nation goes headlong into our thoughts-and-prayers phase before we do nothing until the next mass shooting, a circular response of doing nothing ad nauseam. And so on. We consistently do nothing after each unspeakable mass murder. I’ve quit asking, “Why are the flags at half-mast?” In fact, it would be smart to keep flags at half-mast permanently because one mass killing follows on the heels of another with the constancy of clockwork. Tick-tock, boom! One wonders if there is a breaking point. How many killings a week will it take before we do something meaningful to reduce or eliminate shooting deaths? Twenty, 50, 200, 1,000? At some point, even an NRA diehard will admit that something must be done. Eventually we will run low on ammo and tolerance. Remember the clichéd bumper sticker from gun rights advocates, "I'll give you my gun when you pry (or take) it from my cold, dead hands"? If the gun owner can’t have his or her gun, he or she wants to be dead? Seriously? That just might happen.
Take heart. We aren’t there yet. Personal protection and Second Amendment rights are often cited as reasons for owning a gun. My take is that Americans just like to shoot people. We are awash with examples of people shooting people: evening news, cop shows, network action dramas, first-person shooter games. Always someone pulls out a gun and shoots someone. We see the whole appalling, graphic, and clichéd views, replete with exploding cars, bursting helicopters, people jumping from one rooftop to another, brawny cops kicking down doors and entering with drawn weapons in firing posture. Lots of bullets flying. Violence served in layers, so much so it becomes ho-hum stale bread to most of us. We were once a Norman Rockwell America. Now we are an AR-15 America. There are roughly 434 million firearms in American homes. About 20 million are AR-15 or similar models.
If one owns a gun, it must be used occasionally, right? We’ve been locked and loaded for some time. Probate inventories from 1774 indicate that more guns than Bibles were found in households. (Heather, 2002) I know, I know, we have a right to bear arms. The British are coming. “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” One time in history that made sense. Not anymore. Not now! We have a military that has more than enough to protect us from harm. We do not need to protect ourselves from the British; we need to protect ourselves from ourselves.
We know what must be done to stop gun related bloodshed: gun control. Yup, the best safeguard would be to abolish the Second Amendment altogether, but we know that is not going to happen. What could happen, though, is plenty of gun safety measures that would make our society a bit less scary. Those measures include requiring most firearms to be smart guns (just as we now require seat belts and air bags in our automobiles), eliminate or greatly restrict gun-carry permits, and remove the immunity that gun manufacturing companies have in our legal system.
America is on suicide watch. We have a handguns galore. We are angry and depressed. Too many of us have itchy trigger-fingers. Other countries, Japan, Great Britain, Canada, Mexico, and others, now warn their citizens that coming to America can be especially risky and to exercise increased caution, which is advice that we should all heed.