STAYING GUN SILENT IS NOT MY STRONG SUIT

The idea of gun silent goes against the grain. Guns are not silent, just the opposite.

The only gun silent people I know are gun people who share the idea that the only person who needs to know if they have a gun will know.

They aren’t into the show and tell, the technical talk, the gun comparisons. They’ve got a gun for a specific purpose, a reason known only to them.

If it’s a big secret as to why they own a gun, I think I cracked the code. With help, of course.

From Scientific American:

White men aren’t just the Americans most likely to own guns; according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, they’re also the people most likely to put them in their own mouths and pull the trigger, especially when they’re in some kind of economic distress. A white man is three times more likely to shoot himself than a black man—while the chances that a white man will be killed by a black man are extremely slight. Most murders and shoot-outs don’t happen between strangers. They unfold within social networks, among people of the same race.

And:

What are the solutions? That and many other studies suggest that restricting the flow of guns and ammunition would certainly save lives. But no law can address the absence of meaning and purpose that many white men appear to feel, which they might be able to gain through social connection to people who never expected to have the economic security and social power that white men once enjoyed.

Here’s a truth: my adult kids like to speculate why old white men like their father would buy a gun. We discuss it in a civil manner, which is quite a stretch for the old white man in the group.

“So you lose a step, lose some power, get weak, don’t do anything about it, and buy a gun,” I’ve heard.

“Instead of making a better life for those around you, a gun is a shortcut. You don’t have to ask someone a question like, “would you please get off my lawn?” With a gun you may order them to get off.”

When my kids were pre-school they went to a local daycare that charged $10 a minute for being late. One day after work I was right at the line, but made it with a minute to spare through downtown traffic.

My kid was still having fun with his group and I needed him to come with me. I asked. Then I asked again. Then I counted him down with “Let’s go, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,” and heard one of the staff say to another, “I wonder what he does at home when they don’t behave.”

I could have let their comment go, but felt the need to respond.

“Here’s what I do at home when I count them down and they ignore me,” I said. “Instead of breaking out the coat hanger, a rope, a frying pan or fan belt, I join the kid and countdown again. Then I do it with even numbers, odd numbers, by three, and then get into the negative numbers. We end up doing math as well as what I asked in the first place. Watch this.”

I called to my kid and said, “10, 8, 6 …”

He answered with, “4, 2, 0.”

“You ready to go now?”

“Yes.”

On the way out the door I said to the staff folks, “I learned that from watching TV.” We all had a laugh.

Like so many contentious topics, making a choice is an American freedom. We have the right to choose, the freedom of choosing what we want instead of taking whatever is handed to us.

With great freedoms come great responsibility. We may not be our brother’s keeper in every case, but if too many screw up too many times, we’re all going to be called to the carpet.

I don’t have theoretical ‘children’ to speak up for. Instead I’ve got two ass kickers taking aim at the right things. They already know their old man will run his mouth for the betterment of humanity. Sometimes we disagree.

We don’t disagree on being gun silent.

Talk about it in good faith sooner than later.