Reflecting on Gun Violence

I colleague of mine once got me into a civilised and informative, but fairly heated, argument over the US second amendment. After initial exchanges, where I recall I signalled my basic pacifist philosophy (but I am not against use of force or violence in defence of innocents) he came around to a defence of liberal gun laws quite similar in theme to the current round of GOP conservative talking points (it's video games and mentally insane people that cause the havoc).

He was saying cars are deadly weapons, but it's the driver who kills people. When I pointed out the general use case for cars is "getting from A to B" while for guns it is "killing things" he just did not understand what I meant. I put it down to some kind of autism about the use of machines. It was like he thought, "There are just machines or tools and people who use them, nothing more." Like... technically you could ride your power drill to work.

He was an anti-GOP guy too, later became a solid Bernie bro, so we had a lot in common, so I kept talking with him. He is also a bright dude, a medical physicist. A good family man. His paranoia concerning the right to own guns boiled down to his heritage (a hill billy family from Tennessee) and he just seemed to think there was a theoretical possibility someday the government would come after him, and he cited the way a few rogue policemen brutalized and looted from people using firearms in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina (we were colleagues at LSU in Baton Rouge c. 2004). I ended saying you probably should not have armed police in that case, if they are so fascistic. I even mentioned in my country our police are friendly folks, and still do not carry firearms. This made little impression on him. He said, basically accusing me of being a cuck, "would you not want to protect your family?" My take-away: the USA is dealing with a several generations long cultural disease, born from violence and with a perception that only more threat of violence can protect against the violence.