Gun Life

The gun culture in this country has gone seriously off the rails.

I have friends on Facebook how continue to assert that MORE guns make us safe.  There was the story out of West Virginia of the prostitute who killed a man who may be a serial killer.  Ergo, we should all be able to carry AR-15s into Chipotles.  Rick Perry thinks movie theaters are a great place to bring loaded guns because what could go wrong in a dark theater with 30 armed civilians?

Guns kill things.  That's their specific reason for existing. But we have turned them into fetishes.  They exist not just to kill but to validate some worn trope of manhood.  They exist to fill some void in the lives of American men that frightens me.

Guns are objects of death.  And the first thing you learn about guns - if you're being taught by a responsible person - is that guns are objects of death.  They are always loaded, always dangerous.

But somehow the gun culture has elevated guns to an almost sacred place...no a sacred place, full stop.

What the hell have we become?