It’s the Guns

“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.”

 The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, rat­i­fied in 1791

On March 26, 2023, I went to Gasoline Alley to buy some scratch-offs for my daughter’s 18^th birth­day. Standing in front of me was a white dude wear­ing a Confederate flag doo-rag (first red flag) and telling an anec­dote on his cell phone that includ­ed the term  f*cking n*gger (sec­ond red flag). When it was his turn, he raised his arm to place his case of beer on the counter, reveal­ing a handgun. 

I did not imme­di­ate­ly think, “Now there is a brave man ready to pro­tect the rest of us if there is an emer­gency.” What I thought was, “Now there is a very scared, hate-filled man ready to infect the rest of us with his fear and hatred.” I will also tell you that my ani­mal brain screamed at me to vacate the premis­es imme­di­ate­ly, which I did, scratch-offs be damned. In this day and age, noth­ing is scari­er to me than a white guy who seems racist, angry, armed, and pos­si­bly on his way to being inebriated.

The fol­low­ing morn­ing, Audrey Hale shot and killed six peo­ple, includ­ing three chil­dren, at a school in Nashville, Tennessee. Hale, who was armed with two assault-style rifles and a hand­gun, fired off 152 rounds. Gun con­trol oppo­nents were quick to take to social media to blame every­thing from Hale’s men­tal health to her pos­si­ble trans­gen­der identification. 

A week lat­er,  a mass shoot­ing occurred at the Old National Bank in Louisville. Five peo­ple were killed, and eight oth­ers were injured. Connor Sturgeon, the shoot­er, left notes reveal­ing that part of his goal was to show how easy it is to buy a gun in the US.

My Granny Skinner had an old shot­gun she used a few times a year to chase off the moles. Now, “gun” gen­er­al­ly means a hand­gun, prob­a­bly a semi­au­to­mat­ic hand­gun, stored – but not locked – in a bed­side table or glove com­part­ment. More and more, espe­cial­ly with per­mit­less laws, it is some­thing you car­ry at all times on your body. 

Americans have pur­chased over 60 mil­lion guns since 2020. One-fifth of U.S. house­holds pur­chased guns dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, a nation­al arm­ing that exposed more than 15 mil­lion Americans to firearms in the home for the first time. Guns are now the num­ber one killer of American chil­dren. At least 165 mass shoot­ings – defined as a shoot­ing where at least four peo­ple are shot – have already been report­ed in the US this year alone.

I keep think­ing about the Gasoline Alley dude, who I can only assume would be will­ing to loud­ly and aggres­sive­ly debate the Second Amendment with me. It’s a debate I can’t win because I can’t decide exact­ly how I feel about it. On one hand, I want to argue that our Founding Fathers couldn’t pos­si­bly have con­ceived of assault rifles when they draft­ed the Second Amendment. Or that they defined the term mili­tia as some­thing that can only be called by Congress in times of emer­gency. I want to say, but that’s not what they meant! 

And then I remem­ber that they were white (and cis-gen­dered, at least pub­licly) men in pow­er and they very inten­tion­al­ly want­ed to cre­ate laws that main­tained that sta­tus quo. I sus­pect they were ter­ri­fied of los­ing that pow­er to women or blacks or any oth­er minor­i­ty. They delib­er­ate­ly set laws that would keep us marginalized.

So I won’t argue the Second Amendment here. What I will say is that I don’t think our Founding Fathers could have con­ceived of our cur­rent world, a place where weapons of mass destruc­tion and the elec­tric chair and inter­net child pornog­ra­phy exist. Meaning every gen­er­a­tion must rein­ter­pret those laws. 

Why are we, as a nation, so scared of ban­ning guns? In the last year alone, var­i­ous states have banned repro­duc­tive rights, rights for trans­gen­der Americans, drag shows, and books. 

It’s the guns. Not the gays. Not the pro­nouns. Not the books. The guns.

There is some­thing fun­da­men­tal­ly wrong with us that we would find books more dan­ger­ous than guns. 

It isn’t that gun con­trol mea­sures don’t work. It isn’t in the finan­cial inter­est of our rep­re­sen­ta­tives to enact gun con­trol laws. Our politi­cians ben­e­fit great­ly from the gun lob­by. Mitch McConnel’s cam­paign has received more than a mil­lion dol­lars from the NRA, and Rand Paul, over $100,000.

In 1996, a gun­man entered Dunblane Primary School in Scotland and killed 16 kids and a teacher. The UK gov­ern­ment respond­ed swift­ly, enact­ing tight gun con­trol leg­is­la­tion. In the almost 10,000 days since, guess how many school shoot­ings have occurred in the U.K.? Zero. 

Gun con­trol laws work.

Kentucky’s gun laws are among the weak­est in the coun­try. No state law requires back­ground checks on firearm sales. This makes it easy for pro­hib­it­ed pur­chasers to buy any gun they’d like with no ques­tions asked. We do not pro­hib­it con­vict­ed domes­tic abusers from own­ing guns. Kentucky is rat­ed an abysmal 40^th in gun law strength, but 14^th in high­est rate of gun deaths in the nation. 

Here are the rep­re­sen­ta­tives for Clark County. Please con­tact them today (and often) to voice your con­cerns about gun laws. I have includ­ed a gun con­trol mes­sage you can cut and paste into their con­tact links.

Mitch McConnel ( R )
U.S. Senator
(202) 224‑2541
https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contactform

Rand Paul ( R )
U.S. Senator
(202) 224‑4343
https://www.paul.senate.gov/connect/

Andy Barr ( R )
U.S. Representative
(202) 225‑4706
https://barr.house.gov/email-me

Dear Representative,

I am con­tact­ing you as a con­stituent filled with grief, fear, and anger. I am fed up. As count­less acts of pre­ventable gun vio­lence con­tin­ue to threat­en the safe­ty of com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try day after day, I am urg­ing you to sup­port action on gun safe­ty. I ask you to sup­port com­mon-sense leg­is­la­tion that would expand back­ground checks to all gun sales and rein­state the Assault Weapons Ban. This com­mon-sense leg­is­la­tion can help pre­vent trag­ic mass shoot­ings, as well as the 120 gun deaths that hap­pen every day.

Please, I’m urg­ing you to pri­or­i­tize pub­lic safe­ty. Take action and save lives.