Locked and Loaded

The silence today on gun control is deafening.

Kids today grow up in a world completely different than the one I experienced. When I was in college, the biggest worry I had was completing assignments on time, and whether Maureen Ryan ( she sat in front of me in my creative writing class) would consider dating me. The war was over, there was plenty of weed on campus, I was torn over who I loved more, Chrissy Hyne, or Joni Mitchell. I never worried about being shot, it was unimaginable. No one in my class had a gun. No one in the neighborhood had a gun. Even after I graduated, and moved to a questionable neighborhood in the city, I wasn't ever mugged or robbed (possibly, I looked too poor and not worth the effort), but still, I have lived all my adult life in urban areas, and I have never been a victim of crime.

That sound you hear now is me knocking furiously on wood.

Do parents who live in suburbs and rural areas now worry about sending their kids to school? Do they fear that negligent parents may have left some weapons laying around that the children might have picked up and slipped into bookbags? My parents worried about un-wed pregnancies and marijuana. My mother worried perpetually about the loss of my virginity, but she never told me to beware of children with guns. Children of my generation survived the draft, we survived marijuana and the free love of the sixties and seventies. We never had to worry about a disturbed person being able to buy a gun with nothing but a credit card.

I once traveled to West Virginia. My friends and I were on our way to spend a relaxing week-end at a B&B in the mountains. We stopped for gas and the convenient store offered not only petrol, but sandwiches, Doritos, and in the back of the store....an assortment of handguns. An American buffet.

Look, we are all just hopelessly human. While some of us can never imagine taking another human life, nearly all of us have experienced moments of absolute rage. If this crazy kid had only been able to buy a chef's knife, he could have maybe only killed a couple of others. There would be many more young people alive today worried about things like marijuana or losing their virginity.

Other countries sell guns freely. But other countries don't have to worry about their kids getting killed at school. American school children have developed a strange pathology, and I have no idea why, but it is a tragic fact. The only thing shocking about this latest carnage is the numbers, otherwise it would be just another school shooting in a series of long and deadly events. If we already know that our children have a penchant for murder, why aren't we doing everything in our power to keep deadly weapons away from them? If we already know that Americans have a fondness for gun violence, why aren't we doing anything to reduce the number of guns available to purchase when we stop for gas and a sandwich?

I'm glad I don't have kids, this is just one issue that I would never be able to explain to them.

| +Save/Share | |