I apologize, I haven’t written an opinion piece in quite a while. The Covid-19 Pandemic has thrown a few wrenches in my personal blogging, but every once in a while I’m inspired to write something and today I felt compelled to share. In general, I choose to use the irony in my writing for comedic purposes, but sometimes within the irony there’s nothing funny at all. This is one of those cases. These are my opinions. You are free to agree or disagree.

This morning I awoke with another sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, more anger, outrage and unshakable weight from the burden of uncontrollable helplessness in the wake of another mass shooting, more senselessness, more carnage and mourning.  Perhaps most horrific, it’s the same script playing out with the same flapping lips, the same indefensible resistance to common sense and the same ultimate inaction. 

            The school shooting at Columbine was the first such incident of my lifetime that truly shook the foundation of the country.  There was so much shock and awe that in a place where children go, a place of learning and supposed safety, we as a nation were so woefully unprepared for attacks from within.  Similarly, 9/11 shook not only Americans, but the world to its core regarding the safety of air travel and our many vulnerabilities to acts of violence within our nation.  Yet, while 9/11 certainly united most Americans, it also focused our hurt, anger and uncertainty toward “terrorists” as our ultimate enemy, a term that quite specifically targeted Muslims and Middle-Eastern individuals rather than the vast spectrum of idealisms and forms a terrorist can take.  Since both of these polarizing attacks, we’ve seen shopping malls, movie theaters, Elementary schools, concerts, massage parlors, and now grocery stores all brutally and senselessly assaulted by a variety of sick and evil individuals, most possessing legal and easily accessible firearms, most homegrown here in the United States. 

            Let me be frank, this is a highly complex issue.  It is a combination of many moving parts that create this perfect storm of opportunity for these lone wolves, these terrorist plotters; these unloved mentally ill outcasts, these vile individuals.  There are, however, seemingly common sense things we have been woefully refusing to change about our society.  Our pitifully broken institution of Congress continues to fall short of actually enacting any concrete policies to reduce such tragedies.  Our elected officials continue to support their own political agendas rather than speak for the majority of the people.  Those putting roadblocks in front of these humanitarian issues are pathetic cowards. 

            I am a gun owner.  I learned how to shoot targets with a .22 rifle with my dad around the age of 10.  I was taught the real nature of a gun’s danger, it’s weight, it’s physical power.  I was also taught how to use them safely, never to point them in a dangerous direction, how to safely load and unload them, and store them properly.  I don’t hunt, I’ve never wanted to yield a gun with malice and yet, it’s impossible to deny that is truly a gun’s purpose.  A gun is a weapon, not a tool, not anything that saves any lives, it is meant to kill.  As an American, or a human being, I believe people should have a right to protect themselves and there are avenues for legal and responsible gun-ownership.  Thankfully, my state of California is incredibly strict on guns.  You cannot walk into a Walmart and walk out with a shotgun or rifle, you cannot buy a gun if you’ve been convicted of a felony, there are sensible wait periods, strict laws against large capacity magazines and even many limits on models of weapons you can purchases based on gun specifics like safeties and trigger guards.  Overall, the laws are sensible and you don’t hear many complaints here in regards to the restrictions to attain a firearm. 

            I’ve shot many different guns, from that first .22 long rifle, to 12 gauge shotguns, all calibers of handguns, and even fully automatic machine guns (in Las Vegas, legally fired at a shooting range).  One takeaway is that every firearm has a completely different level of control or familiarity needed by its user, but ultimately, all firearms can be incredibly dangerous when wielded with malice.  I personally believe there is zero need for any citizen to own or even operate an assault rifle.  However, it is important for me to argue the point that while we demonize the AR-15 assault rifle (and again, I believe they should be banned), there are many, many firearms that can wield a devastating amount of damage when wielded with intent to destroy.  The AR-15 is part of the problem but not the ultimate problem.   

            Few know what the Second Amendment actually says.  This is the second Amendment verbatim:

“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.”

            That’s it, one sentence.  It was written in 1791.  It is incredibly vague.  It leaves room for gross interpretation that somehow more than 200 years later we cannot seem to agree upon.  Diehard conservatives tend to cling to the Constitution like an infallible piece of divine legislation.  It is, in many senses, their Bible for argument sake.  Most have probably never read it, let alone taken time to truly interpret or understand it, both in the context of when it was created and in relation to the modern Democracy we have evolved into.  The militias from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars are a far cry from the pitiful groups of “Oath keepers,” and “Proud Boys,” that gather to fight for their bigoted ideals.  The only thing those groups are securing, is the freedom to hate. 

            Americans seem to have an obsession with things being taken away from them.  This idealist and unrealistic concept of Freedom seems to involve everyone being able to do whatever he or she wants, whenever they want it.  The many levels of hypocrisy are laughable.  Even the purest Democracy has rules, regulations, limitations, restrictions, laws and punishments for breaking said laws.  It seems to me, our greatest roadblock to reform seems to be the inability for our government to create new laws and/or amend its current laws.  Our proposed system of checks and balances is propped up on three corrupt arms of badly flawed government.  Let’s briefly examine the three. 

The Executive branch, led by a President given immense Executive Powers of authority, elected not by a majority of votes, but by an outdated system of an Electoral College built to disenfranchise minorities, the poor, the have-nots in society, in order to keep the powerful in power.  It is a corrupt two-party system becoming increasingly polarized and divided.   

The Legislative Branch is our House of Representatives and Senate who are also individuals elected by the people set to keep our president and his cabinet from abusing their powers.  The list of flaws are too long to list, but as we’ve seen most recently, a more partisan divide between largely corrupt, immoral, and self-serving individuals more desperate to keep their position and power than actually serving the will of the people that (often) ignorantly keep them in power.  I’m not just talking about Republicans.  This happens on both sides, the only difference is Democrats tend to unite on social issues that speak more to our humanity and social welfare while Republicans unite behind more conservative institutions like Religion, and capitalistic wealth.    

The Judicial Branch is in my opinion our most flawed and broken pillar.  Its highest office, the Supreme Court has justices appointed for life terms and as we’ve seen through President Trump, can be shaped by the whims of one man (the President), only to shape the fabric of society of decades to come.  Far before that, our systems of courts, appeals, attorneys, the criminal amounts of money being exchanged or internal political infighting between city governments and private practice have created nothing but a backlog and delay to so-called justice that rarely is ever served.  Don’t even get me started on how the system is built to also infringe upon and hold down the poor, the minorities, and the most vulnerable while protecting those with money and power. 

            Many people arguing against gun reform are literally more afraid of their firearms being physically taken from them than they are of living in a society where they may get shot just for buying groceries.  The disconnect from reality is palpable.  It is very hard not to generalize people or throw them into one camp or the other.  That is why it was important for me to lay out my unique perspective on guns, based on my life, and my experience with them.  There are, in fact, many people living sensibly in the middle ground between being able to responsibly own a firearm and also support a mandatory background check for all gun owners (and close loopholes that bypass them entirely) or a ban on automatic weapons and high capacity magazines.  Sadly, our current government is forcing you to take one camp or the other.  In their eyes, you are either a Democrat that wants to take away legal firearms or you are a Republican that staunchly defends our constitutional rights, at least that’s what our Congress pointlessly argues back and forth.  These are the people responsible for our laws.  They create, change or block these laws from ever forming.  It’s a sickening standstill that represents the minority fringes of our society rather than the majority of people falling somewhere in the middle.  I am neither of those extremes.  My guns do not make me feel safer.  For some, they undoubtedly do, and I respect those individuals’ right to own them for their protection, if that’s what it gives them (within a sensible set of laws to attain them in the first place).  I use my guns for leisure, to shoot targets.  It’s a luxury, a hobby, a privilege and one I would gladly give up the rest of my life if it meant even one more mass shooting would be thwarted.             

How many times do I have to feel enough is enough?  How long until this happens in my city or to someone I know and love?  As I stated above, this issue is far more complex than just a simple piece of gun legislation, but that is, in my view, the undeniable start.  We also must address the glaring lack of mental health resources in this country, rich-poor gaps, outdated and misinterpreted views of our Constitution, political corruption and broken pillars of Democracy, systemic racism, bigotry, grossly underfunded educational institutions, police reform, prison reform, hyper-militarization in the USA, and so many more problems that all intertwine with the single word problem: guns.  The guns themselves are not the only problem.  The problems are deeper, more insidious, and intrinsically more American.  That being said, we have to take the first steps.  It didn’t happen after Columbine, it didn’t happen after Sandy Hook, it didn’t happen after our worst mass shooting in history in Las Vegas.  When will it happen?  Will it happen?  If the voices of our elected officials are not enough, we have to re-think how our voices as individuals are being heard.  We have to choose to be the loudest voice in the room.