Let’s Talk About Guns

Let’s talk about guns.

As I’m sure many of you know, 21 people (19 children) were killed yesterday at an elementary school in Texas.

This was the 9th deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States.

There have been at least 212 mass shootings (four or more people, not including the shooter), and 17,196 people have been killed by guns in the United States in 2022.

It’s not even June yet.

Gun Safety

I grew up hunting. I own guns. My dad owns guns, and I would say I have a healthy relationship with firearms. I enjoy hunting birds and I’ve always been a pretty good shot.

My dad was the gun safety instructor when I took my gun safety course as a child. It was an after-school course that lasted two weeks. I still have the four rules of gun safety drilled into my head:

• Treat every gun as if it’s loaded
• Know your target and what’s beyond
• Always control the muzzle
• Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to shoot

At the time, I thought every gun owner was required to take gun safety.

I didn’t know that as an adult, you could stroll into Fleet Farm on your lunch break and walk out with a new semi-automatic weapon 20 minutes later.

I didn’t know that when I reached adulthood, the 2nd Amendment would enable the slaughter of thousands of innocent people every single year.  

A New Nation

The United States is no longer a safe place to live. It is not a safe place to visit. It is not a safe place for children, or minorities, or anyone who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Even in the most favorable of studies, the United States ranks the 65th safest country to live in the world. Yes – you read that right – #65. Jordan, Rwanda, Chile, Panama, and Kuwait are all considered safer places to live than the United States.

Worse yet, the Global Peace Index ranks the United States at #128.

Canada, in comparison (which is also made up of avid hunters and gun owners), ranks #6.

And yet, somehow, a good portion of the U.S. population has been deluded into thinking that they live in the greatest country in the world. That traveling to another country – anywhere in Europe, for example – poses risks far beyond that of the ones they face at home.

Did you know that most Texans can carry handguns openly in public without going through training or having to get permits? It is, quite literally, the wild west.

My country is broken. My country is dangerous. My country is failing.

The Band Marches On

In a few days, the NRA is holding their yearly convention in Houston. According to the NRA’s website, Trump will be an honored guest alongside a “star-studded cast of political heavyweights” in a “celebration of Second Amendment rights.”

Which begs the question: would anything change if 17,194 conservative white men had been killed by guns in 2022? Would that be enough to pass the legislation needed to ban assault weapons, handguns, and high-capacity magazines, or to require gun safety education and extensive background checks for all gun owners?

Who knows.

But until something changes, we’ll keep waking up to the same nightmare: another shooting in another city, hoping and praying that the people we love won’t be among those killed.