I want to
respond to Joshua Boston's letter about gun control. And not just to
him, but to everyone,
including friends, who feel we need the right to own guns to be free.
True freedom lies within each one of us. Outer freedom comes
from this inner
freedom. Not from guns.
I really
would like to know why Americans are so afraid that we need guns to
protect
ourselves? Perhaps when our ancestors
came to America, it was so vast and wild that it scared the sh*t out of
them. And we've never gotten over
it. Why the insistence that we need to
protect ourselves? Are the British trying to enslave us? Are the
Indians coming over the pass? Are the Vikings raiding our villages?
Is the Inquisition about to descend on our
local wise women? I thought we were
supposed to be living in a land of peace and plenty, intelligence and
vision --
America???
No? Well
maybe we need to change our attitude about life. Because we live in a
culture of gratuitous
violence--in our movies, in video games, in the violence of our
religious
beliefs, in our wars, in our relationships. We've finally created a
culture that seems
civilized, and yet we still pander to violence, at least in our
imaginations. Which gives rise to reality. As a woman, I'm tired of
the attitude that we
have to fight to survive. It's a lie.
The truth is that we survive and are protected when we cooperate. We
survive when we stop judging people and start taking responsibility for
our own
lives. Our society has the know-how and
resources to ensure we don't have to fight to get what we need. So
why are we living in a violent past that has
no relevance to our future hopes?
Sorry boys,
but violence is childish, savage, moronic and utterly wasteful. And yes, while there are some women who like playing
with the big boys, most women and some men can imagine a more creative,
beautiful and cooperative way of resolving disputes then by killing each other.
That's really a guy thing. Like Rape.
Rape is the
other horrific side of the paranoid patriarchal need to dominate other
human
beings -- this time up close and personal because they prey on women and
children. Those six cowardly young men
who brutalized that beautiful young Indian woman didn't need guns to
kill. They had violence in their hearts. That's really the issue
here. Men and violence, patriarchal society and
violence. That's what men need to control and confront within themselves
--
their need for violence, domination and bigotry. And
until they confront it and stop it, they shouldn't be allowed to play
with dangerous
weapons.
Why does
anyone need a gun - which kills from afar?
Why are you afraid to face someone who has an equal chance of hurting
you? Guns seem cowardly. I'm not accusing anyone in particular of
cowardice. I'm saying that our way of
dealing with protection is cowardly. What terror is coming at us that we need to be
so guarded? If we got rid of guns,
people could learn to protect themselves in other ways -- by being healthy,
observant, and centered. We could learn
martial arts and merely disable our opponent rather than riddling him with
bullets. Or we could learn sword and
dagger fighting -- or how about staffs? It
just doesn't seem fair not to share the consequences of our bad behavior for
fighting. I sent my kids to their rooms
without supper for fighting, and at least they went toe to toe with each other.
They didn't destroy each other from 100
yards away.
Guns are
weapons of violence and war; war is disgusting and evil. Why are we bringing this war to our
homeland? We overspend on the military
when our greatest death tolls come from within.
We are killing ourselves--nobody else needs to. We say we have to protect ourselves from the
rest of the world (an over-bloated military budget); but if we disabled all
weapons -- and I'm sure we could find a way to do it -- we might actually learn
to be civil and courteous to each other.
Things are connected, you know.
Owning guns does lead to violence, because you all have violence on your
minds when you play with your guns and video games.
When will we
be willing to see the truth? We are hypocrites. We say that
America is the land of the free
and the home of the brave. How is it
brave to need dangerous weapons to protect ourselves from . . .what?
Our next door neighbor's dog? The kids down the street? We don't
live in the Wild West anymore. Gunslingers rarely come to take over
the
town. Perhaps we're afraid that our
government is out to get us. That they
are really shape-shifting reptilian aliens who are leading us to the
slaughter.
If the government ever comes after us,
it will be with soldiers who are our fellow citizens. If they ever do
it, it will be because
Americans are not brave or free. If we
really believed that we were brave and free, we wouldn't be afraid to
destroy our
giant arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, which include guns of all
types. If we were brave and free, we would speak the
truth to power and damn them to oblivion as short-sighted idiots and
lower than
cockroaches.
A soldier
does not a warrior make. A warrior will
fight for what is right, eye to eye. A
soldier does what he's commanded to do -- often from far away. Perhaps it's time for all Americans to become
warriors and change the deep fear of life we seem to have into the bright
shining promise that America is supposed to represent. A world without weapons. A world that is brave enough to be free.
Perhaps we
need to learn from our Native American brethren how to face life and say, "It's
a good day to die!" And give up our fears.
