Guns Are Made for Killing - Nonviolence Essay #2

A few days ago a neighbor new to our block (we’ll call him Joe) threatened to shoot my other neighbor (we’ll call him Sam) because Sam's dog pooped in the parking strip - the part owned by the city between the sidewalk and curb. What's darkly ironic, considering the recent events in Newtown, Connecticut, Sam is an elementary school teacher.

As dog owners Sam, his wife, my wife and myself regularly pick up the dog poop left in our neighborhood by other dogs, but Joe doesn't know this because he's new. Sam and I have lived on this block for over 2 years and are friends with all the other neighbors. Joe doesn't know this either because he's new.

Joe is bigger than Sam and makes five times the money. I am not sure what's so intimidating about a schoolteacher that Joe needs to bring guns into the conversation.

I grew up hunting and my father in-law took me to the gun range the day before I got married. I have no problem with gun ownership (as I stated in an earlier post, I own two). My problem is when guns are used to bully and intimidate innocent people through the threat of violence and death. Guns are created for killing. It seems that some gun owners do not respect this absolute power - the power to take life.

A schoolteacher, or any law-abiding citizen, is quite a bit different from a burglar, rapist, or despotic regime trying to enslave a population. It’s disturbing that these renegade gun owners feel the need to threaten passive, liberal-minded American citizens who are only dangerous to the chicken they dice up for Thursday night stir-fry.

In a Slate interview, Garen Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, said that, "the president of one of the largest handgun manufacturers in the country once told me, face to face, how much money he had committed to an intimidation effort and advised me to keep my life insurance paid up. There was a time when federal law enforcement agents recommended that I wear a ballistic vest.” (The bold is my edit.)

Intimidation effort? Against preventing deaths by studying the causes and effects of gun deaths in this country? Federal law enforcement agents knew about this? Really? This is mind blowing. Somehow the passive, peace lovers of this country, the ones who only want to make the world a better, safer place, have been lumped into the same group as the dangerous criminals - a threat to be countered by violence. This makes me question who American citizens really need to be protected against.

In an Washington Post op-ed, former Rep. Jay Dickey (R-Ark.) said, "one of us served as the NRA’s point person in Congress and submitted an amendment to an appropriations bill that removed $2.6million from the CDC’s budget, the amount the agency’s injury center had spent on firearms-related research the previous year. This amendment, together with a stipulation that “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control,” sent a chilling message.

Since the legislation passed in 1996, the United States has spent about $240million a year on traffic safety research, but there has been almost no publicly funded research on firearm injuries."

What’s sad is when I posted the origin of this essay on Facebook one of my friends told me to “be safe” in the comments. Fear of Joe’s threatened violence has rippled beyond our little neighborhood and into my broader community of friends. Threatening violence towards someone is intimidation and bullying, and this is the reason stricter regulation of guns is finally gaining steam in America. Of course, these irresponsible gun owners will be unable to take responsibility for their action and will instead continue to blame the hippies and liberals for the erosion of their second amendment rights.

Never forget - guns are created for killing. Unless someone (including the CEO’s of gun manufacturing companies and the NRA) fully respects this fact, they don't deserve to own a gun, even for recreational purposes.

Violence is a valid response when someone is trying to kill you. Violence, or even threatening violence, is not appropriate when you are having a dispute about dog poop.

Essay on Nonviolence #1, We All Have a Choice

"It's about how we treat each other and care for one another." ~ John DeStefano, Mayor of New Haven. I was listening to an interview of the mayor today and this quote stuck out.

What he’s talking about is kindness and compassion. We all have a choice to solve problems without violence. Nonviolence might seem like it's for those hippies and liberals who lack the courage to defend themselves properly, but it takes more courage to choose nonviolenence over violence because hate and violence are easy. Hate and violence are quick. Hate and violence breed more hate and violence. I do not want to live in that kind of world.

I grew up in a home punctuated with violence and was bullied in high school. Recently, three days in a row, three separate angry, white men threatened to ram me with their vehicles while I was commuting home from work on my bicycle. I had the right of way but, of course, they would have won. They are encased in 6,000lbs of steel and I am essentially naked, a skid mark waiting to happen. As a bearded, liberal, Portlander on a bicycle I am a focus of right-wing hate-radio and stand guilty as charged of trying to make the world a better place. But, they are cowards and bullies. They are spineless. They don’t have the guts to face me man to man.

I understand why these men are angry, why they want to run over bicycle-riding hippies. There's nothing "...more dangerous in the U.S.A. than an unemployed white man," says Leslie Marmon Silko in her essay In the Combat Zone. As a carpenter I have not had well paying, long-term employment in four years. We are a month late on the rent and three months behind on everything else. I feel powerless and gutted and I am pissed about it.

I also do not like bullies and these encounters made me very angry, made me want to carry a handgun to protect myself. I can handle myself in a fight and I grew up on a farm with guns. Fist or gun, I am very accurate. These men threatened me with a deadly weapon and I have right to defend myself. Imagine that, a bicyclist packing heat. The power of this vision was intoxicating.

After the last encounter, I chased that coward through Portland. I could have confronted him when he stopped at a light, but I stopped short. I wondered what it would actually accomplish. It would have felt very good to drag that person out of his car and beat him, mash his face until it looked like expired hamburger. He had threatened to kill me. In my rage he would either be hurt very badly, or I would get hurt as he defended himself. I was faced with a choice. I decided, right then and there, to strengthen my resolve AGAINST violence as a solution.

The day after I made my decision, children were brutally massacred in New Haven. This atrocity makes me sick to my stomach. It also made me harden my resolve against violence as a solution. It also made me want to speak out, voicing my private stance on nonviolence.

Nonviolence may feel like it costs more and takes longer, but the payoffs, economically and socially, are complete, permanent and stable. When people choose nonviolence they use compassion instead of violence, taking the time to see each other as fellow humans. Most importantly, nonviolence as a choice allows everybody to reach their full potential because they aren’t crippled by fear or hatred and they stay alive and make good decisions. As citizens, we have a duty that goes beyond our clan, immediate family or party affiliation - we have a duty to all Americans and the world.

I am not interested in the gun debate (I own two). It is a time suck, a black hole created by people who use fear to generate profit and power. I’m interested in a cultural shift in thought. That shift means solving problems through compassion, dialogue and nonviolence. It means seeing our similarities, not our differences.

It means that each person needs to decide against hate and violence, decide against feeding on fear. It means we need to educate our children (I’m including political leaders in this category) to use compassion and kindness. Whether we feel like it or not, we all have more power than we know. We have the power to choose nonviolence.