{"id":892,"date":"2017-10-02T23:05:29","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T06:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=892"},"modified":"2017-10-02T23:05:29","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T06:05:29","slug":"a-word-on-guns-and-the-las-vegas-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=892","title":{"rendered":"A Word on Guns and the Las Vegas Shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was going to write about my band tonight.\u00a0 I’d been really looking forward to it.\u00a0 Instead, I’m going to take a moment to form and share my thoughts on the recent tragedy.<\/p>\n

I’ve written about guns before.\u00a0 In the past, I’ve made it clear that I wasn’t super excited about extra gun regulations.\u00a0 For as much as I lean liberal, I’ve always been a little bit pro-gun.\u00a0 I’ve never thought that they should be handed out easily.\u00a0 I’ve always thought that people should be screened, and that we should have and enforce some common sense gun rules.<\/p>\n

Events like the Las Vegas shooting disrupt my world view.\u00a0 When it comes down to it, I just want people to be responsible.\u00a0 I want to treat people like adults, and I want to trust people.<\/p>\n

And let’s face it.\u00a0 Way in the back of my heart, I always felt that if something really terrible happened, I’d rather we all be armed and have reliable access to weapons, in case the citizens had to fight for their country.<\/p>\n

But my world view is shaken.\u00a0 Maybe we can’t trust people to be responsible with weapons.\u00a0 I know plenty of individuals that are trustworthy, but people?\u00a0 Statistically, if you have a lot of guns and a lot of people, you’re chances of a bad gun landing in the hands of a bad person approach certainty.<\/p>\n

America has more guns than any other nation, and we have more gun deaths.\u00a0 There are some staggering statistics about how Americans are number one at literally killing themselves.\u00a0 The mass shootings are too common.\u00a0 Our forefathers did not want us killing ourselves like this.<\/p>\n

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know how I feel about Trump.\u00a0 He’s a lying, racist, incompetent conman playing at fascism and endangering American lives.\u00a0 I haven’t succumbed to “fake news” or liberal spin.\u00a0 I’ve listened to his words.\u00a0 I’ve watched his actions.\u00a0 The one that convinced me that he is unfit to be President is Donald Trump himself.<\/p>\n

I bring him up for now for two reasons.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. He isn’t going to do anything useful after this latest shooting.\u00a0 He’s not going to offer genuine comfort.\u00a0 He has no empathy or true sympathy for the victims.\u00a0 If anyone is hoping that our President will lead us through this crisis, prepare to be disappointed.\u00a0 That is not part of his skill set.\u00a0 What he will likely do is defend the gun lobby and contribute tone deaf words in favor of Americans having guns.\u00a0 We’ve heard the tune before, and I don’t think we should dance to it again.<\/li>\n
  2. An argument could be made that he is exactly the sort of thing our forefathers feared, and perhaps wanted us armed to deal with.\u00a0 Consider this quote:
    \n

    “A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free.” – Thomas Jefferson<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Allow me to bring the thought to its conclusion.<\/p>\n

    Our forefathers may have envisioned and feared a despot rising up on the shoulders of a populist movement.\u00a0 They may have wanted us armed to deal with such a despot, and some of the arguments for the 2nd Amendment are in line with this sort of thinking.\u00a0 That if the American people should have their freedoms threatened by a power, that people should rise up in force and take back their country.<\/p>\n

    But that’s not how we’re going to pave the way to a better future.\u00a0 The use of such force is not an effective way to achieving a better world.\u00a0 It is a way to destroy a world and endanger the people and values that we cherish.<\/p>\n

    The answer lies in non-violent solutions.\u00a0 It lies in building communities.\u00a0 Spreading awareness.\u00a0 Peacefully demonstrating.\u00a0 Volunteering.\u00a0 Voting.\u00a0 Taking responsibility for our lives and helping those that we can.<\/p>\n

    We need to promote leaders based on their ability, rather than their popularity.\u00a0 We need to quit electing actors and television personalities, and instead find and support people that talk and act in good conscience.<\/p>\n

    We need to grow up.<\/p>\n

    That might mean putting away our toys.\u00a0 And by toys, I mean guns.<\/p>\n

    We are not alone in the world.\u00a0 Whatever exceptionalism we may have demonstrated in the past, we are not currently embodying.\u00a0 We live in constant fear, and we justify that fears by making it easy for people to get guns.<\/p>\n

    Maybe we need to disarm the whole society.\u00a0 Both the people and the police.\u00a0 I don’t know how we’ll do it, but I know that if it’s to work, someone prominent on The Right is going to have to lead the charge.\u00a0 Maybe invoke Reagan’s name and remind people of the Brady Handgun Bill and why we adopted it.<\/p>\n

    We should all be looking at what happened in Las Vegas.\u00a0 We should think about where we stand on gun violence, gun ownership, and examine why we feel the way we do about guns.<\/p>\n

    If you can look at the headlines, read about the tragic loss of life, and still think America’s current stance on guns is okay, I’d love to hear how.\u00a0 Because I can’t.\u00a0 Not anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I was going to write about my band tonight.\u00a0 I’d been really looking forward to it.\u00a0 Instead, I’m going to take a moment to form and share my thoughts on the recent tragedy. I’ve written about guns before.\u00a0 In the past, I’ve made it clear that I wasn’t super excited about extra gun regulations.\u00a0 For […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=892"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":893,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892\/revisions\/893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}