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Friday, December 14, 2012

Guns

Project I'll never have time for:

Visit gun stores where people who've gone on mass-killing sprees have bought their guns. Interview the people who sold them their guns. What kind of mood were they in? What did they say? Was there a difference between the time they applied to buy a gun and the time they picked it up? Then interview the cashiers about their own lives.

Slightly more aggressive and questionable project I'll never have time for:

Visit local gun stores. Take photos of people who work there. Hang them all over town, mugshot-like, or like the pictures of the Joker from the Dark Knight ARG. Picket outside their houses. Treat them like protestors treat doctors who perform abortions.

No; that's wrong. It's more than this, and deeper. It's wrong to target these people: it's like cutting off a nose to stop a cold. Friends are visiting me this weekend who own, and use recreationally, automatic weapons, and they're way more responsible and levelheaded than I am.

Really, I think, we all just need to find a way to take care of each other better. Last night a homeless guy asked me for change. I didn't have any and he started shoving me. Why didn't I just stop and get some money? I'm too busy. I needed to get home to my kids, who I also don't have enough time for.

This world has me so scared and so mad.

2 comments:

בְּשֵם יְהוָֹה וְיֵשׁוּעַ וְרוחַ מִרְיָם said...

Harmony Korine did just that: visit a gun store, while mocking the gun salesman under his breath.

matthue said...

See, that's the thing. I don't think they're bad guys. I just wonder how much they connect with the potential outcomes of their actions.

Plus, it's like blaming garbage men for people not recycling -- @selfagency from Twitter made the point that there's a huge outcry against gun laws, and almost none about how we ignore and marginalize people who are mentally unstable.

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