In the final days of winter young activists emerged from America’s schools. They gathered outside to protest the gunning down of classmates. As spring’s door opened they organized hundreds of rallies and marches, speaking through tears of grief to multitudes who are shocked again and again by this wanton violence. Our country has hosted an average of 10 school shootings per year since the 1999 killings at Columbine. This generation, unlike mine, has never known a time when such acts of domestic terror were unfathomable. They ask adults to grow up and help stop this madness.
Not everyone thinks we have gun problems. Some people believe these youth ignore reality — that America prizes firearms as much as anything we hold dear, and that nothing will change this anytime soon. The solution to gun violence is not fewer guns, some claim, but more firepower in the hands of more people who are ready to pull triggers at any given moment, everywhere we go. Anyone who gets in the way of this domestic arms race is obstructing the right to self-defense given to every citizen by god and our founding fathers.
Nevertheless, young leaders who advocate for gun safety are thinking things through. They’re aware of the nuances of public policy and aren’t just ordering from a pre-scripted menu. I’ve heard them speak favorably of more funding for armed school resource officers, for example, while opposing the idea of teachers packing heat in their classrooms. They aren’t aiming to confiscate guns from citizens, any more than they’d deprive us of cigarettes and booze. Yet they endorse a licensing program, with strict universal background checks, and most believe we should limit military-style assault weapons to military use. Bottom line: they want America to adopt and enforce safety measures that prevent firearms from doing more harm than good.
Many folks like me strongly support this effort. Others don’t. Quite a few media pundits align these two camps with political parties. Supposedly Democrats are much more open to reforms than Republicans. If team Blue wrests control of government from team Red, America will take big steps to improve gun safety. So the partisan thinking goes. Is it true?
Doubts arise when I compare legislation passed in Florida following the recent shooting with my home state of Oregon. Florida banned bump stocks, installed a 3-day waiting period for gun purchases, and raised the minimum age for buying firearms to 21. Oregon took none of those actions, instead just closing a loophole that enabled convicted domestic abusers and stalkers to buy guns. Florida’s government is controlled by Republicans, whereas Oregon is run by Democrats, some who voted against closing the abuser/stalker loophole.
What happened in my Blue state merits a closer look. At the same time Oregon lawmakers were in session, several national retailers changed their policies on gun sales. Among those changes was the requirement that customers be at least 21 years of age to purchase any firearm. While Florida raised the minimum age in tandem with these retailers, Oregon lawmakers left our state’s age restriction at 18. Rather than update our law, Oregon legislators chose to end the session ahead of schedule. Within days of their adjournment our state labor commissioner confirmed that Oregon’s existing state law exposes retailers to lawsuits from disgruntled gun-buyers. Soon after that opinion was publicized, lawmakers from both parties promised to fix the problem next year.
Such delays can cost lives. If incumbents took this issue to heart they would have affirmed their regret for the shortcoming. Instead they bragged about being the first state following the Florida massacre to pass new gun legislation, however weak. The message that spread through the media was that this was the best they could do.
“We were in the short session with a limited number of bills that had to be filed last year….We are only human and can’t possibly know all the answers.”
That’s how my state representative (Deborah Boone, D – Cannon Beach) responded when I raised concerns on social media. I wasn’t blaming her personally, simply pointing out the difference between gun laws passed in Oregon and Florida. When pressed, she agreed that lawmakers could have amended the gun bill. Yet in the wake of our exchange I felt I’d been rebuked for asking too much of elected leaders.
Boone works closely with my state Senator Betsy Johnson (D – Scappoose), a powerhouse in Oregon politics. Since her appointment to the upper chamber in 2005, Johnson has never been challenged in the Democratic primary (during the last election she won the nominations of both the Democratic and Republican parties). She voted against the bill to stop gun sales to domestic abusers/stalkers and received a 100% rating from the group that calls itself Oregon’s “no compromise voice for gun owners.” While speaking to high school students she once enthused about owning and shooting a machine gun.
Here’s how she characterized fellow legislators when a student mentioned that his mother owned a hunting rifle.
“Some of my colleagues would have the government come into [your mother’s] house and take away her guns,” said Johnson. “They hate guns that much. The rest of us – many of the rest of us – respect the right, I believe offered in the Constitution, for law-abiding citizens to possess weapons. And so that is where the debate is going to be. I’m going to come down on the side of protecting your mother’s Second Amendment rights. …But it is going to be a nasty, personal, contentious issue. It is going to be hyperbolic … way off the charts … everybody yelling at everybody…”
With rhetoric like this from a prominent Democrat, no wonder Oregon’s politicians are just nibbling round the edges of gun policy. This kind of talk works to tamp down discussions of what it means to have a well-regulated arms industry. How can lawmakers pass meaningful reforms if concerns about gun safety are cast as part of a grand scheme to remove our rights and possessions?
High school is where Americans learn the ropes about popular culture. It’s where many of us first taste the tensions between ethical behavior and social norms. When I was a teenager, during the 1970s, school administrators designated a smokers’ patio near the lunchroom so seniors could do what seemed acceptable at the time. Health advocates pointed out that smoking was taking a severe toll on society, and tighter regulation was required. Plenty of die-hard cigarette fans stomped their feet, but leaders did what needed to be done.
Students are perpetually reminded not to let peer pressure override careful judgment. The adult world shrugs off this same dynamic as “politics,” and young folks are right to refute the double standard. They convinced Republicans and Democrats in Florida to establish the baseline for a rightful response to bloodshed. We must push beyond that line to deal with gun violence across the country, pronto. That means raising our expectations of elected officials who are reluctant to challenge the status quo.
Big-hearted youth with passion and smarts are leading us into a political change of season, yet they do not shoulder the burden alone. That sacred duty falls upon all of us.
Thanks for posting this Watt…It’s important! My parents saved only a few momentos from my youth. One of them being a hand written letter to Santa, illustrated with a picture of him flying with a team of malnourished, magic-markered, reindeer. In it, I implore the jolly old elf to bring me a football, shoulder pads, and some silly putty, but I also ask for a flame thrower, a machine gun, and a German army helmet with a spike on top. What could make an 8 year old want such armamants? I grew up with war movies. “The Dirty Dozen, The Battle of the Bulge, Patton, and even Kelly Heroes, which informed my opinion of what it meant to “be a man…” Many of the kids on my block would don our dads old army gear, and “play” at war…And while yes, much of it seemed valorous and heroic, it was ultimately about killing. When I was 13, I shot my first machine gun. This was with another group I also idolized growing up. Termed, “Mob Guys,” they also extoled gun culture, and a certain violence and power, that, as a youth, I looked up to. My own father was a passive man, careful and quiet. But these guys were tough, reckless, and I liked that! Emulated it even! They were my teachers of a sort, and I am grateful in some ways, but like wisdom often dictates, there are those who also teach us, by showing us “what not to do…” I Loved shooting guns. The power I felt when I held an automatic weapon, or even a 44 magnum, Dirty Harry’s weapon of choice, was exhilarating! I was good at it… had “a knack,” and I ate up the lavish praise they heaped upon me. But than at 15, something changed. I started to see through the façade of some of my turbulent idols. What turned it around for me were notions of prejudice, and the treatment of women. I still loved shooting though, though my pipeline for such experiences was sorely diminished. My teenage years were also marked by violence and confrontation, with more than a few of my friends doing some serious time…three for murder. While it would be convenient to blame these solely on guns, the tendrils go far deeper than that. Violence has many causes and stimuli, and what triggers one to act upon what they see in video game, or on the internet, as opposed to others who hold a different perspective, is troubling. I read today how the shooter at the Parkland School, who killed 17 in a tragic few minutes of gunfire, is receiving an unprecedented amount of “fan mail” and donations to his prison account. While the buddhist part of me understands Everyone deserves compassion and love, this out pouring borders on idolatry, and the glorification of violence, terrorism and madness. Again, dealing with why someone would send provocative pictures of themselves, to someone who murdered children is beyond troubling, but I do believe banning Assault Weapons, and making firearms in general, harder to obtain, with stricter laws and stringent back ground checks, simply seems a common sense approach. Many countries, who’ve also suffered horrendous massacres, have done such, and All with good result. And while of course, it will not end the roots of violence, it will make obtaining weapons of extreme mass destruction, so much more difficult to come by. Countrys like Britain and Australia, still have avid hunters and gun clubs, without indulging the more destructive brand of armaments. How Oregon, cannot see its way clear of more radicalized views, is both sad and disappointing. I’d always viewed the state as a bastion of more progressive thought and direction. Thanks for sharing this article Watt. Lets hope this powerful wave of youthful energy and passionate commitment, opens the way for a more peaceful planet. They certainly have my support and respect!
Bless you Vinny. Your comment is a work of art.
Target shooting is fun. I was pretty good with rifles in my youth, but lost interest after a while. To date, the only time I’ve used a handgun was to kill a ram with lockjaw.
I do believe it’s important to distinguish the call for gun safety from a fear of firearms. We need to understand the rightful place that guns have in our society, and that means knowing where to draw the line. Most folks acknowledge the necessity of boundaries, but guns are a blinding obsession for some people. It’s hard to have a useful conversation with someone who equates regulation with a loss of personal power. Yet if we can keep gun fetishists from sucking up all the oxygen, the rest of us can move forward with a good discussion.
So grateful for your words.
Watt, I too stand in awe and admiration for the young people who’re demanding an end to losing classmates to gun violence, and all the boneless hand-wringing that only gets in the way of meaningful change.
I also appreciate your and Vinny’s comments about how intoxicating firearms can be. In Renaissance Europe and the Middle East, when the first firearms made their appearance, despite their being (from our perspective) almost goofily ineffective and more likely to blow up the user than to destroy enemies, the one-percenters of those times and places feared the democratization of military power. What if peasants got their hands on arquebuses? Heck, even a lowly woman could wield a musket and take out a man! Scary!
Centuries later, here I am, a physically active but by no means naturally coordinated person who can’t throw a ball straight. Even coming from a pacifist family, because I spent a few years in rural Pennsylvania, the ubiquity of rifles and shotguns at my friends’ houses perhaps made inevitable my eventual discovery that, thanks to technology standing in place of my silly arms, I actually could hit something I aimed at. Not only that, but I turned out to be a natural sharpshooter. A combination of having 20/10 distance vision, good breath control, and patience allowed me to experience the rush of hitting a tiny target just about every time. (Our targets were the painted kind, mounted on hay bales–the awe and trembling I experienced at me plus the rifle’s power reinforced my commitment never to take aim at a living being.)
Awe and trembling: I can only compare what I felt with those ancient descriptions where holiness is also frightening. The kid who nobody wanted on the softball, basketball, or soccer team could’ve been more than welcome on a rifle team or as an archer–through a college archery class, I later learned that the same quirk of fate allowed me to excel at that venerable type of projectile-flinging too.
The power felt heady, but it also terrified me. Power and responsibility, those superhero things, came to my mind and heart.
I haven’t done any target shooting since then, but the experience gives me an uncomfortable understanding of how the NRA types come to fetishize guns–especially people who aren’t physically imposing or panther-like in grace and might. Such people come to believe their trusty gun is an extension of, or substitute for, the power to reach out and act upon the world that comes with having hands with opposable thumbs. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they redirected that passion to advocate for creativity–arts and music programs in school, for example–rather than the destruction of life? Aren’t there healthier ways to define potency than our ability to wipe others out?
The same experience can inspire respect for our limits or a thirst for limitlessness. It’s tragic that so many of us confuse freedom with lack of restraint–sometimes to lethal effect.
Your words are always eloquent and insightful Margaret. There’s a zen to hitting the mark that transcends gun fetishism, yet what you say is so true. I find myself in the position of advocating for a ban on military-style assault weapons while welcoming more hunters of the old school. Here’s to expanding art and music along with heightened nature awareness skills. There is much common ground to cultivate in our efforts to steward creation and conserve the great outdoors.