Guns, Violence And Death Vs. The Pursuit Of Life

Dan Sanders

The end of the world did not come as the Mayans predicted. But maybe the world is being chiseled away at slowly by greed and a self-centered me first attitudes. That illness has been a plague on the earth since a man fist invented fire; I assume it was a man. Maybe even before the invention of fire, but the invention of fire certainly escalated things over the Stone Age. We went from throwing rocks at each other to flaming arrows, and the rest is an escalating sad history of the planet.

We now have weapons that can set an entire city if not a country a flame.

When America first dropped the atomic bomb the rest of the world wanted one. And we try to stop the insane countries we fear from having a better weapon or even a weapon at all. The other option is of course to be better armed than the next country. If we can out shoot you, you will not shoot at us. Well, to hell with that theory, we still fear other countries attacking us.

With the tragedies of children dying in our schools and people using guns to seek revenge not just on people but on society, the sadness is truly overwhelming. The anger building and our answer once again is to be armed with the death stock pile of assault weapons, and we will be safe. That’s bull; we saw how well that works after world war two, the Korean War, Vietnam, and all the wars that have been fought only in that last twenty years or so. Being armed has never stopped violence, only helped to propagate it.

Now we want armed guards in our schools, some say police, some say military. I remember as a very young boy seeing tanks roll through the streets of Little Rock Arkansas during the civil rights movement of the 1950s. That image has haunted me for my life. Now we want to ingrain such images even deeper into the minds of our young people.

Freedom Riders Bus in flames

Imagine going to school and being watched over by an armed Marine or Army or any military or policeman there to guard you. Can you imagine the fear that would create, so great that a young child would possibly grow up to say, I guess I need a gun. That way, I can kill you before you kill me, or maybe we will both just kill each other.

What about hunters? I think no hunter needs an assault weapon unless they want to bring home chopped meat. In Vietnam, more cows were turned to hamburger because the army was taught to fire if it moved. At least, that was true survival. The country had sent you there in an unjust, unnecessary war, and the instinct for survival took over. You may not have wanted to be there, but you sure as hell wanted to get out. We are animals after all, and we want to live. If a man or woman shoots an animal it’s called sport if an animal attacks a human its call ferocity. So if you want to hunt or must hunt I suggest a bow and arrow, it worked for thousands of years for Native Americans.

Part of my youth was spent on a farm in Tennessee. I learned to shoot a bow and arrow and became very good at it, in fact, I still am. I also learned to shoot a 22 and was very good at it, and in fact, I still am. I also learned to fire a riffle; formerly, rifles only fired a single projectile with each squeeze of the trigger. Modern rifles are capable of firing more than one round per trigger squeeze; I am still a good shot. And with practice, I’m sure I could still bring home an excellent meal without pulverizing it. And if I could not, I deserve to be hungry or learn to eat what the earth provides from the ground. I have never shot at a living thing.

Here is a brief history of another way to kill each other and our futile attempts to protect ourselves.history

Now one of the biggest selling Christmas presents is bullet proof back packs for children. Why don’t we just dress them if bullet-proof cloths?

There are thousands of quotes on violence and nonviolence; here are two of my favorites. “Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man but you refuse to hate him. Martin Luther King Jr.”

“Heroism on command, senseless violence and all the loathsome non sense that goes by the name of Patriotism –how passionately I hate them”

Albert Einstein

What you have read, I hope you have read, is not any great words of wisdom. I doubt I have said anything that you could not have said yourself and maybe better. But I tried, at least I tried.

As Vaclav Havel who died December 18th 2011 said

“I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions. “

Vaclav Havel

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