The mornings at Melinda's cottage had the warm regularity, a psychological stability, that I really needed. This Grounded in Maine Journey is a bit different in that most of the people I'm meeting have not been regular blog readers. To have taken this kind of working-respite with someone who has followed my travels so completely since the very beginning, was not only a relief but a way to re-energize my intention for these projects in general. Starting each morning with a good breakfast seemed an apt symbol for all of this...
I made the Boothbay Harbor version of my daily commute...
Each morning the artist who owns this gallery features a different piece for passers by.
I stopped at the Bridge House to read about its history, handwritten by the current owners...
After working at the library, I headed back to Melinda's...
Taking a different way, I ran across the intentionally provocative sign I had seen so many times since arriving here, and it made me think intensely about this subject...
The sign is referring to: Maine Question 3 - An Act to Require Background Checks for Gun Sales.
The following essay has been fermenting in my mind ever since walking up through the South in the spring of this year. I have been meditating on the gun issue in this country. With this big sign in someone's yard, complete with an illustration of a semi or automatic weapon, stating "Black Rifles Matter," "Yes, we have them," and "No, you can't take them," it seems appropriate at this point to lay down a hypothesis that I believe fits in between the polarized sides of the "argument" (if indeed there are truly two sides--something about which I am still dubious).
Without commenting on the bill referenced above, I will propose this essay as an alternative to choosing sides. It is an opinion, my opinion, and I'm not sure that anyone else has pondered it out in the same way that I will here. Let's see what happens as I do...
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GUNS ARE FUN
They are. I've had a ball target shooting at various times in the past and would enjoy it again. It isn't only the thrill of hitting my mark, but something about all the cultural discussion embodied in the gun that I am firing.
If guns were not fun a significant percentage of our entertainment wouldn't be based around the use of them to achieve certain goals.
When I was a kid we played "War." My friends and I had plastic, realistic looking guns. We ran behind barriers and made shooting sounds, explosions, pretended that bullets were just barely missing us. And, for drama's sake, we would get shot and play dead. It was fun...really fun, as I recall.
When we went inside at night the remnants of the Vietnam War were there on the news. There were also plenty of other conflicts; rebellions in South and Central America, and Africa, Palestinian-Israeli wars, police in this country fighting crime, old documentaries from World War II (still a fascinating subject for Americans at that time - only 30 years before - who were understandably proud of their righteous victories over fascism).
Then, after the news and historical obsessions, came crime dramas, police serials, westerns, murder mysteries, and all the other entertaining shows we loved to watch. They were fun. We can't deny that the gun has been a staple of American culture on every level. In Maine, hunters took advantage of the seasons to bag game and eat it...environmentally sanctioned, a source of nutrition, and frankly more fun.
Sure, there was target practice and boasting about who had the bigger gun--a certain kind of "gun culture" in the 1970's. What I don't remember is the insecurity felt by recent day gun owners and national anxiety about guns; a fear that the government was coming to take their guns away, the mostly-21st Century phenomenon of weekly mass murders by gun-possessing criminals, nor the reasoning that guns were mostly there for self defense. Of course these things were existent, but they did not rise to the level of a crisis as they do today.
Yet, also, there wasn't such a political divide in the US between the so-called "conservative right" and "liberal left." Politicians - such as they were - still compromised with each other. Legislators, seeking to represent their constituencies fairly would more frequently defer to local concerns over national party platforms than they do now.
It would be exceedingly difficult to locate the exact point in time when the deep divisions to which we have grown so unfortunately accustomed began to feather their way into our culture. Roughly, it might be safe to assume this began in the late 1980's. The upward rising curve of stubborn ideological loyalty and its effect between neighbors - not just politicians - rose sharply in the 1990's and continued toward the asymptotic point we are now not enjoying, throughout the turn of the century and its first decade.
The wake of the attacks on 9/11 very briefly brought Americans some semblance national unity. This short-lived period where the "us" was America and the "them" was (in the words of George W. Bush) anyone who wasn't "us" was embodied in his statement, "You are either with us, or with the terrorists." This was a thinly veiled threat, not only aimed at radical groups, but at other nations who might not agree with how his administration was about to deal with things.
We were told that terrorists "hate our freedom" and the best thing we could do to keep our society free and strong was to "go out and shop." Somewhere along the line and frothing up from the subsequently failed war in Iraq, the "us" and "them" began to shift away from terrorists and back onto the red and blue shirt wearing American public itself.
Guns took on a new notoriety. Not only were they there for the maintenance of citizen militias to protect us all from the unlikely threat of a government gone wild, plus all of the reasons why we loved them so much in the post WWII decades--and now to defend the public against "terrorists," but also - perhaps unconsciously? - to defend the Second Amendment from those who might seek to weaken it.
It was expected that gun owners might even use their weapons against gun law reformers whom major organizations like the NRA claimed would be coming to take those weapons away. Literally, I am saying that guns (well over 300 million of them) were already conveniently located in the family room cabinets of owners as a potential deterrent to reform. Now it wasn't only the government who might take your gun away, but Joe Smith down the street, by virtue of his voting power, and his Volvo driving, pinko-leftist, intellectual friends and family.
Perhaps coincidentally, or not, the incomplete policies related to fixing racial inequality begun in the 1960's were collapsing under the weight of increasingly militarized police departments. Authorities representing majorities were seemingly shooting minorities (of color) - killing them dead - in an unbalanced percentage, nationwide. If our police were going to be shooting to kill, they might as well be spreading it more fairly. A ridiculous notion. It has seemed to me that the emphasis on stopping this behavior has more to do with not shooting at all than it does with who is being shot.
I think that is the crux. From cradle to grave, the last three or four generations have seen the use of guns as a legitimate form of stopping "other people" from doing things they don't want them to do. There is no real need to waste time on discussion if half the population continues to shut off that discussion at the "if you reform guns laws I have the right to shoot and kill you" point. It matters not that the next paragraph in that discussion would have been emphasizing "reform," not absolute prohibition. By that, I mean that meme-driven culture has eliminated the logical part of the debate and replaced it with an either/or: Either we have unfettered access to as many guns as we want or guns themselves will become illegal, with US Army platoons showing up on your front lawn to force you into surrendering your guns.
Ultimately though, neither of those things is going to happen. Either would be impossible at this point--something not readily acknowledged by either side. So, what are we left with? A stalemate. If gun problems were the only stalemate we faced there might be some hope of a resolution. However, throw in abortion, taxes, the size of government, the influence of corporations upon legislation, racial prejudice (whether consciously or unconsciously being expressed), religious bias, etc., and the uniquely American problem with gun violence seems almost petty by comparison.
All of the above brings me to my point, in case you thought I'd forgotten to include it...
Readers of this blog have read my opinion about how things are never a problem (drugs, guns, money, etc.). It is how they are used - irresponsible human behavior - that accounts for every social problem we face. I believe that we need to look at ourselves more objectively.
I think it is time to admit that the reason why we Americans defend our "right to bear arms (now read exclusively as guns)" has nothing to do with impinging wars, personal defense against criminals and terrorists, forming militias against the potential of a hostile government, or even for responsible hunting. Rather, in general, it is because they are physically powerful extensions of our personal wills. Humans enjoy that kind of power--a lot.
Children seek ways of affecting objects and people from a distance. They like the fact that mechanisms exist in which they can satisfy this urge. Why? Because it is fun. Why else? Because they can. Adults do not outgrow this need for feeling power at their fingertips. Tools are perfect examples of practical extensions. They do the work of the mind in a physical environment.
Still, no one hides the fact that they are pulling the lever of a backhoe in order to dump a ton of gravel onto a driveway. It is self-evident. There are no games being played with the use of other tools. Personally, I think that - although guns can be tools utilized for the accomplishment of righteous goals in an emergency - unconsciously, we all know that the impression created by their use is even more significant than the physical result. This is the thing we aren't quite sure we can admit. To do so - admit that we are making an impression, and enjoying it - supercedes its practicality as a tool for emergencies. "Shock and awe" (another term that arose during the Bush II years) is fun. It is why we like harmless fireworks displays and rocket launches. Power through the use of awe is more than a tool. It triggers (no pun intended) that inexpressible satisfaction that we (mostly boys) enjoyed in childhood, impressing ourselves and others. The war games of childhood are the perfect example of the awe-inspiring symbol of the gun, without need of its use as a tool.
Specifically, what I mean to suggest is that when those of us who seek to protect our right to own and use guns fight for this Constitutionally mandated "right," it may have nothing at all to do with what the founding fathers intended, nor what modern life threatens against us, but a more deeply seated need to preserve childhood wonder.
Were I not so charitable nor diplomatic, I might rephrase the last statement in this way: Adults who hide the fact that guns are ultimately just fun to own and use, by caging this fundamental sentiment in the camouflage of a social cause, are as immature as the children they were when hiding behind the swing set in a "war" of youthful imagination--maybe more so...maybe much more so.
So, as the rest of the developed modern world's nations find other ways of expressing youthful energy by other more productive means, culturally-immature America stays stuck in the backyard of its collective childhood, yelling out "Bang bang! You're dead!"
And, while the REAL bodies pile up, families are destroyed, paranoia increases, the nation becomes more and more divided, and even the good intentions of the Second Amendment are seriously threatened, the popular self deception that true liberty is based upon the power to kill spectacularly--with awe, will continue indefinitely. The cowboy culture in the "land of the free" is not being exported as we immature adults may have hoped. Other countries just aren't catching on. The only reason why they retain any sort of gun use themselves may have more to do with competing with America than following its example. Gun fire must be fought with gun fire.
America has been great because of its freedom. But freedom itself is NOT great because of America.
Ultimately, freedom flows from self control and sincere self reflection. We Americans are making ourselves less free by losing our self control and burying sincerity behind selfish - even childish - motives. Until we can admit to this fault, our society will continue to grow more dangerous, more self destructive and less influential in the world.
Fun is just that--fun. But, is fun a good enough reason to avoid a rational discussion about how we can retain safety, sincerity and self control while we also preserve our right to protect ourselves or hunt for food? I don't think so.
Individuals who feel strong, or might want to appear strong, by claiming that the right to bear guns is more important than the human lives that right itself is meant to protect, are hurting everyone...from themselves, to their neighbors, to America, and by default to all world peace.
My advice to the ones we see in the mirror? Grow up and make peace a priority over selfishness and childishness. We won't lose our guns, and using them will be a lot more fun.
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I continued on to the cottage...
Melinda had a hankering for a meal out at a nicer restaurant. And, who was I to shortcut a hankering? We looked around for a place with good seafood and chose the Harborside Tavern...
The full moon rose while we waited for our food.
Melinda ordered the house special and I ordered the the bacon brussels sprouts and fried calamari, which was out of this world...
After this lovely meal we left to return home, where we had another of our late night discussions. The day had been just as it needed to be for me personally. I was so thankful to Melinda and though I couldn't not express this appreciation thoroughly for my own satisfaction, I believe she knew, and had little requirement for it. She was making things special simply because it gave us both joy. Sleep was as satisfying as it was on the nights before.
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