What do guns do for us? Do guns make our lives better, or do they just make us feel
stronger and safer? I know those aren't the only two options, but I want to
distinguish between two notions of salvation: on the one hand, we may be
saved by what makes us more safe, while on the other hand, we may be
saved by what makes us more whole. I'm using a theological word, but
I'm thinking more etymologically than theologically, connecting
"salvation" with the Latin salvus, which can mean both "safe,"
and "well" or "sound." (I know word origins don't dictate meanings, but they do
help us understand how our ideas developed.)
So again, what do guns do for us? It's probably true that in many circumstances guns make us safer, or at least make us feel safer, and that's not unimportant. But I do wonder whether they make us better people. I don't think this question is easily answered. It's not hard to imagine someone developing great skill, self-control, and confidence through target-shooting, and I've known police officers who regarded their guns as tools that helped them to make their communities better places. But this passage from Kerouac offers another possibility. Kerouac's protagonist Sal Paradise (Kerouac's fictionalized autobiographical persona) describes what it was like to be alone in San Francisco, thousands of miles from home:
It's not the gun that makes him threaten strangers or that makes him want to steal; but the gun doesn't help, and it's not neutral. It's a catalyst for something else, and when Sal feels lonely the gun becomes a way of expressing his pain. It might make him safer, but it also affords an opportunity (which he seizes) to become less virtuous. His trust contracts as his pain dilates. My eyes keep pausing on the line "I had to show it to someone." Pointing it at strangers in the men's bathroom is at once a threat of violence and a plea to be known, a disclosure of a secret.
Hard times can make us wary. Another novel, Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men, comes to mind here, another novel about men drifting across America, searching for an elusive dream. When Steinbeck's iconic drifters Lennie and George show up at a farm to look for work, the man who hires them remarks on how unusual it is for men to care for one another as they do:
Maybe so. If you know the novel, you know the complicated ways guns, trust, love, and fear figure into it. If you don't, I won't spoil it for you. Nor will I try to sort out what our laws about guns should be. Not here, anyway, because something else is weighing on my mind even more right now. The question of laws, and of safety, is important. But so is the matter of being not just safe, but sound.
We certainly need better laws; we always do. Just as importantly, we need to become better people. People who "travel around together" in difficult times, because it is better to do so than to spend our lives scared of the whole damn world.
*Jack Kerouac, On The Road. (New York: Penguin, 1991) 73.
** John Steinbeck, Of Mice And Men. (New York: Penguin, 1994) 37.
So again, what do guns do for us? It's probably true that in many circumstances guns make us safer, or at least make us feel safer, and that's not unimportant. But I do wonder whether they make us better people. I don't think this question is easily answered. It's not hard to imagine someone developing great skill, self-control, and confidence through target-shooting, and I've known police officers who regarded their guns as tools that helped them to make their communities better places. But this passage from Kerouac offers another possibility. Kerouac's protagonist Sal Paradise (Kerouac's fictionalized autobiographical persona) describes what it was like to be alone in San Francisco, thousands of miles from home:
“I tried everything in the books to make a girl. I even spent a whole night with a girl on a park bench, till dawn, without success. She was a blonde from Minnesota. There were plenty of queers. Several times I went to San Fran with my gun and when a queer approached me in a bar john I took out the gun and said “Eh? Eh” What’s that you say?” He bolted. I’ve never understood why I did that; I knew queers all over the country. It was just the loneliness of San Francisco and the fact that I had a gun. I had to show it to someone. I walked by a jewelry store and had the sudden impulse to shoot up the window, take out the finest rings and bracelets, and run to give them to Lee Ann. Then we could flee to Nevada together. The time was coming for me to leave Frisco or I’d go crazy.”*
 |
| "I had to show it to someone." |
Hard times can make us wary. Another novel, Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men, comes to mind here, another novel about men drifting across America, searching for an elusive dream. When Steinbeck's iconic drifters Lennie and George show up at a farm to look for work, the man who hires them remarks on how unusual it is for men to care for one another as they do:
"Slim looked through George and beyond him. 'Ain't many guys travel around together,' he mused. 'I don't know why. Maybe ever'body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.'"**
Maybe so. If you know the novel, you know the complicated ways guns, trust, love, and fear figure into it. If you don't, I won't spoil it for you. Nor will I try to sort out what our laws about guns should be. Not here, anyway, because something else is weighing on my mind even more right now. The question of laws, and of safety, is important. But so is the matter of being not just safe, but sound.
We certainly need better laws; we always do. Just as importantly, we need to become better people. People who "travel around together" in difficult times, because it is better to do so than to spend our lives scared of the whole damn world.
*****
*Jack Kerouac, On The Road. (New York: Penguin, 1991) 73.
** John Steinbeck, Of Mice And Men. (New York: Penguin, 1994) 37.
*****
I am looking for a better word than "virtue," but haven't found one yet, unless maybe "excellence" fits.
*****
A longer version of this post was published by the Chronicle of Higher Education in both print and online in the Chronicle Review under the title "Armed In Anxiety." A subscription (often available through your library) is required to see the online version.
Good thoughts. I remember when I was taking Aikido (briefly in college) I found that I was more aware of what was happening around me. That was a good thing, in many ways, but I also found myself "looking" for an opportunity to use the skills I was developing. This was, in part, simply being more aware of possible dangers and being prepared in the event that I should need to defend myself against said dangers; however there was a definite inclination toward wishing I would find an opportunity. (and I was taking a decidedly non-aggressive form of martial arts)
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it was a desire to prove myself, a desire to be of service to someone, or what. But, in the end, I didn't like it. I do hope to take up some form of martial art in the future, and I hope that I'm mature enough to engage and adjust for those tendencies.
Anyway, it's interesting to see how these tools that can make us safer can also make us less safe, as we look for the chance to use it...
Exactly, Scott. And it's interesting how easily we can forget what "safe" means. What is it that we most want to save? If all we care to save is our skin, how easy it is to neglect what dwells within our skin.
DeleteIt's interesting that the a weapon or, as greatscott points out, martial arts becomes intertwined with personal identity and perception. By having a weapon, are we more violent in our thoughts or actions? There is some irony here. At least one side of our current gun control debate centers on guns as tools to prevent violence: "arm teachers, arm principals, etc....Someone with training should be armed to prevent another Newtown." To prevent violence we need violent tools, which appear to alter the user's sense purpose and identity in questionable ways.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post, Shane. I'm not sure that weapons make us violent, but they open up possibilities for violence that call for greater self-control and virtue, in my opinion. I'm not sure we can prevent all violence, but the opportunities our technology offers us ought to spur us towards becoming the kind of people who train themselves to use great power for good ends, lest we accidentally (or intentionally) use it for bad ones.
DeleteThank you for the thought-provoking post, as always!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Sara! I'm not sanguine about solving all our gun problems, but I am hopeful that if enough of us think and talk about virtue (and not just about laws) we can have a better conversation. And a better future.
DeleteIf you have access to the Chronicle of Higher Education, they have published a longer, more polished version of it this week. It appears in both the print edition and the online edition, though currently the online version requires a subscription to view it. (Many libraries have those subscriptions.) It can be found here:
ReplyDeletehttp://chronicle.com/article/Armed-in-Anxiety/137035/?cid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en