The life of the American Gun Culture
“Guns don’t kill people; people with guns kill people”—This is one of the biggest statements used by gun rights enthusiasts in the United States to propel the myth that there is nothing wrong with members of a postmodern society owning and living with guns. The second amendment, which these proud boys admire so much that they worship it as Vulcan, the god of fire, and the machinery, was designed to mitigate the government’s control over precious American freedom. This archaic relic law has long been rendered obsolete in the world of nuclear weapons and apache helicopters. Do you think any of these beer-infested, delusional conservatives can handle even a single military unit on their own? Can any of them, with their laughable training of hunting defenceless animals, really save the American people if martial law is declared or a dictator like their lord and saviour, Donald Trump, takes up arms against them? No matter how many speeches with circular logic and slippery slope fallacies they make, no matter how many evangelical church rallies they scream, and no matter how many of these delusional overcompensating rifle lovers berate their hatred towards liberals on the Tucker Carlson show, it doesn’t change the fact that they don’t have a single logical argument for owning guns anymore.
So, why do these people refuse to listen to logic? How many dead kindergartners have to fall on their feet before they even consider the reasoning behind the viewpoints on banning guns? How much innocent blood must flow before their zombie-like haze clears and the person comes to life? The truth is that nothing will change their minds. Because the pith of their reasoning is simple: “I want guns, and you will be shot dead before you even raise an argument against it.” It’s embedded in their culture, and as we know, the emergence of culture is an alive entity in itself. If we consider people as ants and culture as a colony, it is the colony that controls every aspect of the ant. In a way, we are all but zombies, echoing the sentiments of our hive mind that is our culture. No matter how logically wrong or devious that culture might be, it will fight to the death for every one of its members before even giving a single inch. Cultures don’t change themselves, and their evolution flows like glaciers and glass. It is only when outside cultures that are far superior and stronger come to colonise and change them that they can be suppressed. And even then, as we know from all our history, just like plagues, cultures can’t ever die. People remember even if you strip them of their clothes, chop their meat, change their genetic makeup, or even alter their memories. There is an essence of culture in our cancer cells, and as we know, cancer never dies.
You can’t convince an emergence, you can’t argue with it, you can’t fight it, and finally, no matter what, you can’t decimate it. Every culture that has ever existed in this world still resides inside of us, in the evolution of our languages, in the way we write our scriptures, in the way we interact with each other, in the vibes that we propel, and even in the way we form our deepest thoughts. Rome is alive and well, so is ancient Sumeria, and so are the countless cultures that existed even before recorded history. All life is a virus, but entities like emergences propel faster and infect deeper, and they never let go. This is because, for all intents and purposes, they do not exist. They don’t have forms. They are not made of matter. So, how can you fight or change something that does not even exist? It’s like God. The idea itself is alive. Even if we never find its evidence, it still exists in our collective consciousness and is, therefore, more alive than we’ll ever be.
Understanding this fact can help us understand America’s gun culture. It can help us understand why these mass shootings happen, why lobbyists lobby against the betterment of human culture, why millions get duped by lies propelled by evangelicals and Fox News, and why we keep complete assholes in power. But that doesn’t mean we should just hang our hats and say, “Well, that’s how it is, and there’s nothing we can do about it.” There is a reason why counter-culture exists. It’s like a push-and-pull mechanism. If you push something down, no matter how weak it might be, it will eventually gain the power to rise back up. We see this in our families when parents do their hardest to imbue their values and good nature into their children. We warn them against drugs and violence, and yet, just like clockwork, our children do exactly the opposite. Objectively, there is no such thing as good or evil. Even if we programme ourselves to reach towards the good and only do good, our evil sides will explode and make us do evil even when we don’t understand it. One man’s meat is another man’s poison, and what we might think is objectively good for us is the spawn of Satan for others.
A mass shooter feels it is in his right to kill children. Even if there’s a part of him that feels sorry for the innocent, he has been ousted by his society so much that the voices whisper in his mind that only he is innocent and everyone else is just a bold-faced liar. Years of bullying and harassment (tough love) propel him to develop several mental illnesses, and in the confusion and frustration, he takes the step to take revenge on the very society that created him, and so he goes to his school and kills everybody. The argument of evil is another topic, but since nothing exists in a vacuum (even the vacuum itself), it is necessary to understand this while debating gun laws. Evil will find a way even if we take every American’s gun, but good will stand against it as well. And that is exactly how change can occur. Not by soaring speeches or civil wars, but by how the emergence of America itself wants to react. When the entity, i.e., America, realises how much is enough, this change will occur. Nobody expects America to give up its violent ways since, of course, the country was founded on the might is right and manifest destiny philosophies. Since it is unable to expand outwards now, it is imploding inwards itself. Just like the misguided teen with several illnesses, America itself is sick to its core, and since it spends trillions on its military every year, do you think it will surrender its guns?
While we debate gun control, the actual critical problem behind this is mental health. If you or someone you know is suffering from any neurodivergent condition of the mind, do feel free to reach out to Solh App to be a part of a community of like-minded people that can help you regulate yourself to live a normal, happy life. Read about your condition and how others have triumphed over theirs and be inspired to do the same. Take care of yourself and know that you will never be alone as we stand with you.
