This blog post is likely to meander. And it will likely have a fair amount of complaining in it around being an adult with responsibility. But it will also be at least somewhat about playing Table Top Role Playing Games (TTRPGs), because that's the thing I want to do more of that I can't. Specifically GURPS.
I'm going to estimate 6 years ago in 2013 as being the last time I was single. During my single years I was pretty miserable, socially awkward, and mentally unhealthy. It's not a situation I want to go back to at all. I love my wife, and I love my kids. I'm much better off, and much happier... even if I have to changed a poopy diaper pretty frequently.
I mention my time being single though because it had something that married adult life didn't: much less responsibility. I still had to work, but chores didn't have to be done if I didn't want to do them. I could put off laundry, dishes, trash, vacuuming... I didn't have to do any of that. Instead, I could binge watch shows and movies; play World of Warcraft or whatever games I wanted; buy tons of geek crap because I had money to spare; and make plans with friends whenever I wanted.
Now... I feel like I'm actually a grown-up now. I have my wife, my step-son, two dogs, two cats, and two babies (almost a year old now). I have to let the dogs out to go to the bathroom, clean the litter boxes, feed them all, and I generally do the vacuuming which is basically an exercise in finding all the places the dog hair has congregated. I try to do dishes... but my wife does them too. I make breakfast for my wife and I every morning. Now we also have a pellet stove which takes an incredible amount of tending. I help with the babies, changing diapers, feeding them, and playing with them (which is a wonderful experience, but is time consuming). I have my full time job too of course.
Beyond time constraints, money is way gone. Babies (especially twins) cost a lot. Home repair costs a lot (we had retaining walls fixed, and the most recent thing is having our windows replaced to help with energy loss which is costing us over $1000 a month to keep the house warm). The mortgage on the bigger house is bigger than my condo. And Christmas has become this crippling thing where you have to spend money on way too many people.
We're not keeping up very well with chores. And that drives my wife crazy. She can't relax when there's stuff that needs doing. I'll sit down in moments where I think I have a little time to decompress, and then my wife will start doing a chore, and I obviously can't just sit there. I have to get up and be productive too. So, we'll get through some chores and then there isn't time left. I didn't get to decompress. At all.
Weekends you ask? That's prime-time for chores, and plans for time with family. Nice relaxing Saturday? Nope. Never. Vacuuming has to get done, some project or another has to get done, and any of the 47 family in the area needs to see the babies, but not as a means for us to go do something fun... as a means for us get chores done because trying to do chores while watching babies is impossible... or we spend time with family just sitting there talking or playing cards or whatever, and that's nice enough, but we're still watching babies, and we're not getting chores done then, and it's still not a restful thing for me.
There's no end to it. It just cycles constantly. I'm running on empty, and I don't know when the fuel will run out or what it will mean when it does.
Getting more fuel I think would work best if I could do a hobby. I love imagination. And I love sharing my imagination. I write a little in terms of fiction, but haven't completed a novel yet. The thing I write most often is setting information for use with a GURPS campaign. I love GURPS, and I love playing a campaign where I have players who are interested in playing. I love when the game play feels like a novel we're writing together. I love when the characters have solid back stories and act in ways that I wouldn't have considered had I written the story on my own. I love when players have emotional experiences while playing. I love when players talk about the game even when we're not actively playing because it was so interesting to them... like it's a good TV show that has viewers wanting more.
But I don't get to do that. I can't steal moments to work on settings... but... my GURPS group hasn't played in a long while. It fell apart for a number of reasons, including that my wife and I had no time.
I do play in a Pathfinder group with some friends. And that's... well... it's nice to play with friends, but Pathfinder is designed to be played with published modules... either tiny episodic things where the story doesn't really matter, and the character-depth I like doesn't matter at all... or long adventure paths with story that doesn't really matter, and the character-depth I like doesn't matter at all. The rule set could work with a home grown campaign setting, and the GM could write their own stuff just fine... but that's not what we do. So, I'm not really invested in the characters or story, and I don't feel compelled to talk about it with the other players between sessions... it's not a good enough TV show.
We meet once every two weeks on Thursdays. It's nice to get out of the house to play, but like I said... it doesn't really scratch the itch. The role it does pay for me, is to make sure I see some friends regularly. But for role playing game fun, it would help if it wasn't essentially a video game on paper. I dislike class/level systems in general, and the d20 dice mechanic sucks in my opinion.
What I want is my depth of story back, and to use a system I like. What I want is my Saturday evening GURPS sessions back. And I want players who invest emotionally in their characters. I want time to spend working on my settings, and I want to share a story that gets modified in ways I wouldn't have predicted by my wonderful clever players who have really cool ideas of their own.
It helps me to sink into imagination like that. But I don't get to have that right now. Not only do I not have time, but I don't have enough players that want to get it going again.
And two of the players are very new to role playing. Two more are somewhat new. And one is an expert that loves this as much as I do. The expert is great, though we butt heads now and then. The two somewhat new players are good, and get into it a bit... but I think we still have a threshold to cross where they feel comfortable enough with the rules that they then feel comfortable with the choices they can make in the game.
The two completely new players are really nice people, and they have been trying, but I feel like either I'm failing to... well... as I think about this... I guess the highest probability is that I'm failing. I've been playing GURPS and TTRPGs in general since December of 1989, meaning that as of the writing of this essay, I have a bit over 29 years of TTRPG experience. And I'm probably considering things obvious that aren't actually obvious to new players. So, it's probably mainly my fault, but the new players aren't picking things up quickly, and seem to be making choices that result in purposely ridiculous characters for the sake of humor instead of taking things a little more seriously.
It's daunting to me. My wife told me I should run some Pathfinder for them to help them learn what they're doing, but my heart just sank. I started buying some modules, and trying to prep for it, but I couldn't follow through. I just don't want to run Pathfinder. It's not a system I like, and I hate that it would be pre-made shallow stories that don't care what the background of the characters is. My wife was trying to be helpful. But I couldn't clearly explain what was happening in my head.
Maybe if I set up an introduction campaign in GURPS. Instead of complicated widespread sci fi with technology that not everyone knows and too many choices... I make a setting that's more fantasy. Players won't have as much setting knowledge to obtain and the rules they need to learn can be drastically trimmed. But it would still be a primer for GURPS instead of PF/D&D/d20-Fantasy.
I think my wife would support it. And maybe I can get buy-in from players. And maybe I can help bring new players in, instead of expecting too much. Okay... I've written enough. I don't know that this post will be of interest to anyone at all, but I'm posting it anyway. Kind of a journal entry, and it helps me to have written it.
Friday, March 8, 2019
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Politics: Gun Law Change for Gun Rights Supporters
I am a supporter of citizen rights to keep an bear arms. I grew up in a military family and learned to shoot starting around age 6. I enjoy target shooting quite a bit, and I tend to prefer pistols over rifles. I know there are a lot of modern pistols with some pretty nice improvements, but my favorite pistol is still a simple Beretta 92 FS. Going shooting with friends is a great way to relax and have fun. I just want to be clear that I enjoy firearms as a hobby, and support firearm rights in general.
But I also think that gun laws need to change some. And I'm writing this essay because I feel like staunch supporters of gun rights are assuming much more extreme things than what most people who want change actually want to do. I feel like a staunch gun rights supporter will assume when I wrote "gun laws need to change" that I mean we need to ban guns and take them away from law-abiding citizens. Or some equally extreme change that is way beyond what I think should happen.
A staunch gun rights supporter might also be thinking: "why change anything? It works fine right now!". And that's kind of a straw man argument I just set up, but I think the point I'm trying to make will stand on its own. I think we need some change because I'm not okay with my kids having to go to school worrying about being shot. I'm not okay with anyone's kids having to worrying about dying at school. We're a FIRST WORLD COUNTRY right? Aren't we supposed to not have incidents where children die because other kids took a gun to school and shot people? It's not limited to kids of course... adults killing other adults is awful too. And while I agree that changing gun laws doesn't address people who are emotionally broken and who have no criminal record deciding and planning to kill people... the idea that gun laws work fine is incorrect. Something we're doing is not working. Too many people die by being shot including children. And I'm not okay with that.
I'm hoping at this point that you're open to hearing some thoughts on changes that don't include taking anyone's legally owned guns away. I'm not looking to ban all guns. What I want is for us to change something. What do we change?
The first thing we need to do is research. We need to understand the problem better. If we make big changes without information, we're shooting in the dark, and the chance of success is very low. Why haven't we already done research on gun violence? It seems like a really reasonable thing to do right? Get information about a problem to help you address it? Unfortunately, the last time it was tried, it was lead by a man who was biased against guns and who may have fudged results to get what he wants. This was horrendously stupid of him because it gave the NRA a leg to stand on to prevent all research. And that's what they did... they pushed legislation to make further research extremely difficult...
How the NRA Worked to Stifle Gun Violence Research
Why Gun Violence Research Has Been Shut Down for 20 Years
So, we ended up in a situation where the NRA acted as a blockade for information instead of eagerly funding research. Imagine how different things could be if the NRA had chosen to act responsibly for the safety of people and for the protection of gun rights. In an argument, reality and fact are the most important ways to win. The NRA could have pushed to get good information so they could fill the role of teacher about gun responsibility and safety. But instead, they chose to use money to end the argument as though they were afraid of facts. If keeping the status quo really is the best option, the facts will support that. But the NRA doesn't even seem to believe its own stance... because they aren't willing to do any research. They're not interested in doing what's right... they're assuming the other side wants to take their stuff and it doesn't matter what else is involved... no one is taking their guns (which again... isn't what the majority of gun law reform folks want). The NRA is being an intractable old man that won't change their minds even if changing their minds would be a good thing. I think I'm a lifetime member of the NRA because my grandparents bought me the membership... but the NRA stopped representing me a long time ago. I dislike the NRA because they're not being a good influence on society anymore. They're just being stubborn dangerous ignorant jerks.
What the NRA should do is spend their money to broaden their teaching and safety programs to encourage more people to go to local shooting ranges and try out target shooting while learning about gun safety and responsibility. Stop using money to prevent progress.
Anyway... I went on a tangent there. We need information about what could work to make the gun violence situation better. We need research. And we can overcome bias and lies by making the research open... everyone gets to know what's going on. Heck... have the NRA send a representative or a few who get to act as a watchdog that can express disagreement but not stifle anything. We need information.
But there are things we can try in the meantime that make sense too...
Gun Background Check System Riddled with Flaws
It seems obvious that this is something we should encourage our government to address. And I hope it seems like a rational thing to do even to someone who is a staunch gun rights supporter. This action wouldn't stop anyone who is legally supposed to be able to own a firearm from buying one. It just means criminals won't slip through cracks as easily. And it even has the potential to reduce mass shootings because several of the most famous ones were committed by people who had criminal records or who had recorded mental health issues that would have prevented the purchase of those firearms they used. Though I'll admit that some might have found other means (Timothy McVeigh comes to mind). But just because determined people will find a way to hurt or kill others doesn't mean we shouldn't address a problem in the system for keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.
First, armed rebellion isn't going to happen. Things would have to get a lot worse before enough people were willing to organize to try something like that. Second, the military and police would be the deciding factor regardless of citizen armament. If the military still supports the government, then the citizens don't stand a chance. But if the military is full of our parents, siblings, cousins, and children... people who are also citizens of this country... and they agree that the government is broken to the point where armed rebellion is the only option... then our guns wouldn't matter either. The fact that the government would have a list of gun owners wouldn't factor into it at all.
One more thing to consider with this suggestion is that there's no way the government could enforce registering the guns people already own. If you want your existing arsenal to stay off the list... it can stay off the list. If you want to buy a new gun... then that gun will be on the list along with your name. But, really, this step accomplishes something else.
I think it's worth licensing people for gun ownership because it's a step in the process that allows us to force potential gun owners to go through safety training. It's really just like a car. An untrained person has a lot more potential to hurt people than a trained one. It also gives the opportunity during training for instructors to impress upon the students how much of a responsibility ownership and use is. And it socializes gun owners to a degree. You take a class over a period of time that introduces you to other people who are looking to be legal gun owners. You might make new friends that way. And it might help with disenfranchised people connecting with others.
And it won't stop people who should have the right to buy a gun from doing so. We all just go get licensed; refresh our own knowledge; and participate in spreading good gun information to more people who otherwise wouldn't get it. Having training classes like this also is more inviting and could do a lot to improve the reputation of gun ownership in this country. There are millions of gun owners, but most of what people in general are aware of is the people who do bad things with guns. Making this more public can shine a light on gun ownership that is favorable.
The registration part of this idea is probably mostly meant to support the next idea I'll write about in the next section, so I'll address it more there...
Sellers of guns should be likewise responsible. If they don't do a background check, and sell the gun anyway... that's just stupid. Sellers should be responsible for making sure a person who shouldn't own a gun doesn't get one through them. At a convention or trade show, someone selling a gun there should also have to run the background check, and should also be responsible for not selling to a criminal. And they should transfer the registration to the new person.
If buying a gun the legal way means having yourself tied to the gun legally, legal gun owners are likely to pay more attention to making sure it's kept safely when not in use, and criminals will have a harder time not being connected to crimes committed with those guns. Really, it's just like a car. You are responsible for not letting people get hurt with your car.
To be clear, I don't think gun owners should be responsible for the specific crime committed with their gun by someone else, but they should be responsible for allowing their gun to be used criminally. Fines up to jail time. I know I would be careful with owned guns and who I let even hold them. I SHOULD be scared to let my guns be handled irresponsibly or criminally.
But the statement also makes an assumed connection. It assumes that because the laws we're talking about changing won't help people with severe enough mental health issues, that the laws won't help with gun violence rates. That's a false equation.
We definitely should do research into stress in our society and see what extra stuff we can do to help people not become part of the problem in the first place. There's no question there. It's a path to a better community. But we need to be more responsible with guns too.
The teacher should not have to pay more for gun classes, a gun, ammo, and to give up more of their time to become proficient with a gun so they can teach our children. And the thought that a teacher would have to deal with a combat situation like a soldier is ridiculous. Flat out ridiculous.
And then remember who they're expected to point a gun at. They're expected to point a gun at a kid that is shooting other kids. A freaking kid. Yes... they chose poorly and chose violence without cause. And you would be legally and morally right to stop that kid from hurting anyone else. But it's a kid. Can you imagine your child being the aggressor? It's important that you do. How much do you love your child? How much does it hurt your heart to think that someone might point a gun at them to shoot them, and that your kid dying would be the morally right thing? Jesus... the whole situation is awful, and the suggestion is that we expect a teacher who has loved their students and given themselves to helping children grow into informed adults... to shoot one of those kids in a live fire situation that soldiers sometimes panic in... it's still ridiculous.
One more way to think about this that makes it ridiculous: Even if teachers could afford being armed and were emotionally prepared to shoot at a child and trained like a soldier, there's still shooting. The aggressor kid has to have shot some people first and is likely to keep going. The teacher has to retrieve their gun and then shoot the kid. People are still dying tragically. Children are still dying at school. Arming teachers doesn't solve the problem at all. At best it reduces the number of deaths. And that's good I guess. But it's no where near good enough. The idea that anyone would suggest spending the time and money to arm teachers and then expect of them the ability to shoot anyone is preposterously wasteful and cruel.
The real problem is that the gun owner parents screwed up. They raised their kid in a way that lead the kid to thinking lethal violence is a solution, AND allowed that kid access to their guns. The solution to this problem is in large part the responsibility of every parent. Every parent needs to pay attention to their kids. Every parents needs to look for signs that their child is going down a dark path, and if so, then offer the child help. Talk to them and ask them what's wrong. Give them the support of knowing their parent actually care what's happening to them. Help them understand that dealing with emotional difficulties involved in growing up can be done without lashing out. And of course: keep guns out of their hands except when you are there to shoot with them. Teach them responsibility and the value of life.
I want to be able to send my kids to school without worrying about them getting shot. I want to go to restaurants without wondering if someone is going to choose that place and time to make a statement. The situation we're in together right now is that what we're doing isn't working well enough. Something needs to change. Let's figure it out and make changes that include new or modified gun control laws. Again... not taking things away... just making the legal obtaining of firearms a little more secure.
This average company has 20 employees plus the management team which includes a CEO. The employees each make $45,000 per year, and the CEO makes $16.2 million per year (45,000 times 360). That number SHOULD shock you. Regardless of the number of employees, that difference in pay IS the real-world wage gap in our country right now.
Now if you think about the idea that most homes have to be two income homes to pay for cost of living (mortgage or rent, electricity, water, heating, property taxes, food, car payments, insurance for house and cars, gas for the cars, an internet connection, and these days: cellphones), that means the common home has about $90,000 in income. Next look at this Forbes article which says that 78% of workers live paycheck to paycheck. That means that those people (and my family is among them) can't build up savings, and can't spend money on things like vacations or enjoying life. We can't go on expensive vacations. We can't buy a sports car for fun. We can't buy a vacation home. We can't even really afford home improvement projects even when they're necessary (my house is terrible on energy efficiency for heating and our heating system is mostly electric... nearly $40,000 in loans later and we're making the house more functional, but still not ideal, and our monthly outgoing money has gone up). My wife and I make more than the average, but with two 11 month old babies, cost of child care is eating up a good chunk of that, and we're barely treading water.
What we have is a situation where 78% of workers are living that way while CEOs and rich people in general are living off 150 times that. One year for them could fund a family's life for 150 years. How is that reasonable? Rich people are selfish assholes (potentially with some exceptions).
The CEO of our imaginary average company making over 16 million a year with 20 employees could choose to pay those employees three times what they're making (45,000 to 135,000 per year) by taking a pay cut of 1.8 million... they'd still be making over 14 million a year, and their employees lives would be ridiculously improved. They could start saving money, and even splurge a little. One parent could quit their job and stay home with the kids, or keep working and child care costs wouldn't hurt as much. Quality of life goes way up.
But what CEO is going to do that? What CEO is going to make it easier for only one member of the family to work? Companies want more people working... and giving us the freedom to have one member of the household not work is just not something I think they're likely to do. And what rich person thinks that any of their employees deserve more money? Rich people are selfish greedy assholes (potentially with some exceptions).
So, why do I bring this up in an essay about gun violence?
How much stress do you think the average person has living paycheck to paycheck without the freedom to take real breaks to decompress? How many people who commit suicide (the largest part of gun deaths per year in the U.S.) are doing so because they can't dig themselves out of financial trouble? Because they can't see a light at the end of the tunnel? How many people would be happier if rich people didn't have a stranglehold on us? I'm speculating so don't assume my implication is correct. But, it's a reasonable speculation.
And our children... how many families could afford to have one parent stay home with kids? How many of those emotionally broken children willing to kill others might have had parents that had more time for them? How many of those parents would have caught the signs instead of being exhausted for too little pay?
Of course there are a lot of factors that a layman like me just isn't aware of. But that's why I put this as a note at the end of the essay with disclaimers. It's just my hypothesis about a major factor in gun violence, and really most of the problems this country faces. Hopefully you found it interesting.
But I also think that gun laws need to change some. And I'm writing this essay because I feel like staunch supporters of gun rights are assuming much more extreme things than what most people who want change actually want to do. I feel like a staunch gun rights supporter will assume when I wrote "gun laws need to change" that I mean we need to ban guns and take them away from law-abiding citizens. Or some equally extreme change that is way beyond what I think should happen.
A staunch gun rights supporter might also be thinking: "why change anything? It works fine right now!". And that's kind of a straw man argument I just set up, but I think the point I'm trying to make will stand on its own. I think we need some change because I'm not okay with my kids having to go to school worrying about being shot. I'm not okay with anyone's kids having to worrying about dying at school. We're a FIRST WORLD COUNTRY right? Aren't we supposed to not have incidents where children die because other kids took a gun to school and shot people? It's not limited to kids of course... adults killing other adults is awful too. And while I agree that changing gun laws doesn't address people who are emotionally broken and who have no criminal record deciding and planning to kill people... the idea that gun laws work fine is incorrect. Something we're doing is not working. Too many people die by being shot including children. And I'm not okay with that.
I'm hoping at this point that you're open to hearing some thoughts on changes that don't include taking anyone's legally owned guns away. I'm not looking to ban all guns. What I want is for us to change something. What do we change?
The first thing we need to do is research. We need to understand the problem better. If we make big changes without information, we're shooting in the dark, and the chance of success is very low. Why haven't we already done research on gun violence? It seems like a really reasonable thing to do right? Get information about a problem to help you address it? Unfortunately, the last time it was tried, it was lead by a man who was biased against guns and who may have fudged results to get what he wants. This was horrendously stupid of him because it gave the NRA a leg to stand on to prevent all research. And that's what they did... they pushed legislation to make further research extremely difficult...
How the NRA Worked to Stifle Gun Violence Research
Why Gun Violence Research Has Been Shut Down for 20 Years
So, we ended up in a situation where the NRA acted as a blockade for information instead of eagerly funding research. Imagine how different things could be if the NRA had chosen to act responsibly for the safety of people and for the protection of gun rights. In an argument, reality and fact are the most important ways to win. The NRA could have pushed to get good information so they could fill the role of teacher about gun responsibility and safety. But instead, they chose to use money to end the argument as though they were afraid of facts. If keeping the status quo really is the best option, the facts will support that. But the NRA doesn't even seem to believe its own stance... because they aren't willing to do any research. They're not interested in doing what's right... they're assuming the other side wants to take their stuff and it doesn't matter what else is involved... no one is taking their guns (which again... isn't what the majority of gun law reform folks want). The NRA is being an intractable old man that won't change their minds even if changing their minds would be a good thing. I think I'm a lifetime member of the NRA because my grandparents bought me the membership... but the NRA stopped representing me a long time ago. I dislike the NRA because they're not being a good influence on society anymore. They're just being stubborn dangerous ignorant jerks.
What the NRA should do is spend their money to broaden their teaching and safety programs to encourage more people to go to local shooting ranges and try out target shooting while learning about gun safety and responsibility. Stop using money to prevent progress.
Anyway... I went on a tangent there. We need information about what could work to make the gun violence situation better. We need research. And we can overcome bias and lies by making the research open... everyone gets to know what's going on. Heck... have the NRA send a representative or a few who get to act as a watchdog that can express disagreement but not stifle anything. We need information.
But there are things we can try in the meantime that make sense too...
Improved Background Check System
We already have laws that say certain kinds of criminals aren't allowed to own firearms, and we have a background check system that is meant to help gun stores avoid selling to criminals. What I'm suggesting is that we improve a faulty system. If my understanding is correct, it's possible for a criminal to go to another state and pass the check because records of their crimes might be local to their home state. And in some cases crimes are recorded with one law enforcement body while another is where a check is made. The problem seems to be one of information sharing...Gun Background Check System Riddled with Flaws
It seems obvious that this is something we should encourage our government to address. And I hope it seems like a rational thing to do even to someone who is a staunch gun rights supporter. This action wouldn't stop anyone who is legally supposed to be able to own a firearm from buying one. It just means criminals won't slip through cracks as easily. And it even has the potential to reduce mass shootings because several of the most famous ones were committed by people who had criminal records or who had recorded mental health issues that would have prevented the purchase of those firearms they used. Though I'll admit that some might have found other means (Timothy McVeigh comes to mind). But just because determined people will find a way to hurt or kill others doesn't mean we shouldn't address a problem in the system for keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.
Licensing and Registration
Don't misunderstand... this next suggestion is a hard one for me to make. The idea of requiring a license and registering guns is one I dislike when I think about the government essentially having a list of gun owners should they ever decide to swing to fascist government that we need to rebel against. It tweaks me... but... then I also have to remember a couple other things.First, armed rebellion isn't going to happen. Things would have to get a lot worse before enough people were willing to organize to try something like that. Second, the military and police would be the deciding factor regardless of citizen armament. If the military still supports the government, then the citizens don't stand a chance. But if the military is full of our parents, siblings, cousins, and children... people who are also citizens of this country... and they agree that the government is broken to the point where armed rebellion is the only option... then our guns wouldn't matter either. The fact that the government would have a list of gun owners wouldn't factor into it at all.
One more thing to consider with this suggestion is that there's no way the government could enforce registering the guns people already own. If you want your existing arsenal to stay off the list... it can stay off the list. If you want to buy a new gun... then that gun will be on the list along with your name. But, really, this step accomplishes something else.
I think it's worth licensing people for gun ownership because it's a step in the process that allows us to force potential gun owners to go through safety training. It's really just like a car. An untrained person has a lot more potential to hurt people than a trained one. It also gives the opportunity during training for instructors to impress upon the students how much of a responsibility ownership and use is. And it socializes gun owners to a degree. You take a class over a period of time that introduces you to other people who are looking to be legal gun owners. You might make new friends that way. And it might help with disenfranchised people connecting with others.
And it won't stop people who should have the right to buy a gun from doing so. We all just go get licensed; refresh our own knowledge; and participate in spreading good gun information to more people who otherwise wouldn't get it. Having training classes like this also is more inviting and could do a lot to improve the reputation of gun ownership in this country. There are millions of gun owners, but most of what people in general are aware of is the people who do bad things with guns. Making this more public can shine a light on gun ownership that is favorable.
The registration part of this idea is probably mostly meant to support the next idea I'll write about in the next section, so I'll address it more there...
Responsibility for Your Guns
Right now, a gun owner isn't necessarily legally responsible for their guns. I think gun owners should be. If someone breaks into my home, and steals my gun while I'm on vacation, I didn't secure the gun enough. That's my fault. If the criminal then uses the gun to hurt someone, they are completely responsible for their actions, but I bear some responsibility for allowing my gun to be used that way.Sellers of guns should be likewise responsible. If they don't do a background check, and sell the gun anyway... that's just stupid. Sellers should be responsible for making sure a person who shouldn't own a gun doesn't get one through them. At a convention or trade show, someone selling a gun there should also have to run the background check, and should also be responsible for not selling to a criminal. And they should transfer the registration to the new person.
If buying a gun the legal way means having yourself tied to the gun legally, legal gun owners are likely to pay more attention to making sure it's kept safely when not in use, and criminals will have a harder time not being connected to crimes committed with those guns. Really, it's just like a car. You are responsible for not letting people get hurt with your car.
To be clear, I don't think gun owners should be responsible for the specific crime committed with their gun by someone else, but they should be responsible for allowing their gun to be used criminally. Fines up to jail time. I know I would be careful with owned guns and who I let even hold them. I SHOULD be scared to let my guns be handled irresponsibly or criminally.
Mental Health
I should address this. I'm not recommending new laws around it. I'm bringing it up because a common thing I've heard is the idea of not changing gun laws because they can't do anything to help a mentally disturbed person. There's some truth to the statement in that changing the gun laws won't help the mentally disturbed person. And we SHOULD see what we can do to help people depressed enough to consider suicide, or emotionally broken enough to think lashing out by killing others is the right thing to do.But the statement also makes an assumed connection. It assumes that because the laws we're talking about changing won't help people with severe enough mental health issues, that the laws won't help with gun violence rates. That's a false equation.
We definitely should do research into stress in our society and see what extra stuff we can do to help people not become part of the problem in the first place. There's no question there. It's a path to a better community. But we need to be more responsible with guns too.
Should we arm the teachers?
No. No. Definitely No. It's the dumbest idea that came out of recent mass shootings at schools. It's stupid in every way. First, consider who our teachers are. I'm imagining a 70 year old that has trouble walking smoothly. This person has dedicated their lives to teaching children. And for their dedication they get under paid and are expected to fund their own classroom supplies. This person has chosen to live their life so that we (when we were children) and our children can be given the power of knowledge.The teacher should not have to pay more for gun classes, a gun, ammo, and to give up more of their time to become proficient with a gun so they can teach our children. And the thought that a teacher would have to deal with a combat situation like a soldier is ridiculous. Flat out ridiculous.
And then remember who they're expected to point a gun at. They're expected to point a gun at a kid that is shooting other kids. A freaking kid. Yes... they chose poorly and chose violence without cause. And you would be legally and morally right to stop that kid from hurting anyone else. But it's a kid. Can you imagine your child being the aggressor? It's important that you do. How much do you love your child? How much does it hurt your heart to think that someone might point a gun at them to shoot them, and that your kid dying would be the morally right thing? Jesus... the whole situation is awful, and the suggestion is that we expect a teacher who has loved their students and given themselves to helping children grow into informed adults... to shoot one of those kids in a live fire situation that soldiers sometimes panic in... it's still ridiculous.
One more way to think about this that makes it ridiculous: Even if teachers could afford being armed and were emotionally prepared to shoot at a child and trained like a soldier, there's still shooting. The aggressor kid has to have shot some people first and is likely to keep going. The teacher has to retrieve their gun and then shoot the kid. People are still dying tragically. Children are still dying at school. Arming teachers doesn't solve the problem at all. At best it reduces the number of deaths. And that's good I guess. But it's no where near good enough. The idea that anyone would suggest spending the time and money to arm teachers and then expect of them the ability to shoot anyone is preposterously wasteful and cruel.
The real problem is that the gun owner parents screwed up. They raised their kid in a way that lead the kid to thinking lethal violence is a solution, AND allowed that kid access to their guns. The solution to this problem is in large part the responsibility of every parent. Every parent needs to pay attention to their kids. Every parents needs to look for signs that their child is going down a dark path, and if so, then offer the child help. Talk to them and ask them what's wrong. Give them the support of knowing their parent actually care what's happening to them. Help them understand that dealing with emotional difficulties involved in growing up can be done without lashing out. And of course: keep guns out of their hands except when you are there to shoot with them. Teach them responsibility and the value of life.
Summary
I think I've rambled enough. My hope is to point out to staunch gun rights supporters that people who want change aren't rabid extremists that want to confiscate your guns or make it illegal to own and use guns. I want to see research done that might save lives. I want to see government agencies sharing information better and strengthening the background check system. I want to see potential gun owners being trained and licensed. I want to see guns registered so that owners have to be more responsible with their firearms...I want to be able to send my kids to school without worrying about them getting shot. I want to go to restaurants without wondering if someone is going to choose that place and time to make a statement. The situation we're in together right now is that what we're doing isn't working well enough. Something needs to change. Let's figure it out and make changes that include new or modified gun control laws. Again... not taking things away... just making the legal obtaining of firearms a little more secure.
Additional Thoughts
I have a hypothesis that a major contributing factor to gun violence (suicides, mass shootings, and even violent robberies) is the wealth gap. When you consider that the average CEO of a company makes over 360 times what their average employee makes (Forbes article from May 2018), and that the average pay in the United States is about $45,000 per year (Average Salary article... note the difference between the service industry and profession occupations). If we go with an average number of employees around 20 (that average is for this thought experiment only, since according to this really interesting article about average number of employees, 90% of U.S. companies have fewer than 20 employees, but some companies go up above 500. If my math is right based on their chart, the average number of employees all around is 19.9, so I'm using 20), we can imagine a fairly disturbing hypothetical company...This average company has 20 employees plus the management team which includes a CEO. The employees each make $45,000 per year, and the CEO makes $16.2 million per year (45,000 times 360). That number SHOULD shock you. Regardless of the number of employees, that difference in pay IS the real-world wage gap in our country right now.
Now if you think about the idea that most homes have to be two income homes to pay for cost of living (mortgage or rent, electricity, water, heating, property taxes, food, car payments, insurance for house and cars, gas for the cars, an internet connection, and these days: cellphones), that means the common home has about $90,000 in income. Next look at this Forbes article which says that 78% of workers live paycheck to paycheck. That means that those people (and my family is among them) can't build up savings, and can't spend money on things like vacations or enjoying life. We can't go on expensive vacations. We can't buy a sports car for fun. We can't buy a vacation home. We can't even really afford home improvement projects even when they're necessary (my house is terrible on energy efficiency for heating and our heating system is mostly electric... nearly $40,000 in loans later and we're making the house more functional, but still not ideal, and our monthly outgoing money has gone up). My wife and I make more than the average, but with two 11 month old babies, cost of child care is eating up a good chunk of that, and we're barely treading water.
What we have is a situation where 78% of workers are living that way while CEOs and rich people in general are living off 150 times that. One year for them could fund a family's life for 150 years. How is that reasonable? Rich people are selfish assholes (potentially with some exceptions).
The CEO of our imaginary average company making over 16 million a year with 20 employees could choose to pay those employees three times what they're making (45,000 to 135,000 per year) by taking a pay cut of 1.8 million... they'd still be making over 14 million a year, and their employees lives would be ridiculously improved. They could start saving money, and even splurge a little. One parent could quit their job and stay home with the kids, or keep working and child care costs wouldn't hurt as much. Quality of life goes way up.
But what CEO is going to do that? What CEO is going to make it easier for only one member of the family to work? Companies want more people working... and giving us the freedom to have one member of the household not work is just not something I think they're likely to do. And what rich person thinks that any of their employees deserve more money? Rich people are selfish greedy assholes (potentially with some exceptions).
So, why do I bring this up in an essay about gun violence?
How much stress do you think the average person has living paycheck to paycheck without the freedom to take real breaks to decompress? How many people who commit suicide (the largest part of gun deaths per year in the U.S.) are doing so because they can't dig themselves out of financial trouble? Because they can't see a light at the end of the tunnel? How many people would be happier if rich people didn't have a stranglehold on us? I'm speculating so don't assume my implication is correct. But, it's a reasonable speculation.
And our children... how many families could afford to have one parent stay home with kids? How many of those emotionally broken children willing to kill others might have had parents that had more time for them? How many of those parents would have caught the signs instead of being exhausted for too little pay?
Of course there are a lot of factors that a layman like me just isn't aware of. But that's why I put this as a note at the end of the essay with disclaimers. It's just my hypothesis about a major factor in gun violence, and really most of the problems this country faces. Hopefully you found it interesting.
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