Posted

Apr 25th 2007

Mood

Serious

Music

Bjork

I was thinking about gun control and America today - weighing what makes guns such a paradox: the single most dangerous item an average person can obtain and yet something that the public is totally fixated on. Guns are not IN the media, they ARE the media. You see them everywhere. They are "cool" and available - the gun companies' job is almost done for them.

I think the main reason that guns cause so much death is this: they are an extremely powerful weapon that doesn't LOOK like it can kill you. I know this may sound shallow, but hear me out. When the average person looks at a very sharp knife, they get nervous without even touching it. They've been cut before; they know exactly how much getting their skin sliced open hurts. Same thing with blunt objects. I've been hit in the face with a golf club before (accident), so I know how much it hurts. The conclusion drawn is that if the user of an object knows first-hand how much it can hurt, they will be wary of using it, especially against someone else. I am taking a step back from being a complete cynic and assuming that on the whole, people don't want to hurt each other - that passion and emotion have to work to overcome this basic resistance to injuring another human being.

Guns are different. You can't imagine accurately how much it will hurt to have a bullet bore a hole through your own flesh and bone. It's too much of a leap. The gun can't cut you and you don't have to swing it at someone else. All you have to do it point it at someone and pull a little lever. It's as easy as turning on your television.

This removes the vast psychological barrier to hurting other people. If you go to a shooting range and watch people try using handguns for the first time, you see that before they've shot, they are generally only a litter nervous or excited. Their hands are fairly steady; they show no obvious distress. However, when they fire, you notice that even being guided by someone that has done it before, the shooter flinches, closes their eyes, yells in surprise, or even drops the weapon. There is no preparation for having such a small, strange looking device make that much noise. The same thing happens when a gun user points a gun at another person. There is no "when I swing this at you, it will tear through your flesh and make you scream". There is just point... and click. At that point it's too late to worry about the aftermath.

As such, I propose a new program in America's schools. It will be called National Gun Appreciation Week, and will be held at the beginning of the school year. Participation will be a requirement to graduate. On the first day of National Gun Appreciation Week, all of the students in one of the more advanced high-school grades (11th or 12th, I was thinking) will be taken outside and lined up against one of the school walls. The teachers of these students will each receive a handgun and will divide the students up by homeroom. Then, at the appointed time, the teachers will shoot each student in the upper thigh, one after the other. The students will immediately be loaded onto waiting ambulances and taken to the hospital, where they will be treated. The rest of the week will be recuperation for these students, as they heal and undergo counseling.

I predict that accidents involving students and guns will drop like a stone and that actual gun violence will also decrease by a significant amount.

And yes, I would participate in this myself. I've always wondered how much it would hurt to get shot.