Should pacifists have to pay for gun control?

Well, yes. But so should gun fans – and I think they should be more responsible for picking up the tab, than anyone else. That said, we live in America, where we all pay taxes equally (unless you’re “too big to fail,” and then America basically pays you to be here, because capitalism).

This morning I read an article in the February 25th issue of Tompkins Weekly, by Sue Henninger, called “Gun Control Foes Speak Out.” It reads in part…

Richard Turere saves lions and cows

Richard Turere, a 13-year-old Maasai from Kenya, invented a solar-powered solution to lions killing cows, and humans killing lions: A device that mimics the look of a person walking with a flashlight, to scare lions away from cow sheds, preventing humans from lethal retaliation against the endangered predators.

Vegans may be interested in educating themselves about the Maasai, who present some very interesting questions regarding animal exploitation. They are able to live in desert and scrublands that are otherwise uninhabitable, and are extremely self-sufficient. And yet their way of life could not continue without the exploitation of cows. A debate between a fundamentalist abolitionist vegan and a Maasai person would be very interesting!

Via NPR; photo by James Duncan Davidson

Why I think all guns should be destroyed

I just read this article about the father of one of the people killed in Newtown, testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on an assault weapons ban, and I felt compelled to say, publicly: I think all guns, missiles, and bombs (with the possible exception of internationally-held systems for meteor defense — I think ahead!) should be melted down or otherwise destroyed. Let’s throw mines in there too.

This is why: right now, almost anyone can go out and buy a lot of deadly weapons. If one of them decided to go crazy, or just to be desperate and unhappy and in my area, they could do whatever they wanted to me, because they have a gun. If they only had a knife, or even a bow and arrow (though that would be really, really weird…), I could lock my door and fend them off. But if they have a gun, they can shoot right through my door, my walls, my windows. My only defense from this is to get a gun, myself, but statistics show me that I would be much more likely to accidentally kill myself or a family member than any intruder. I also like to go hiking, and have to put up with whole seasons of the year when people may or may not accidentally shoot me because they’re busy trying to track down and slaughter various defenseless animals. I have had absolutely no say in this whole situation. Basically I have found myself born into a world where people around me feel so strongly about bloodsports and faulty, outdated interpretations of our constitution (last I checked, an assault weapon was nothing like a musket, and a Libertarian does not a Militia member make), and as such, I have to be in daily fear of random violence, and have to feel pushed to join in that violence myself, just to defend myself and my family. That is totally unfair. I’m just using myself as an example here; this applies to all of us. And this is why I think guns have no place in civil society.

Guns are machines made solely to kill sentient beings. That is their purpose. I view them as a terrible mistake, and I hope that some day, we human beings will recognize the error of our ways. Imagine a world where no one ever has to fear a stray bullet. I want to live in that world, and I believe we will not get there unless each of us takes a stand and says NO to this cycle of violence.