Confronting gun culture

Another year has gone by with another staggering tally of gun deaths in the U.S. During 2023, 18,874 people were killed in homicides committed with guns — one-third of the victims were children or teenagers. And this past year’s 656 mass shootings was the second highest number on record.

The epidemic of gun violence has become so dire that nearly one in five adults in the United States has lost a family member to a gun death, and gun violence has surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death for American children.

While each horrific mass shooting is greeted with shock and prayers for the victims, political dysfunction in Washington has made substantial action by Congress impossible to achieve. Despite this partisan paralysis, in 2022, the Biden administration successfully pushed Congress to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the first major gun violence protection legislation in 30 years. President Biden highlighted the issue of gun violence in his 2023 State of the Union, and in March 2023 he signed an executive order increasing background checks and the use of “red flag” laws.

Make no mistake about it, gun control legislation is important, and Congress can and should do more. They should pass an assault weapon ban and universal background checks for prospective gun purchasers. There is no earthly reason why anyone should possess what was designed as a weapon of war. And why would we ever allow anyone to purchase a weapon without a license? Yet if we only look at what legislation we can pass, we are missing a fundamental point.

Legislation and policies alone will not solve the problem. Nor will the rather bizarre proposals from gun advocates that we turn our schools and other public places into maximum security facilities with armed guards and kindergarten teachers carrying concealed weapons, or that we allow airline passengers to carry weapons — thereby creating a “mutually assured destruction” stand-off on planes, or in movie theaters, places of worship, etc.

The reality goes beyond policies or legislation. It isn’t just that our guns are too sophisticated for our own good, or the obscene number of them in circulation. Our problem is simpler and deeper. It is our sick “gun culture.”

My generation grew up playing “cowboys and Indians” or “cops and robbers.” If we didn’t have cap pistols or toy rifles, we simply improvised with a pointed finger, a thumb trigger, and “pow, pow, you’re dead.” Today’s children do not play these games. Instead their guns exist in the virtual reality of video games in which they act out more fanciful tales of space invaders and fantasy futuristic heroes, all possessing more potent weapons. But they will also make do, when necessary, with sticks or fingers, morphing them into weapons possessed of all sorts of magical and destructive powers.

Let’s face it — from cradle to grave we are fed a steady diet of guns and violence. From cartoons, Westerns or cop shows, to video games and Quentin Tarantino’s bullet and blood fests, guns and shooting and killing are ingrained into our deep culture. Like “Mom and apple pie,” guns have become part of who we are as a nation.

There is a scene in the film noir cult classic “Gun Crazy” where Bart, the film’s main character, is shown staring longingly into a store window as a young boy. The object of his desire is a six-shooter. Unable to resist its call, he shatters the glass and attempts to steal the weapon, only to be arrested in the act.

The next scene has Bart standing before a judge trying to explain his obsession with guns. He tells the court, “I feel good when I’m shooting them. I feel awful good inside, like I’m somebody.”

“Gun Crazy” Bart’s fixation with the weapon is pathological and it leads ultimately to his demise. When I see the look on the faces of gun enthusiasts lining up to make what they fear may be their last purchase before “Democrats take our guns away,” I think of Bart. When I watch them sensually cradling their assault weapons or “zoned out” at the shooting range, I think of Bart, knowing that nothing good can come of it.

We know all this. And yet there continues to be an obsession not only with owning weapons but with blocking any reasonable controls on their ownership. In the end, we have a “gun crazy” culture, armed to the teeth, with some believing that they are the true patriots defending liberty against tyranny. Despite their rants and threats, there must be an increased public pressure demanding the passage of new laws banning assault weapons and requiring background checks. But until we have a prolonged and serious national discussion about our sick love affair with guns and purge ourselves of this pathological obsession, we will only be skirting around the edges of an issue that is killing us — every day.