The Comfort of Arms

Everybody needs one.

Gun control. I've been hearing an awful lot about it around here. The conversations I've been hearing locally have included comments that doctors should be allowed to openly carry in hospitals and clinics. Teachers should be allowed to openly carry in schools. I've heard claims that gun sales are way up-- spoken in a manner that endorsed the obvious wisdom of that action in light of the recent tragedy in Connecticut. I've heard statistics that fewer people die when an armed citizen is on the scene of a shooting. Everybody seems to have concealed weapons on their minds and on their hips. Needless to say, I haven't been hearing a whole lot of support for gun control. These people don't own a handgun. Most own several.

These conversations drive me crazy. They are fueled by nothing less than irrational fear. Fear that borders on panic. It's much the same kind of fear that gripped parts of this country in the 50's.

Every once in a while Ev and I will sit down and watch You Tube videos of things like planes, trains, tractors, trucks. You know, typical 5 year old boy eye candy. Tuesday evening we found a video about the B-58 Hustler, a supersonic bomber of the late 1950's and early 60's. It was built to carry nuclear bombs at supersonic speeds and deposit them precisely where needed: in the backyards of pinko commies who were probably just minutes away from doing the same to us. That airplane was a product of a time, a mindset, an irrational fear, that communist attack was imminent and only bigger, better, faster, and more jets, rockets, and bombs could keep us safe.

It seems we are revisiting the Cold War psychology. I guess I can't factually argue that the build up of offensive weapons didn't prevent nuclear disaster, maybe it did. I prefer to think it was more reactive hysteria.  Either way, I do hope that we have learned that the mass build up of weapons systems doesn't bring peace or peace of mind. The build up of weapons systems just brings more weapons, more worry, more potential for things to go horribly wrong.

I certainly hope Joe Biden can find the guts to step forward with a plan with real teeth; something on the order of the Australian plan. If we can't find the public and political voice to speak out and act at this dark juncture in American history, than we are the worst type of cowards: Armed, paranoid, and dangerous. In which case, I may just have to move my family to a well fortified property in Idaho and patrol the place from the air. In a bomber.