So a Muslim walks into a bar. And he’s got a gun.
Or maybe he’s not a Muslim — he’s some big guy in a hoodie. Perhaps he looks Mexican or Asian. The point is that he’s different from the mostly white, mostly male comment warriors who roamed the web after the Aurora massacre, talking up a high-caliber utopia in which everyone is safer because everyone is carrying a gun.
The He-Men. When they think about a world in which everyone is packing, they think of people with faces and values similar to their own. Things get murkier when the other person doesn’t look like someone who might be sitting next to you in church. Even if they happen to be an American citizen with the same constitutional right to a firearm.
Fighting gun violence by encouraging more people to carry handguns is like bleeding a patient to save his life. The Hillbilly Hipster fad of conspicuous carry isn’t the solution to mass violence, though it might be a end up being a boon to ammunition factories.
Outlawing ownership of body armor by private citizens would be a good start. Creating the conditions for people to live fulfilling, less stressful lives would be another: Jobs that matter; economic conditions which support stable families and relationships; and ready access to health care, including mental health counseling.
In short, things which make for happy and coherent societies. But don’t expect coherence from the He-Men, who want to impose a frontier justice that didn’t work in the Wild West, and won’t work now.
