But why?
I have no actual clue as to how, but Americans are buying a LOT of guns for Christmas.
The FBI processed 185,345 background checks — roughly two per second — as Americans took to local malls to buy their loved ones Christmas gifts. That was up five percent from Black Friday 2014, the Associated Press reported. The weapons purchasing spree came as a man fatally shot three people and wounded nine others in an attack at a Planned Parenthood office in Colorado on the same day.
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Americans tend to purchase guns after major shootings. The previous record for the most background checks in a single day was Dec. 21, 2012, days after 20 children and six adults were fatally shot in a Connecticut elementary school. At the time, more than 953,613 gun background checks were processed by federal officials.
So holidays plus 2 mass shootings in less than a week and gun sales are booming.
But why?
I have no real fact-based answer. I have what I think to be a ‘perspective’ on ‘why’: that people actually believe guns are (A) safe and (B) actually useful — they actually believe the NRA/Gun Culture idealism that guns are somehow magical protectors of the family, ready to be accurately deployed in a nanosecond, as if the purchase of a gun automatically makes one “Rambo”.
I have had 2 particular psychotherapy clients in the last several years who were/are older women, severely depressed, one had diabetes-related amputation of one leg who feel very vulnerable (terrified) to live alone. They had guns and slept with them under their pillows. I would regularly ask them if they still do this and for a long time the lady with diabetes said she did. She also had a hammer and a knife.
I’d ask her “what are you going to do? Wake up in the middle of the night, grab that thing and hit bullseyes while you are groggy and frightened? I don’t think so”. Both ladies insisted on this.
And that is, I think, because of what I call the Myth of the Gun — the idea that the gun is somehow a magical protector. Part of it, clearly, is too much TV and too many movies for Americans. This idea is so repeated, so pervasive in this country at this time, many people just take it for granted now: it’s true reality for them.
This, in turn, is primarily due to NRA propaganda and the spreading and reinforcing of the Myth of the Gun. When not scaremongering Gun Culture about “the gummint’s gonna take yer gunz!!!1!” they have Insane Wayne in front of a microphone talking about how mom needs an AR-15 to fend off street gangs in the kitchen during breakfast.
And people buy this nonsense hook, line, and sinker. The NRA plays them like a fiddle.
WHile many here on the Left clamor for far stricter laws — which is fine: gun laws are just too lax for how dangerous guns truly are — these is a truly pressing need to start systematically countering and nullifying NRA gun culture propaganda.
And this preposterous mentality has actually warped the whole concept of Christmas, if you think about it for just a moment. Stemming from the age-old saw “God, Guns, and Guts” one can see Christianity in AMerica has amended the “thou shalt not kill” bit from the Main List of Christian Rules: The 10 Commandments.
Lawmakers like to go on about getting God back into the government, etc.. they like to violate the constitution and stick 10 Commandment plaques on state property and the like. But they just totally run interference on any effort to increase gun safety and decrease gun violence and negligence. The NRA has encouraged them through repeated application of thousands of dollars per politicians to run this interference. Thou shalt not kill, but it is A-OK to stock up on killing machines, particularly for the celebration of the birth of Jesus.
These same lawmakers are offering “thoughts and prayers” for all the people killed and maimed by guns which have fallen into the ‘wrong hands’ but they aren’t about to lift a finger to do a damned thing about it. The NRA gives them so much money to keep them in line and then threatens them with replacement should they think about developing a conscience.
They CAN develop a conscience……..after they leave office: Republican Congressman Who Initiated Ban On Gun Violence Research Now Regrets Doing It
[James] Dickey (R-Ar), who once described himself as the “NRA’s point person in Congress”, conceded in the interview that his move to ban the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from studying the impact of firearm ownership on public health was a big mistake and that we are paying for it now as a country.
“I wish we had started the proper research and kept it going all this time,” Dickey admitted. “If we had somehow gotten the research going, we could have somehow found a solution to the gun violence without there being any restrictions on the Second Amendment. We could have used that all these years to develop the equivalent of that little small fence.”
The Myth of the Gun is really defenseless when factual data is recognized and THAT’S why these morons have run interference against collecting said data: it will ruin all sorts of happy thoughts about how useful and awesome that gun I got for Xmas really is.
Factual data on guns destroys this bullshit-based mythology and, as other want to increase regulations on gun acquisition and possession, I believe, strongly, we need a campaign of PSA’s (public service announcements) that confront the Myth of the Gun head-on, directly and robustly.
That’s what I want for Xmas.