More than Outliers

This week on Blogger Idol I published what would have been my "End of the Month Controversy." 

To be honest, this is not what I would have published here, as my Controversy. I like to take the time to go truly in depth in these topics. To explain every angle, to answer questions before they're asked.

But I had an 800 word maximum, and that meant I didn't get to do the subject the way I would have liked.

So you'll have to settle for this instead. I hope you enjoy it. :)


More than Outliers

A well regulated

You might have to cross state lines, or even go online, but you can get a gun. You can get a gun if you don't have a license. You can get a gun if you've had no training. You can get a gun if your wife has a restraining order after you bloodied her face and threatened her life. You can get a gun if you have severe PTSD or schizophrenia. You can get a gun if you're drunk. You can get a gun if you're blind.

There are about 270 million guns registered to civilians in the United States. 90 guns per 100 people. That's only the number that are registered, and only an estimate. We don't even know how many guns we have .

But we do know how many people guns kill each year. Each day, in my city, it's nearly two deaths every single day.

It's hardly even news.

militia

I could tell you how many times I've seen a gun in the last ten years, being emptied blindly in the midst of a pointless argument, as onlookers scatter. I need both hands to count the times I've peered through my windows to give descriptions to 911, cataloged nondescript grey sweatpants and white t-shirts running towards the trees behind my building. I could tell you my neighbors nearly moved after a bullet implanted itself in the headrest of their minivan's driver's seat.

I could tell you when I worked in the projects everyone carried a gun. They'd all been shot, had scars of torn flesh and children and brothers and parents lost. Because a bullet doesn't mourn.

And I will tell you the untrained, reckless, panicked or boasting masses in the streets are as unlike a militia as the third shift wait staff at Denny's.

being necessary to the security

When somebody decides to kill, they nearly always use a gun.

We know gun manufacturers like to say you need a gun to protect you from a gun.

We know they lose nothing when their products take a life.

of a free state

America has more guns per capita than any other country in the world. America also has the most citizens in prison.

the right of the people to keep and bear arms

But only some arms. No anthrax, no smallpox blankets, no flash drive of information or can of napalm.

Only the machines that do nothing but wield death, that serve one purpose and one purpose only.

And two thirds of Americans who die from gunshot wounds? Aimed and fired at themselves.

Because a bullet doesn't hesitate.

shall not be infringed.

The sensation of a gun in your hands is exhilarating. Empowering. With a gun in your hands you feel powerful. With a gun in your hands, you feel in control.

We distance ourselves from mass shooters. Adam Lanzas and James Eagan Holmes and Black Trenchcoat Mafias... we say they are disturbed, evil, psychotic. We call them monsters. We say that without guns, they would have found another way to kill. That society's failings are those of our abysmal mental health care resources, not the gun lobby.

Most public shooters aren't psychopaths without a conscience- they are people, seeking the validation of notoriety. And notoriety they receive. But their body count is minutiae compared to the everyday tally. The thousands of ignored fatalities.

Most shooting victims in my city are bystanders. People cowering in their houses when bullets fly, through walls and windows and human flesh.

Most other victims weren't facing mysterious assailants, but somebody they knew. The random murders of the world... those are the outliers.

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

These words were written by the same men, at the same time, as the 3/5s compromise. By the people who granted "inalienable rights" only to white men of property. These words are of a different time, of inexpressibly fallible character.

And had the authors of this one sentence been beyond reproach, would they have quaked at the prospect of so many dead, so fast, at the hands of so few?

The time is long past to ask- why do we want this kind of weapon? Why is it acceptable to profess your dedication to a murder machine made of metal and not of sarin gas?

And beyond that, what gives any person the right to wield another's death?

When will we finally acknowledge that yes, guns kill, and they have killed enough?

Sharing Gratitude

I'm grateful for this guy. For all of them.

You might have noticed a lot of posts about gratitude rolling around the internet.

It's a thing- this popularized notion of expressing gratitude every day for the month that includes Thanksgiving. And, in theory, I'm for it.

In practice however, there are problems. Namely, they are usually a distraction from actually experiencing gratitude.

Gratitude is very much like faith, it is personal. And even more importantly, it is humbling. What makes you grateful for something is an expression of your character, and it can rarely be condensed into something short and pithy. Especially when what is causing your gratitude actually makes you experience gratitude.

I'm grateful my baby finally started walking.

These posts... they come from the idea that it is healthy to experience gratitude daily. And the fact is, it is more than healthy to experience gratitude. It is healing. Gratitude is a balm to the soul. But listing gratitude and experiencing it are not the same.

And the biggest part of this is the idea that you need a variety of things to be grateful for.

"Today I am grateful for children who love me."
"Today I am grateful for food and water."
"Today I am grateful for God."

Nice sentiments, sure. But meaningless. The only thing that gives gratitude meaning is context.

I experience gratitude daily, and most days I don't share it. Most days I ignore it. Because gratitude becomes emotionally exhausting to revel in.

To roll around in your bed of humility and experience every drop that your life has to offer is to shake yourself to your foundations and abandon your mundane responsibilities, to give in to a feeling of something more important than yourself.

"Today I am grateful. My husband is alive and well, more than six years after learning he was supposed to die within two years. I get to sleep next to him every night, ignore him when he tries to wake me up in the morning, complain when he works late, badger him to take out the trash. I am grateful to have him with me in my life, not just because he might have been dead but because he brings more joy to my existence than I ever believed was possible. Even if he weren't a medical miracle, I would be grateful for him because I know how dark my own thoughts can be left to their own devices, and he saves me from them. I am grateful that he and I found each other and he loves me and married me and never puts his damn t-shirts in the hamper. Because having mundane problems keeps me from dwelling on how unfathomably lucky I am, and how constantly grateful I am for that."

I am so grateful to have these people in my life. I never
considered what a relationship with my in-laws could mean
to me, and I never have dreamed of having such kind,
thoughtful people offer their hearts to me.

You can't function when you are taking the time to truly experience your gratitude. To meditate on it. To embrace it.

"Today I am grateful that I survived the labor and delivery with my third child, after spending nearly five hours experiencing the onset of a uterine rupture. I am grateful to have survived and to be here with my children, with little more wear and tear than some PTSD and a new fear of anesthesia, or the lack thereof. I am grateful that I am alive."

I can sit and meditate on this thought, and yes, I do, but I certainly can't take care of the kids the same time. Gratitude requires attention.

"Today I am grateful that we have enough food to eat, that we don't have to make family trips to the WIC warehouse for formula and eggs and milk and rice. I am grateful that I have a full pantry and a full refrigerator. I am grateful that I'm not concocting recipes in a variation of dried beans and canned vegetables because it's the only food I can afford, or the only food WIC has to offer. I am grateful for parents and in-laws that bought us kitchens full of groceries whenever they came to town during M's unemployment, I am grateful for friends who took us out to eat and watched our children so we could feel like a regular pair of new parents, and take our thoughts off of the daily mundane worries of providing for two brand new mouths to feed."

Experiencing gratitude isn't about picking another thing that makes you happy today. It's about a transcendental emotion- one of the most profound emotions that human life has to offer. The feeling that something beyond you, perhaps greater than, but mostly just other, has done something for you.

And yes, you can be grateful to yourself. Or for yourself.

But all this gratitude lip-service only serves to distance us from the truth in our lives.

I am grateful for my parents, who have supported me in
every insane endeavor, and who are even better
grandparents than I imagined they would be.

I don't want to see a stop to these gratitude posts. Hardly. I want to see them actually express their
thankfulness. Their humility. Their humanity.

Tell me what you're grateful for. Really grateful. Tell me what humbles you. Tell me what makes you aware of your fragility, and the other lives and powers in the universe that allow you to ignore that fragility for the rest of the year.

That's what I want to read.

That's the gratitude we need.

Take a minute and feel it. Feel vulnerable. Feel frail. Feel insignificant in your place in the universe. And feel gratitude that somehow, people or things in your life that are beyond your control care about you.

That something over which you have no control has happened and preserved your happiness, your health, your very existence.

Feel that.

And then go about the rest of your day. Because no matter how deeply you experience your gratitude, you have to live. And life is mundane. And without distracting yourself from the emotions that divide you from your typical activities, you will drown in it.

Be grateful. And then stop being grateful and just take it for granted and get things done.

And then be grateful again.


What are you grateful for? Tell me your story.





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