It's official, this whole damn country is a free-fire zone. I was just reading here that in the last month we've had 45 mass shootings (defined as at least four wounded or killed excluding shooters) here in the US. While I have my suspicions that that particular definition was used in part for the headlines it generates, that doesn't change the fact that we're some trigger happy S.O.B.s around these parts.
We've already got more guns than people in this country and that's not counting what the police and military have and we're still setting new records for gun purchases. This country is in an arms race with itself we're WINNING! At least we know where all that stimulus money is going...
While you can't read the words mass shooting and not encounter gun control shortly thereafter, that's not what this is about. For reasons both legal and practical (Heller decision, current Supreme Court and Senate makeup, 3D printed lower receivers), gun control is not likely to resolve the situation anytime soon. Rather than rehash points and counterpoints we've all heard too many times about gun control, I want to discuss the opposite (opposite is probably not quite the right word but bear with me).
So decentralization is kinda the name of the game in crypto, right? And it doesn't get more centralized than a government 'solution', no? So if we want to avoid adding a War on Guns to that list of incredibly successful 'solutions' that includes the wars on poverty, drugs, and terror, what do we do? How do we decentralize this, resolve this from the ground up rather than wait for some 'solution' to be imposed from on high?
There are innumerable issues that are interconnected with firearms deaths here (hell, nearly twice as many Americans die each year due to suicide by gun as die because of homicide by gun), I'm well aware that there are no simple, easy solutions. Still, it seems unconscionable to simply shrug and say "that's the way it is" or "Welcome to America" (even though our system of government seems designed to inspire those responses). My question to y'all is, how do we break this down into bite sizes pieces that individuals and small groups can work to address?
We've been locked into this false dichotomy of gun control vs 2nd Amendment for so long that it seems our thinking has ossified, so let's shoot the box full of holes and think outside of it. Drop me a comment (or write your own post and tag me in it) with any thoughts or ideas you have.
(I've posted most of these photos before, I'm including them to illustrate the amount of ordnance that can turn up in the streets on short notice around here)