I know, let’s clone Jesse Ventura and station a Ventura clone at each school across the country! Sound a little south of practical? If so, it’s actually an idea with more rationale than arming “certain teachers” across the country, an idea that has been increasingly proposed by members of the Republican Party as a remedy to the recent school killings in Connecticut.[1] The logic is as follows: fight gun violence with more guns! Brilliant! If only we could use this strategy with nuclear weapons, then the world would truly be MAD!
You’ve got to hand it to some Republicans, they really know how to turn the improbable into the highly likely. For instance, who would have thought that any party would have been audacious enough to openly propose probing a woman’s private parts? Brilliant! But the encore has been even more brilliantly mind-boggling in its utter absurdity.
The idea of putting weapons into the hands of individuals who are supposed to be seen by our country’s youth as role-models to exemplify, who are professionals trained to enlighten others with the pen (not the sword), who have had little say (to my knowledge) in the matter is the same as asking Albert Einstein to strap a bomb to his chest in case the Nazi’s attempt to kidnap him. The supposed solution could easily turn out to create even bigger problems than the initial quandary (i.e., armed individuals killing students).
Bottom line, the Republican “solution” does nothing to address the deeper problems which led to a 24 year old man deciding to kill as many individuals inside of an elementary school as possible. And no, mental illness is not THE CAUSE either. How many individuals have each of us known in our lives with some form of mental illness or another? Have they gone on killing sprees? Probably not!
It’s difficult, almost impossible, as a society to truly look in a meaningful way at what ills lurk beneath the surface of all of the economic prosperity that our social system has allowed for. But this is exactly what we and our elected officials will have to do if there’s to be a real, long term, solution to the recent wellspring of senseless killings that have sprung up across the country.
For instance, instead of ignoring the stranger we rush past in the street who seems to be in some kind of pain, maybe we attempt to see what’s wrong, maybe we try to help. I know, what a dreamer I am! Instead of putting so much energy into figuring out what show we’ll watch next on our DVR, we decide to talk to the kid down the street who is always standing alone. The possibilities are endless!
What I’m advocating is just a little more concern and patience with one another as neighbors, Americans, human beings. More guns are not the solution. Each of us is the solution. Each of us deciding to treat one another with respect and to more or less give a damn about others is the solution.
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