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Friday, December 20, 2013

Josh and Jake: The Gun Kids

I had two students walk up to me towards the end of class the other day and ask me a question.

"How do you think we should solve the problem of gun violence in this country?"

As I always do with questions like this I asked them what they would do, politely informing them that my opinion doesn't really matter. They are the ones who will be leading on the issues of the day anyway, right?

The first student, Josh, said that he would ban all guns. The second student, Jake, took issue with this and explained that his family were avid hunters and gun collectors. He spent the next few minutes convincing Josh that all guns should not be banned. I pointed Josh to Scalia's opinion in Heller and noted that banning guns in common use violates the 2nd Amendment.

Then Josh asked Jake a question.

"Shouldn't there be restrictions on who owns a gun, though?"

Jake responded in the affirmative and then went on to describe how he and his family favor universal background checks. He also demonstrated some very deep knowledge of how irresponsible people can be with guns, backing up his assertions with statistics. I was honestly quite astounded because he seemed to know more about accidental gun deaths than I did. When I noted this, he explained that his dad was an avid gun enthusiast and was pretty frustrated with how people like him were portrayed in the media. He also told me that he and his dad have had extensive discussions about why it's always young men that engage in these shooting sprees, citing a need to improve mental health in this country. Jake's dad, like any good parent, worries that his son will be alright.

So, perhaps I have been wrong in thinking that the gun community is made up of people who think like my regular commenters. In fact, it's become obvious to me, after extensive research over the last year and my own personal experiences, that the gun blogger mentality is aging and actually very far in the minority. Honestly, I don't know what I was worried about. I watched as these two young men continued their conversation in front of me and as they left when the bell rang, realizing that the assertions of gun bloggers don't really matter that much in the grand scheme of things and it won't be long now before this younger generation of more sensible people takes over. It might not even take an incident at a gun show for things to change because in 20 years or so, many of the gun bloggers will be gone and we won't have to hear anymore fantasy land nonsense about good guys with guns saving the day.

The youth of today know that John McLane and Jack Bauer aren't real.

2 comments:

GuardDuck said...

Of course you don't realize your are mischaracterizing the arguments of your 'regular commenters'. Voices in your head must be too loud.

Larry said...

Come on, GuardDuck, you know if he isn't lying, he isn't trying. And everyone, especially his "students", know Markadelphia's nothing if not a striver.