mass shootings & gun control

The US - my country - needs to address its gun death situation. In 2017, there have been roughly one "mass shooting" every day of the year.

Might be, that is a problem.

I grew up hunting. Guns are a part of how I grew up. I have guns; I know how to handle them, clean them, and use them responsibly. I expect to pass this down to my children.  What guns were not to me is a religion. They didn't keep me safe versus the Army or the police. People who talked like they did were the fringe and were a little unrealistic, I always thought. Guns are like a sharp knife: a tool, not a talisman.

Later in life I saw people open carrying in sleepy rural suburbs. Not "long rifle in truck" during hunting season, but carrying a pistol and walking their dog. Others would take pistols to potluck dinners.  What?!?, I thought, there's no measurable threat of violence. I have no problem if there's a reasonable threat of violence and someone wants to have a weapon in self defense. I talked to a friend who was big into guns. They explained - it's a talisman, a thing to display your allegiance to guns and the second amendment.

This mentality of talismanic gun ownership isn't reasonable. It's a tool. If you want to commit rebellion against the government, guns can be used usefully. It's not healthy to have massive amounts of gun ownership preparing against the day of Communist takeover. If that's you - think about this- wouldn't the totalitarian figure out how to get you on his side first? The best totalitarian thought is the one where the majority of the society agrees with it!

Seems to me like the US needs to tackle two things:

• Removing the talisman from the culture. 
• Hollywood should stop glorifying gun violence as being useful and effective.
• Regulating gun ownership via:
• Instituting mental health checks on gun owners past and present
• Requiring licenses for ownership past 5 guns
• Banning open carry within city limits
• Requiring concealed carry permits for pistols
• Requiring membership in the national guard (or a state equivalent) for owning weapons of war (actual weapons of war, not ones people ignorant of guns fear).

All of those, to the best of my knowledge, cohere with the Second Amendment and the general understanding of the Constitution, while preserving the ability for the community as represented by local police and licensing authorities to monitor them.

Stand in solidarity with your society.

One big thing I argue for repeatedly on the Mastodon fediverse is to not disengage from the social systems and big institutions. They are required for a high-complexity society such as ours, and one of the major keys to keeping them working is engagement and accountability, so that you can trust them, because you're involved and because you can believe in the accountability structures.

A canonical error of thinking is the Occupy Wall Street-style thinking of "the elites hate us", or the "elites want to oppress us". That's not how it typically works outside of very unusual confluences of history. Thinking that the 1% are out to get you is conspiracy theory thinking.  The elites are not a homogeneous force. They are human, with all the fractiousness that implies. They have an interest in maintaining the status quo. But, many elites throughout history understand the balance between their interests and the interests of the total society. Britain in the 1800s, for instance, transitioned from a monarchy to a Parliament, and by the time World War One had ended, the king had no power. This took a lot of work - a lot of protests and social tension - and many people had to be persuaded - or outmaneuvered - but it happened. The aristocracy chose (in total) to allow change rather than, like Tsarist Russia, suppress change.

Now, that is not to say there aren't groups working to discredit and damage Western society and your particular small group. There are significantly organized nasty actors out there. To name a few.... Hoover's FBI. Some CIA. Some FSB. AQ. AfD. KKK. ISIL. Etc. Disorganizing and disengaging from your society and becoming insular or non-participatory gives them power to coopt your society. The TV show South Park is a poison in this regard - it discourages participation, and gives a handy narrative to mock people who care about their place.

The last 30-40 years of Boomer and Gen X disengagement and cynicism have given us Trump and the alt-right/alt-light/KKK resurgence, because many of the chaos people - the Chaotic Neutral, the Chaotic Good, the Neutral Good - they walked away, because '60s dogma said "be yourself". That was a terrible mistake. The people left over in power are more authoritarians, you see. You can't just be yourself and encourage everyone else to be their own cell. That's not how societies work. There are family structures, justice structures, plumbing structures. By walking away from organizing, collective action, and institution building, you both make yourself vulnerable and make your society worse. One human, one individual is an assailable island.

Solidarity is a big deal, folks. Unions are built out of that principle. So are armies. A company is a group of people in common purpose. Think about that, and the power of mass action. 

Engage, fight for accountability, fight for your principles. Demand transparency. Remove corruption, even when it benefits you.