Gun Issue is Black and White

As a “peaceful Russian” I feel I must repudiate that idiot in Missouri who walked around a Walmart toting a rifle and decked in body armor, presumably to honor his native country’s official motto: “The World’s Cautionary Tale Since AD 856.” Unfortunately, I can’t honestly do that, because this giddy fuckmook’s general outlook on life as well as his political beliefs are pretty much in lockstep with those of a vast majority of Russian Americans. The US Russian-speaking community’s location on the political spectrum (from which Sen. Ted Cruz would look like a raging left-wing commie) and the reasons for it might be a good topic for a separate post, but let’s talk instead about what didn’t happen that day in Springfield, Missouri.

What didn’t happen, of course, is the dude’s getting pumped full of lead in about three seconds flat and decorating the Walmart floor with his brain matter, which is absolutely what would have occurred had his skin been a few shades darker. In fact, I wonder if he even realized that the best body armor he was wearing that day was the standard-issue Central Russian Plains Beige pigmentation he was born with.

It’s really hard for me to understand why people in America, by and large, refuse the recognize that the gun debate in this country is, at its heart, a race debate. Well, OK, isn’t everything, right? Yes, as a matter of fact, it is. America has been obsessed with race since the day of its inception and sure seems to be obsessed with guns, so it would have been positively strange if these two obsessions didn’t overlap.

A while ago, I had an argument with a fellow Baltimorean with whom I no longer speak (because of, obviously, Trump) on the issue of guns. His reasoning boiled down to the fact that, while he would have loved to live in a country with no guns whatsoever, it is not possible because there are literally hordes of villains everywhere just waiting to invade his home and brutalize his family. Since this is a very specific picture he had painted, I inquired if he could provide any further details on his mental image. In particular, whether the said villains look in any way like the cast of The Wire. He got incredibly offended, of course, but didn’t fail to notice that I myself do not reside anywhere near North Avenue. Which was fair, even if the implication here, as always, was that liberals are the real racists.

It is of course incredible that among all the code words for race Americans have come up with, the best camouflaged and most normalized ones are “law-abiding gun owners” and “criminals who don’t care about laws.” Given the Americans’ love for abbreviating EVERYTHING (I mean, come on, does the word “bod” have a reason for existing? It’s just one more letter, people!), it mystifies me why nobody just says, respectively, “white people” and “black people.”

Try it on for size, seriously! “Nobody should infringe on the right of white people to protect themselves against black people.” See? Doesn’t this feel liberating? They do say that the truth sets you free, you know.

It’s understandable why nobody wants to admit it. Admitting to your own racism isn’t fun, generally, though it’s hard to argue that all of us are racist to at least some degree. The difference is, naturally, self-awareness and knowledge of what’s right and what’s wrong. So, maybe, just maybe we can start the gun conversation by laying down some self-evident truths.

Such as:

1. Nobody is about to forbid hunting.
2. Nobody needs a semi-automatic weapon specifically designed to kill a dozen or so people within a minute to hunt, at least not until the deer learn the basics of warfare and organize themselves under a talented military commander.
3. The only reason you have such a weapon is to entertain your suburban fantasies of winning a shootout against a bunch of empty-eyed murderous thugs trying to take your dwelling by storm.
4. In exactly zero such fantasies the thugs are white people.

None of which means that anyone who owns guns is a terrible racist. Or that black people don’t have a similar lust for assault weapons. America’s obsession with guns doesn’t spare many, just like its obsession with race. But can we just, for once, have an honest conversation on the matter of literally life and death without hiding behind bullshit?

It’s not about feral hogs. It’s not about protecting the nation’s freedom from tyrannical government. It’s not about crime prevention, even. It’s about fear. A very specific kind of fear, quite unique to America, which may just be the reason America is the only advanced nation on Earth that is utterly unable to address the gun issue in any way.