That Iraq is on the brink of civil war serves as an ironic reminder to our nation of a very critical truth: A good guy with a gun is not the most sensible answer to a bad guy with a gun.
How easy it would be if it were. It is not, not even close, but our nation fights wars as if it is.
The wars of our recent history, especially Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, prove just the opposite. Those wars of good guys against bad guys (assuming for the moment that we knew which was which) killed thousands of soldiers and civilians and cost billions of dollars with no good result.
That is why the reason we fought those wars should be our concern. But that will involve facing some serious truth about ourselves as a nation. The hard and difficult reality we need to own up to is this – we are a violent people. We want to believe we are not, but the facts say otherwise.
By far we have more violent crimes and murders than any western nation, and we are the only western nation that refuses to connect the dots between the easy availability of guns and all of that violence.
It strikes me as a form of arrogance for us to believe we are not like other free, democratic nations that have found there is a direct connection between the unfettered availability of guns and violence and murders?
For God’s sake…there have been 74 school shootings since Newtown. Do we just accept a ridiculous explanation by the likes of Bill O’Reilly that there will always be these shootings because, in his words, “Well, there will always be these shootings.”
Or do we, instead, connect the dots between violence and the easy access to guns, and then go the next step and see the connection between our tolerance for a violent society and supporting the warring ways of our nation.
One way to connect the dots is to look at our national priorities.
Just as individuals show their true values by how they spend their money, so do nations! The U.S. spends more money on the military than any nation on earth, in fact twice as much. In 2015 military spending will be $549 billion, NOT INCLUDING war expenditures or veteran benefits that are in addition to this money! That’s right. All the money we have already spent on Iraq and Afghanistan, and will spend in the future, is not even in the regular Pentagon budget passed by Congress.
The fact is, the Pentagon is the single biggest consumer of tax dollars, period.
Why do we tolerant this? Because the NRA has convinced us that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, whether at home or around the world.
What an dangerous catch phrase people have been sold.
Want to know how true it is on a personal level? Ask the families of police officers and soldiers whose spouses, fathers, mothers, daughters and sons were “good guys” with guns how true it is.
Here’s the real truth. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a society smart enough to know that violence begets violence, that guns actually do kill people, and that having more of them is no solution.
If we were ever to become such a nation, you watch, violence will decline here at home, and our political leaders will know when it comes to conflict around the world that we prefer they send planes, trains, and automobiles full of guns and American soldiers to the battle field as the very last resort rather than the first.
