I look forward to the weekend. Don’t most of us? We get a couple of days off of work to enjoy life. And it’s even better when Mother Nature gives us perfect weekend weather.
However, while I look forward to the weekend, I have a little anxiety about what’s in store for my city. Sadly, it’s becoming more and more common (at least it seems) for Indianapolis to experience at least one homicide — if not more — between Friday evening and Monday morning.
The number of homicides for 2018 is well past 100. The probability is high that those people were murdered over something not worth dying for.
City and community leaders continue to enact programs and initiatives to fight crime and reduce homicides, but it’s time we do more.
It’s time to have a serious conversation about guns. I’m not going to use the term gun control because this conversation needs to focus on more than just controlling guns. We need to discuss our love of guns and why. America’s foundation is built on gun violence. We celebrate gun violence all through childhood. We laugh at cartoon characters playing with guns, we play video games with guns and we buy toy guns. We romanticize guns.
I’m not anti gun. In fact, I like them. I’ve grown up around guns, and I’ve used them. As a former member of the Army Reserve, I’m very familiar with an M16. However, I don’t love guns. I believe guns have a purpose. The reason you have a gun could differ from mine, so I’m not for taking away the right to bear arms. But what does that really mean? Do we need semi-automatic weapons? Some say yes because the criminals have these guns, and law-abiding citizens need to protect themselves in the same manner. I’m not convinced of this argument. I’m not convinced that I need an arsenal in my home to protect my family. I mean, logically, how many weapons can I shoot at once?
Whether we want to admit it or not, our love of guns has an impact on law-abiding citizens as well as criminals. It’s our love affair with guns that keep us from having a civil conversation to come up with common sense solutions to gun violence.
Most of the homicides affecting our city are due to gun violence. Guns aren’t the only objects used violently, but they tend to be the weapon of choice. Knives, hammers, bats can all be used violently, but we don’t need to have a conversation about ending knife violence, or hammer violence or bat violence. Our youth, our mothers and other loved ones aren’t marching to end violence for any of these other weapons. Just guns. Why?
How many more mass murders nationally and individual murders locally will it take for us to finally decide enough is enough and we need to truly end our gun obsession in Indianapolis, in America?
https://www.indianapolisrecorder.com/opinion/article_dc1e4932-c80e-11e8-b3c5-d347489f8bf9.html
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