theatlantic:

Going Numb in the Summer of the Gun

People argue that we obviously need better gun control. It’s hard to reasonably counter a statement like, “If fewer people had guns, there would be fewer people shooting them.” What if there were no guns? We’d find other ways to kill each other, sure, but the scope and scale would be different. But this is not a post about gun control, it’s about the hopelessness and powerlessness we feel in the wake of these instances. Guns are a means by which we make it easier to hurt each other. We should make it harder to hurt each other; we should also figure out why we do that stuff in the first place. That’s really difficult though, maybe impossible, so instead we rage about idiot legislation or lack thereof; we rage about the “politicizing” of issues that, of course, are political issues to start with. Pro-gun people become even more firmly entrenched and defensive and sure of “rights”; anti-gun people can’t understand why they don’t see what appears pure fact. Could we all just please stop shooting each other?

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