OWNING MORE GUNS IS NOT A DETERRENT

How many good people is it justifiable for automatic weapon owners to kill? Who decides that? A culture that takes violence seriously and takes gun ownership seriously? Is violence serious only when bad people kill good people? How many more good people will have to carry guns in public to generate a serious deterrent? Cannot good people accept the logic of a syllogism that argues that fewer people die when it is harder to lay hands on killing machines? The good guys already own twice as many guns per person as any other nation on earth.

ONE OF US

To all Americans I say, the Orlando shooter was one of you. More collectively I say, he was one of us. Our default will be to deny this. No solution proceeds from labeling him a terrorist, Islamic, deranged, different from. The victims too were ones with us. An avoidance response might be, "but they were gay." No one elevates himself by refusing to lower a flag to half-mast, or by asserting, "they deserved it." Politicians and NRA will honour humanity's incomparable privilege of sharing life on this planet only when weapons of war cease to be considered intrinsic citizen rights and as essential to domestic security.