Another tragic gun accident splashes across my Yahoo
newsfeed, and I’m transported to that place in my head where the gun control
debates live. Only this time, I just
can’t shake the sadness of the event: a 29 year old mother, shot dead while
shopping in a Walmart with a loaded gun in her special purse made for
concealing firearms, but which was accessed by her 2-year old while the purse
was momentarily unattended. This is so
tragic on so many levels, it would be disingenuous to discuss it in terms of
gun control.
Instead, I asked myself, “What makes a person feel so afraid
for their lives that they feel the need to carry a loaded gun into a retail store?” Here is a worthy example. My friend and former classmate lives in a Quonset
hut above the arctic circle far from civilization and thus any available help (she has recently become a reality TV star on
NatGeo’s Life Below Zero), completely on her own at the mercy of the elements
and any wolves, bears, etc., that she happens to encounter. Is her daily environment dangerous enough to
warrant carrying a gun at all times?
Let’s just say that the last time she put her gun down to fill up her
water tank in the river, she suffered a nearly fatal attack by a brown bear. So yes, the reality and her perception of her
dangerous environment are congruent.
Yesterday, my husband was at a PetSmart in one of the lowest crime rate
areas in Las Vegas, and the customer in front of him had a gun in his holster
at his side. Is his daily environment,
including his trip to a local pet food store, so dangerous that if he left his
gun in his car, his life would be in mortal danger? Well, thousands of patrons and I visit this
store each year and the number of deaths occurring there do not bear out his
perception of danger. Therefore, the
reality of his daily environment and his perception of its danger are not
congruent.
This isn’t about guns, per se. It is about the disconnect that exists
between the reality of our daily
routine and how safe it actually is, and the perception that our lives are in imminent danger at every moment.
Consider the actual fact that the world is becoming a less
violent place overall. Consider the
biological fact that human beings have learned to coexist better than any other
primates. Consider your own daily
routine and how often you are actually confronted with a potentially life
threatening situation (in my 23 years of appraising, I have felt this way
exactly 2 times). Now, compare these
things with the perceptions you have about how dangerous your environment
is. If they are incongruent, what is
causing that disconnect? It actually
reminds me of when I was afraid of the dark until someone would turn on the
lights and all the things that were scaring me would vanish. The reality of my overall safety was
illuminated.
Nowhere is it more obvious than out here in the west that we
live in a gun culture. I’m not so
interested in how that started, but am more interested in how it is
perpetuated. I have many friends who are
responsible gun owners and vehemently speak of the benefits and necessity of
owning them. Some have conceal/carry
permits, some would like to get their permit.
Each and every person speaks of their need for carrying a firearm due to
the unsafe nature of their daily environment and having a gun would make their
environment safer. And yet, I live in
the same environment and I just don’t see it or feel it. So I ask myself, “Am I naïve, or are they
paranoid and fearful?” What is the
reality of our daily environment and what is our perception of our daily
environment and do they coincide? If
not, what is shaping our perception? And does an incongruent perception create a
self-fulfilling prophecy?
This is not an argument for or against gun control. It is merely an inquiry about the source of
the disconnect that happens to so many of us, who live in such a rich, vibrant,
and safe country when we begin to be filled with fear to such a degree that we
feel the need to carry a gun whenever we venture out into the society that we
hold to be the envy of the world.
Hi Teresa. A few hours ago, I was listening to an NPR program about fear. It talks about why people are so afraid now, so much more afraid than they were 40 years ago. It is strange. Kids especially are very afraid, and instead of being "free range kids" like we were, lots of kids have never left their own yard without an adult, though growing up is actually safer now than it was for us. A friend of mine said, "Yeah, we had nothing much to fear when we were kids. Just a nuclear attack." Here's the link to the program. Check it out. http://www.npr.org/2015/01/16/377517810/world-with-no-fear
ReplyDeleteI just typed a HUGE reply to you….but I don't think it posted….ARGGG!
Deletemore to come, later, Katherine.
ReplyDeleteSo….what I had written before sending it out to? was that I had indeed heard the story, and thought of the synchronicity of it and my piece….and how that is not the first time something like that has happened. ANYWAY, I have been thinking quite a bit about this fear syndrome, and the "paper tiger syndrome" mentioned in the post that my friend Jennie Hlavacek shared on my wall. I plan on doing a "Reality of Safety II", after I cogitate a bit on this circular logic that fear is what makes us safe, but our feeling of safety means that we have curtailed our fear. Hm….I'm confused. I'm also very interested in the idea of "calculated risk", which I engage in all the time…when I rock climb, when I ride my road bike (which is constantly), and engage in anything, really, when I extend the idea of calculated risk into my daily routine. I'm amazed at how many people I know who ride bikes and never ride outside because they are terrified of getting hit by a motorist. So, they deny themselves the opportunity of knowing how wonderful cycling outdoors can be…the scenery, the ability to get from point A to point B without using gas or polluting the air, etc….because their fear robs them of this opportunity. The ultimate irony, of course, is the actual fact that more people die in car crashes that bike wrecks, as a percentage of how many engage in the respective activities. I got some really negative feedback from some conservative folks who were unable to grasp that I was not necessarily commenting about the need for or no gun control. They just went to that fear-mongering place, which was my exact point, unable to see that they were indeed making a case for my point. Most of our fear in this country is not born out by facts or statistics at all. I actually feel sorry for folks who feel the need to carry guns at all times. Such a burden, and for what? To satisfy the need to be right? Or to risk the higher probability of an infant grabbing the gun and firing it by mistake in the face of the much lower probability that if there were someone in that store wanting to cause mayhem, you'd be able to stop them? "The only thing standing between you and a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun" only works, really, after the bad man has already killed x amount of folks. Just ask the cop in Paris shot dead on the sidewalk. He was a good man with a gun. Hm. I think that people who feel the need to pack heat in every public place they venture miscalculate the danger of such places as well as their ability to ensure their own safety with that gun. Anyway, I really value your opinion and thanks so much for your comment. Sometimes, I drive myself crazy.
ReplyDelete