Guns

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, the guns fell silent. It was the end of the ‘Great War’, the “war to end all wars’, or as it became to be known, World War I. As men lay down their guns, they must have heaved a great sigh of relief that it was over. In less than a generation, the guns were shouldered once more as we marched towards World War II. The horror of trench warfare had replaced the mindless marching in closed rank into enemy fire, but the lessons learned by digging-in would still carry over into World War II. Even though we became more mechanised and sophisticated in killing each other, we still send our men and women into war carrying a gun.

Try as we might to distance ourselves from the gun, either by big guns that fire projectiles tens of kilometres or by dropping explosives from the skies, we still have the final confrontation of a person with a gun in their hand demanding something from another. We like to dream that we may one day do away with guns and talk our way through confrontations, but it seems only that – a dream. In some cases bombs, either suicide or planted, have replaced the gun and this only demonstrates how advanced we are as a species.

Yet declared war is only one theatre where guns play a prominent role. Criminals have taken to the gun with a great passion, emulating the wild west and gangster movies that once had a place only on the big screen. Now we arm our children with play-guns on their videos games and think little of it. Surely, we say, this make-believe world can never turn into a real world where people will shoot each other or blow people up in clouds of blood, guts and dust.

However, weekly we get stories of people running amok with a gun. Students, suffering, we are told, from some angst or other, shoot their teachers and fellow classmates. Workers, dismissed for some unjust cause, return to wreak vengeance on bosses and former fellow employees. Gang members have shoot-outs as if they were at the OK Corral, bullets all too often hitting innocent bystanders. Or they mistakenly shoot some person who has donned a favourite blue shirt not realizing that it is part of a uniform of a gang that will that day be targeted by foes.

We can legislate rules that only the law-abiding will follow until we are pushing up daisies and it will have not an iota of influence on those who want to live a violent life, a gun or bomb in their hand, ready to use whatever force is needed to gain their end, whether it drugs, money or political supremacy. They will do it the name of their god as a martyr or for economic gain, or worse, simply for the fun of it.

How then do we stop this abuse of an all too-handy weapon or tool? We clothe our men and women in uniforms (or not) and send them to resolve disputes, all too frequently at the cost of their life. Every call a police officer makes in this country is a ‘gun’ call, for if there is not already a gun at the scene, the officer takes one with him and that officer is only safe so long as he or she has control of that gun.

In the land to the south, the National Rifle Association lobbies for the right of every citizen to bear arms in case the British attack again. If the Redcoats do not come, they want to enjoy shooting their guns at clay pigeons, politicians or defenceless wild animals. Carrying a gun, it seems, is the ultimate empowerment, a phase so cherished by the feel-good crowd.

Unfortunately, the Coke-a-Cola culture that has spread around the world not only brings with it soda pop and greasy burgers, but the culture of the gun. The age of the hunter-gathered has not yet been replaced in the outposts of the modern world and these peoples have adapted to the gun from the spear and arrow, but beyond that, there should be no reason to own a gun. Unless perhaps you are expecting an intruder who means you bodily harm. Or a political party that wants to restrict your freedom or rights. Or some clerics who wish you to bow down before their god.

Perhaps the gun will be with us always, but I wonder if all these gun-toting toughs and aficionados had to spend a few months in the muddy, wet, filthy trenches during the days of the Great War, if they would be so keen on violence with a gun. Would they gain such an appreciation for McCrea’s lark flying high over Flanders Fields that they would vow, never again? Or, will they even pause on November 11th at the eleventh hour to remember all those who have given their life so we could live our lives free from the fear of guns?