What Do You Value More?

We've heard plenty of excuses for gun ownership. You need to protect your home. The Second Amendment says it's your right. Making them illegal won't make them go away. There's a seed of truth to all of this. The Second Amendment certainly does give you the right to own a firearm. Guns probably make you feel more secure in your home than you actually are, but--in theory, anyway--gun ownership allows you to fend off all but the most determined and well-armed of miscreants. And no, making guns illegal won't make them disappear.
All of this misses one crucial point: There is no logical reason for anyone in this country outside of the military or law enforcement to need an assault rifle, handgun, speed loader, high capacity magazine, body armor, or anything normally used in combat. All these things are made for one reason: To help you harm a lot of people in a small amount of time.
Think about the context in which the Second Amendment was created. A cursory search of the Internet reveals that the main weapon during the Revolutionary War was a flintlock musket. A well-trained soldier could fire once every 20 seconds or so. Rifles were more accurate than the musket, but took far longer to load. And flintlock pistols were laughably inaccurate. Killing sprees were effectively impossible, since the time it took to reload was time enough for unarmed bystanders to subdue the would-be killer.
Now think about modern weapons. An automatic AR-15 (basically a civilian version of the M-16) is capable of firing 800 rounds per minute. The most common magazine size is 20-30 rounds; the largest appears to be 100 rounds. Now let's pretend that it's just a semi-automatic, and that you can only pull the trigger once per second. With a 20-round magazine, you can potentially kill 20 people in 20 seconds. Let's pretend that the shooter's a moron, and it takes 20 seconds to switch out the empty magazine for a full one. Remember, that's how long it took a trained soldier to reload his musket 200 years ago, so odds are good that it'll get done much faster. But let's assume our modern psychopath takes 20 seconds to reload and doesn't get subdued. Let's assume he's a lousy shot and only a quarter of his shots hit the mark. That's still a lowball estimate of 10 people wounded and potentially dead. In one minute.
Now add body armor to the equation. And multiple handguns, with magazines that hold anywhere from 8 to 30+ rounds. Now put our modern psychopath in a packed theater, or the 500-seat lecture halls that you can find on nearly any college campus of a decent size. Or, god help us all, one single kindergarten class of 30 kids. Think of how much damage one disturbed person can do.
Do you honestly think this is what our forebears had in mind when they created the Second Amendment? Do you honestly believe that they wouldn't be horrified at the prospect of tens or dozens of unarmed civilians being laid low in a matter of minutes? This is a situation not dreamt of on their worst night. These men were thinking in terms of attacks by unfriendly Native Americans and foreign military forces, or just hunting to put food on the table. These are things of the past. Yes, there's a depressing amount of crime that takes place in this country, but how often does someone fend off an attacker with a gun? How often does anyone's personal safety come down to gun ownership?
Not often enough. Not often enough to justify twenty 6- and 7-year olds being gunned down in a classroom.
It's time to take a stark look at the world we live in. This ain't Mad Max. The gestapo isn't going to break down your door in the dead of night and take you away. The Commies aren't going to take over your town. And I've lived nearly 34 years without myself or anyone I know being raped, tortured, murdered or otherwise harmed by "Them," whoever the hell they are. If these are truly concerns for you, I suggest you take half a Xanax and join the rest of us in reality.
You want to hunt and kill your own food? Fine; I believe in your right to put food on the table the old fashioned way. Have a single-shot rifle or a shotgun. You wanna cower in fear inside your home and stroke your precious gun to feel safe? Fine. Have a single-shot rifle or a shotgun. There is no need for assault weapons. There is no need for handguns.
You may think that single-shot rifles and shotguns are still capable of doing damage. You're right. But they're harder to reload, so any rampage would likely be short-lived. You may think we should concentrate on mental health, on identifying and helping these people before they snap and take people with them. You're right. But that's only part of the equation; people will always slip through the cracks. You may think that banning these weapons won't make them disappear. You're right. But it'll make them harder to obtain, especially for someone who's presumably not in his right mind. And the harder it is to perpetrate a monstrous tragedy like the one in Newtown the better.
I've fired handguns. I've fired rifles and shotguns. I've even fired an assault rifle. It's a hell of a lot of fun. But I'm willing to give up that fun if there's even a chance of making this country and its people safer. We should be attacking this problem from all sides, not spouting useless platitudes and then passing time until the next tragedy. They may be well-intentioned, but your thoughts and prayers are meaningless to the kids and adults felled in these incidents.
The right to go out in public without being murdered by a hail of bullets should trump the right to own weapons that serve no useful purpose. And if you honestly think that this is what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they created the Second Amendment, then you're just as deluded as the gun enthusiast who was shot in the face. By her own gun. Wielded by her son.

A Slice of Pi

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I went and saw Life of Pi and I enjoyed it, but I’m left with the same question I had after reading it: Did I truly understand it? I’m about to let the cat out of the bag (or the tiger off the boat, as it were), so if you haven’t read the book or seen the movie and care about spoilers, now’s the time to bail.

The story is really two stories. The first encompasses most of the book and movie, and features Pi and his battle for survival after a shipwreck. He shares a lifeboat with a zebra with a wounded leg, an orangutan, a hyena, and the tiger, Richard Parker. The hyena kills the zebra. The hyena kills the orangutan. Richard Parker kills the hyena. Pi and Richard Parker then spend innumerable days on the Pacific, fighting for survival, until ultimately making landfall in Mexico.

The second story is simpler, shorter, and much more gruesome. Pi shares a lifeboat with a sailor with a wounded leg, his mother, and the cook from the ship. The cook kills the sailor. The cook kills Pi’s mother. Pi kills the cook. Pi then spends innumerable days on the Pacific, fighting for survival, until ultimately making landfall in Mexico.

Unless I’m much mistaken, the latter story is the “truth.” The former appears to be something that Pi invented because the truth is too painful to face. And, perhaps, because it makes for a better story.

And here’s where my confusion lies. In the film, the adult Pi says that both stories feature him losing his family, and both stories feature him suffering, and then asks the visiting writer which story he prefers. The writer says he prefers the tale with the tiger. “And so it is with God,” says Pi.

Forgive my lack of subtlety and insight, but what is the implication of that line? Is he saying that life is full of loss and suffering, and that, all things being equal, we might as well believe in God, because it makes for a better story? Or a better life?

If so, I wonder about the truth of that. I’m agnostic, and while I allow that there are indeed aspects of existence that I don’t understand and can see the appeal of religion, I’ve never experienced something to make me Believe, with a capital B.

It feels disingenuous to go through the motions of faith simply because one wants to believe. That feels like a lie. Isn’t it more honest to push on through life without faith than to pretend to have it? Wouldn’t God, if he (or she) exists, prefer your honest dubiousness to you comforting yourself in the dark by clinging to the tatters of a less-than-genuine faith?

These are not rhetorical questions, by the way. I’m honestly curious as to what you think, especially those of you who are religious, who do Believe with a capital B. Maybe you’re seeing a side of this that I’m not. Or maybe someone out there can inform me that I’m grossly misunderstanding the point of the story, and that I’ve blazed a trail off into left field and beyond.

Regardless, the story moves me in a way that I can’t quite put my finger on. It did so when I read it, and the film had the same effect. It feels like a sliver of something special, of some greater truth.

And that’s another thing that strikes me, especially with regard to the film: Pi travels through the Pacific, seeing wondrous phenomena. Terrible storms, bioluminescent seas, flocks of flying fish, carnivorous islands inexplicably filled with meerkats when he’s in the Pacific and the nearest wild meerkat population is half a world away in southern Africa. He witnesses these things and is overcome with awe in the face of God. I see those same things, and I too am filled with awe, but I am in awe of Nature.

Does it matter whether that awe is inspired by God or Nature? Is there really that much of a difference? Is Nature merely my secular surrogate for God? I don’t pray to Nature. I don’t expect guidance or strength from it. But I’ve studied it pretty extensively. My love of biology and affinity for its many sub-disciplines could be seen as something akin to a secular sort of Talmudic piousness, I suppose. And there’s nothing quite so humbling as standing on top of a mountain and looking out over the world around you; or seeing the stars from the countryside, unspoiled by the city’s light pollution; or hiking deep into a forest and knowing that you and your companions are the only human beings around for miles. These things fill me with awe every time.

It seems to me that what really matters is the awe, the appreciation of something outside oneself. It’s a surrender of sorts, an acknowledgment that we are adrift on the sea, powerless to do anything but fight for survival. And maybe dream up an unbelievable tale or two.