I have been on a 5-month hiatus from my “Light Over Heat” YouTube channel and seriously thought about not coming back. (More on that in a later video.)
But seeing the frustration and fatigue in my son while talking about all of the recent shootings in America (Kansas City, upstate New York, Austin, Charlotte, Louisville, Dadeville) helped me see I need to press on trying to lower the temperature in our debates over guns and to increase conversation, mutual understanding, and empathy across our differences.
I apologize in advance for my low energy in this video. I know they say the camera sucks your energy so you need to go 125%, but I’ve been going at 150% for a week straight and I’m tired.
Gun Culture 2.0 
The other day my wife asked me, out of the blue, if I worry about being the victim of the next mass shooter. I had to put my science hat on and note that these are still statistically rare events in a huge country, but they are immediately reported on, leading to a certain degree of battle fatigue and fear.
I do tend to watch my surroundings a little more than I would prefer to admit as the psychology does get to me, but where I really try to have eyes on the back of my head are on my bike rides. I still think the most likely weapon I have to fear is a 4,500 lb projectile traveling at 66 fps, not a 124 grain projectile traveling at 1200 fps.
Good episode. As a gun owner, I increasingly think if we don’t turn down the heat and turn up the light, someone else will do it for us in a way that will not be nice.
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I call that the ‘Shark Attack Effect.’ Only about 50 people a year get killed by sharks in the entire world, but everyone in the world hears about every one of them.
The missing kid on the milk carton had the same effect. Very few children are abducted (and most by a family member), but seeing a new one every morning sitting on the breakfast table led to paranoia — and to parents driving their children to school when they were close enough to walk.
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Sounding a bit fatigued while discussing fatigue (plus some somber subjects) actually worked.
And color-coordinating a bow tie with an oxford requires more energy than I could muster on a good day!
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It is not a ‘gun issue’; it is a person with a acting irresponsibly.
While I realize the term, ‘gun community’ is more or less shorthand to mean people who own or operate guns, it is a loathesome term for it sounds divisive yet connotative of gun owners as monolithic in thought, ideology, and behavior.
The truth is, gun owners are from every walk of life; gun owners are like everyone else except they own and use firearms. Therefore, gun owners are as sympathetic and empathetic as you claim for yourself in this video.
Yet even posing the concern, that you wish gun owners would understand … is from the premise that they are not (sympathetic or empathetic).
Too, when there are the shootins which you mention, quickly it is the ‘gun community’, i.e., your neighbor, a coworker, or perhaps the owner of your favorite small business who is blamed, categorized, insulted, and dismissed.
So often is this the case, that gun owners exhale a sigh of relief that the bad guy in a mass fatality event used something other than a firearm. The sympathy and horror over the tragic loss is still there but created is the relief that it wasn’t a gun (this time) coupled with anger that the event even happened. It is very bitter yet sweet. It then leads to a struggle to not harden one’s heart. Seriously, when else are a multitude of law abiding, responsible persons held at fault for the behaviors of a demented, desperate person?
How did this come to be? Who created this tangle of emotions? The answer most often is the politicians, the media, the proponents of (more, always more) gun restrictions.
Is the car, or knife, or baseball bat, hammer, or skillet blamed? No, but the gun is. Why, when even FBI statistics show more fatalities occur from being blugeoned by fists and feet?
Absolutely, definitely is this is a people issure. Precisely, this is an issue of unstable minds in irresponsible people.
It has been said in jest that America is becone a free range mental hospital. Darn, that I cannot disagree with that.
Medical treatment, therapy, medications by the gross, or lack thereof, all play important roles in the epidemic (yes, I mean exactly that) in the disorganization and decay of our society. The habitual practice of the media, politicians, and other social influencers of ignoring the obvious has served well to perpetuate the harm in society which we all proclaim to despise.
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