Is Banning Guns the Answer?
Driving back to Ohio from Quebec, I decided to take the long way home going through New England. One morning while on the highway, I as usual was looking for a sweet coffee shop to have my morning coffee. The next town exit I noticed was for Sandy Hook, CT. Riding down the main street, we came across Uncle Matt’s Bakery and Café, which I highly recommend. This small, sleepy New England town seemed so sweet in the morning sunlight of January. Life goes on as it always does in this town where 26 were murdered in 2012 at the local elementary school. Since that time many schools as well as other establishment shootings have occurred creating fear, anger and specifically the cry to ban the weapons that were the instruments by the often young perpetrators.
Fast forward to March where I had the pleasure of meeting a couple from Connecticut and we talked about the above town. The wife passionately spoke about the need for more gun control laws to be created along with enforced bans on certain classes of weapons. I listened and thought again about those lives lost on that day. I stayed silent as I can be when presented with a problem that there are multiple views and no easy answers. These thoughts though stuck in my mind as I walked that morning after the meeting. Guns can cause devastation yet there is the person pulling the trigger. I decided to focus on this person. Something has happened in our 21st century culture. What is missing or awry in this person? While I contemplated this, a memory came to the forefront. Back in 1990, my husband had been assigned to teach electrical engineering at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO. He came home one evening and spoke about how the higher ups have decided to add a class to all cadets’ curriculum, a class explaining the honor code. When one enters the USAF academy classroom area there is a quote, the cadet honor code, hung on the rock wall: “We do not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate anyone among us who does.” Superiors and admissions were noticing that the cadets that were entering the academy, though stellar in their achievements, did not evidence in their behavior the basic understanding of what those words or ideals really meant. The new required class added to their schedules was a class to teach them exactly what is meant by the words written in that code. Lie, steal, cheat, tolerate, among, and does needed to be fully explained for somewhere along the way in their development and training these principles were not caught. Blame the parents or lack of, media, TV, music, friends, or schooling or whatever, somewhere along the way the understanding of these principles were lost, and this is in the young adult lives who were in essence some of the cream of the crop of college bound adults.
Get Ginette DiDomenico’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
With that thought comes the question, what principles are missing in our mass shooters today? What words or ideals are they deficient in understanding? What class needs to be required in our schools possibly from elementary up and encouraged to be reinforced in the home? Two words or really a word and a phrase: respect and virtue of a life. Consideration for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others is one of the ways the word respect is defined. We have become a more selfish culture which can be attributed to a multiple of factors yet leading to multiple incidences of disrespect. In the past 50 years the dynamics of the home have changed along with the increased availability of varied ways of entertainment. However no matter what the environment or decade, the principle of respect needs to be defined and modeled. I remember when raising my children I came across a handout entitled “The 21 Rules of Our House.” Many of the rules related to respect like If you open it, close it; If someone is sad, we comfort them; If you make a mess, you clean it up, etc. These rules were to help children to begin to think about other people and the importance of their value and needs. I remember being encouraged as a young mom to teach them to not make more work for others along with the principles of respecting each other’s time, property, feelings, differences etc. We talk often now about tolerance and having respect for those with different viewpoints and lifestyles but somehow the value of all lives is not making it through. Every life has virtue, just by being a unique life. If I speak of the virtues of my dog, I am speaking of the good, useful qualities that he has. Granted some lives may appear to not be good or useful, yet in principle it is not who is wearing the rank but what rank they are wearing that is respected. In this case, we all are wearing the rank of being a unique human being that has a life.
So how best can we as a nation, culture do this? I don’t know but I would love to brainstorm with other concerned citizens. As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, I know that multiple things are in the soil that are growing mental struggles and breaks: trauma, neglect, abuse, addiction, devaluation etc. These things create individuals which have a hard time trusting, have a difficult time seeing their own worth and value. Yet even with these lives and their stories, light in the form of positive acceptance, respect, and security can give them hope and a sense of value. Somehow these days, we need to find creative ways to speak to our young minds in a way that they can see and feel that all human beings have value.
Is banning guns the answer? I have to say in certain contexts yes for the hands that are holding those guns somehow missed those classes on respect and the virtue of life. Did those classes help the cadets? I do not know. When I looked to find a picture of the code I found several articles relating to recent cheating scandals at the academy. Either way right is right even if no one is doing it and a standard needs to be held up, for lowering it does not do anyone any good. While we are out banning guns and creating new gun laws, we need to put more or at least equal thoughts into how to stop the tide of disrespect and devaluation of human life, compassionately and creatively.
