Guns. Again. More or Less.

I once made an internet troll so mad at me that his only comeback was to start calling me names. He said I was a "tree hugger", a "feminatzi", and my personal favorite - a "Starbucks liberal." For that last one, I was offended. I don't drink Starbucks. I prefer Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Seriously, in order for an insult to work, it kind of has to be insulting to the target of your aggression. It has to mean something negative to them.  Where that guy failed is that some stereotypes are there for a reason. I am a bit of a tree hugger. I am a pretty staunch feminist, and - man, oh man - am I a liberal. 

Here's where I depart the text. I am a liberal. I am not anti-gun. My mother was a hunter when I was young. Yes, I said "my mother". I don't, however, understand the need for rapid-fire long guns. Simply: if you need a gun that shoots 30 rounds per second, maybe hunting isn't your sport. I understand guns for protection, too. I understand the terror of the idea of being helpless in the face of a violent intruder. But there again, if the first round doesn't hit or deter that intruder, the next 29 rounds probably won't either.

That's where I will stop. Don't worry: I am not going to lend my own voices to those of the masses arguing about guns and gun control and Hitler disarming the citizens of Germany. That last part reminds me of the Godwin's Law and, frankly, it is also patently untrue.

What I want to do here is talk about what guns mean to Americans. This debate is going to rage on and on, long after most of us stop choking back tears at the thought of the losses in Newtown, CT. This debate is going to be the core of "us vs. them" and "blue states vs. red states," likely, until the 2016 election. This fight will be bloody. Why not figure out why? What are we really talking about when we're talking about gun control?

A few months ago, I spent some time learning about Clotaire Rapaille. I was supposed to read one article for my class at Trinity. Before the weekend was over, I'd consumed every page I could find. If you don't know about Rapaille, you should. He's an amazing marketing specialist that has been tinkering with your brain for years. Originally, Rapaille started out in the field of child psychology, specifically working with severely autistic children. What he learned there helped him to figure out that every word you learn has an emotional imprint. You cannot, in fact, learn a word's meaning without the emotion tied to it. That imprint and the ensuing emotional transmitters create the code for our world. The code that develops for all of our language and functioning in this world that is culturally set and hard wired for a lifetime. This code connects at the deepest levels with something Rapaille calls our reptilian brain. It is this part of our thinking, this reptilian brain that is only concerned with two things: survival and reproduction. And the reptilian brain always wins. Always.

Rapaille suggests that the stage of development that occurs right after the reptilian brain is focused on the cortex.  The cortex is the "intelligent" part of our brain.  It is concerned with numbers, statistics, knowable facts.  This is the part of our brain most of us believe we live in.  We offer explanations from the cortex, but we make decisions from the reptilian brain.  Remember, the reptile always wins.

So what is the code for gun?  If you unpack it, just a little bit, it seems like the two sides are not so far apart.  They're all talking about survival, but from two different sides.  Let's look at how the the gun debate has been progressing. 

This is one of the best pro-gun articles that I have read to date. Doug Wyllie, PoliceOn Editor in Chief writes of his daylong seminar with Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, foremost authority on human aggression and violence. He says that it is silly for us to not have armed guards or police officers in our school system. Consider:

Imagine if someone said, ‘I want a trained fire professional on site. I want a fire hat, I want a fire uniform, I want a fire badge. But! No fire extinguishers in this building. No fire hoses. The hat, the badge, the uniform — that will keep us safe — but we have no need for fire extinguishers.’ Well, that would be insane. It is equally insane, delusional, legally liable, to say, ‘I want a trained security professional on site. I want a security hat, I want a security uniform, and I want a security badge, but I don’t want a gun.’ It’s not the hat, the uniform, or the badge. It’s the tools in the hands of a trained professional that keeps us safe.

Grossman says that if we approach gun violence the way we approach fire safety, with overlapping layers of protection, we will reduce violence in the schools to the same level of fatality that school fires have enjoyed since the 1950s. That means regular drills, single point of entry for classrooms, and - yes - armed personnel. According to Grossman, we should "never call an unarmed man 'security.'" In short, this is all a question of the actions needed to ensure survival.  Gun is PROTECTION

In a startlingly close counter-argument, we find Nicholas D. Kristof from the New York Times Sunday Review Opinion pages. Kristof also laments the differences between guns in the classroom and any other safety initiative. He says, "American schoolchildren are protected by building codes that govern stairways and windows. School buses must meet safety standards, and the bus drivers have to pass tests. Cafeteria food is regulated for safety. The only things we seem lax about are the things most likely to kill." To Kristof, the problem is regulation. He does not think that more guns will solve this problem, saying "Likewise, don’t bother with the argument that if more people carried guns, they would deter shooters or interrupt them. Mass shooters typically kill themselves or are promptly caught, so it’s hard to see what deterrence would be added by having more people pack heat."  We need more regulations, says Kristof, and many like him. Safety regulations work, and this is just one more.  Regulations will keep us safe from the threat of guns.  Gun is MENACE

So where would Rapaille put this?  Well, procuring his services for the afternoon would be a bit cost prohibitive for someone like me and my lowly blog.  I can hazard a few guesses, though.  Rapaille would probably say that the code for gun is about SURVIVAL, in the broadest sense of the word.  If I am understanding his approach correctly, I imagine he would say that the difference between the two positions is "gun as threat" vs. "gun as protection."  One side fears that survival is not possible with, the other fears that it is not possible to survive without.   Were he here, and chatting, Rapaille would probably say, and has, that the code for the liberal and so called "blue states" is THINKING.  The code for the "red states" is ACTION.  These two arguments, in that light, are consistent with the stereotype.  Rapaille says that liberals think to much.  

I know I probably do.  Right now I am thinking about how to bring these two sides closer together.  I don't think they're using the same language at this point.  

Critics of his work say that Rapaille traffics in stereotypes.  Sometimes the stereotypes are there for a reason.  Sometimes being an over-thinker isn't an insult.  Sometimes, just sometimes mind you -  it's the right thing to do.  The only thing you can do; short of hugging a tree and buying a cup of coffee.