{"id":227440,"date":"2023-01-16T12:00:43","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T12:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=227440"},"modified":"2023-01-15T06:29:15","modified_gmt":"2023-01-15T06:29:15","slug":"how-safe-can-we-really-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/01\/how-safe-can-we-really-be\/","title":{"rendered":"How Safe Can We Really Be?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>11 Jan 2023 – <\/em>It was the guacamole\u2019s fault!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s the guy\u2019s defense, anyway \u2014 that plus his right to carry four handguns, an AR-15 and a 12-guage shotgun into a supermarket in Atlanta. Oh yeah, and he was wearing body armor. This was in March 2021, barely a week after an actual mass shooting at several massage parlors in Atlanta, in which eight people were killed. And it was only two days after a mass shooting at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, where ten people were killed.<\/p>\n

When another customer saw the guy in the store\u2019s bathroom, with the AR-15 propped against a wall, and alerted store personnel to the presence of a possible mass murderer, the panic was certainly understandable. The store was evacuated, police came, the gun carrier was arrested. But, as the New York Times<\/a> asked in a story about the incident nearly two years later: Did he break the law?<\/p>\n

When I read this paradoxical story the other day \u2014 about how the arrestee hadn\u2019t actually committed a crime and was not convicted of any wrongdoing \u2014 the psychological stratosphere broke open for me. Who are we . . . as a nation, as a planet, as an evolving species? Here\u2019s the thing about paradox: You can\u2019t simply shoot it, blow it apart, then move on. You have to swallow it whole. You have to transcend it.<\/p>\n

What is freedom \u2014 in this case, the freedom to be armed and, you know, able to defend yourself? Does one man\u2019s freedom force the rest of us to watch their country turn into a John Wayne movie?<\/p>\n

The Times story informs us that the defense attorney told the court his client \u201chad acquired the guns and the body armor . . . because he had felt threatened by someone in his neighborhood. On the day of his arrest, he had hoped to take his guns to a nearby shooting range but first had to run some errands, which included a stop at the grocery store.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, oh yeah, he didn\u2019t have a car, which is why he had lugged the guns \u2014 handguns in his jacket pockets, the rifle and shotgun in a guitar case \u2014 into the store. While he was in the men\u2019s room, he \u201chad taken out some of the weapons, including the rifle, to clean them after discovering that some guacamole he had bought had caused a mess inside the bag.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there you have it. A normal American situation. Well, sure, as the Times points out: \u201cAll but three states allow for the open carry of handguns, long guns or both, and in many there is little the police can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hence, the paradox. Of course, there\u2019s one small detail the Times story omits. The police dilemma can suddenly disappear if the person legally carrying a gun happens to be black, as the Philando Castile<\/a> case demonstrated back in 2016.<\/p>\n

Castile, a black man who was licensed to carry a handgun, was driving with his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter in a suburb near Saint Paul, Minnesota, when his car was pulled over. Castile explained to the officer that he was legally carrying a handgun, but as he was trying to pull out his driver\u2019s license, the officer shot him seven times, killing him. The officer was later arrested and charged with manslaughter, but was acquitted.<\/p>\n

So the paradox expands: weapons, force, fear, dehumanization and . . . racism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the American paradox<\/a> in full blossom.\u201d So I wrote last year, pondering the endless question. \u201cThe more people there are carrying guns, especially in public places, the more dangerous it is simply to be out and about; and the more dangerous it is to be out in public, the more credibility Second Amendment aficionados have when they claim they are only safe if they\u2019re carrying a weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Except they aren\u2019t safe at all \u2014 they\u2019re just swimming in the chaos, clinging to a belief that their guns make them safe. But such a belief is crucial. I understand the need to believe one is safe. When I moved to Chicago from rural Michigan \u2014 my God, almost half a century ago, in search of a career in journalism \u2014 I wasn\u2019t sure how I\u2019d fare in the dangerous big city. But I was a peacenik, not a gun guy. Here\u2019s what I decided: I\u2019ll look everyone in the eye. I will not be afraid.<\/p>\n

That is to say, I gave myself agency. And this is what worked \u2014 the fact that I felt empowered. And I didn\u2019t care what neighborhood I was in. The white-person mantra was: Stay out of such-and-such neighborhood . . . Cabrini-Green or whatever. You know, neighborhoods of color, a.k.a., ghettos. Don\u2019t go there! I paid no attention to that, and the whole city became mine.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not saying life has been perfect \u2014 free of trouble. I was once mugged<\/a> by three teens in hoodies, a few blocks from my house. Life is what it is. The world is full of thorns and potholes. No one is fully safe, forever and ever.<\/p>\n

And the paradox doesn\u2019t go away. How much force is necessary to get what we want? Historian Timothy Snyder, in a recent interview with Rachel Maddow<\/a> reflecting on the Jan. 8 attack on the Brazilian capital by supporters of defeated president Jair Bolsonaro (and its similarity to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. capital by Trump supporters), said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you trash the place, you\u2019re showing, symbolically, that institutions don\u2019t matter. What matters is force. What matters is will. You disrespect an institution . . . a strongman should be running the country. You humiliate the institution, then you get the strongman.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the strongman may kill his enemies, but he can\u2019t kill the paradox.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Robert C. Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based peace journalist and nationally syndicated writer. His book, <\/em>Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press) is still available. Contact him at koehlercw@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0Go to Original \u2013 commonwonders.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

11 Jan 2023 – What is freedom–the freedom to be armed and able to defend yourself? Does one man\u2019s freedom force the rest of us to watch their country turn into a John Wayne movie?… And the strongman may kill his enemies, but he can\u2019t kill the paradox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":77939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[867,1161,328,70],"class_list":["post-227440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tms-peace-journalism","tag-anglo-america","tag-arms-industry","tag-freedom","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}