By Will Falk
My position on gun control is simple. As long as the police, soldiers, and rapists have guns, we should have guns, too.
As long as one in four women in this country are raped in their lifetimes, women should have access to guns. As long as people of color are gunned down in the streets, they should be capable of defending themselves. As long as theft of native land continues alongside genocide of native peoples, they should be able to arm themselves against their invaders.
People – mainly white, male people – tell me that I take too extreme of a view. They tell me they just do not see the violence.
They do not hear machine guns rattling every morning, bombs exploding, the screams of mangled children, and the sobbing of mothers finding those children, so they do not believe we are at war. As a society, they ask, aren’t we over violence? Do we really need guns in today’s United States?
Even though some cannot see it, refuse to see it, or deny it, we are at war for the survival of life on earth. How else do you characterize the fact that over 100 species a day are going extinct? How else do you describe the fact that indigenous languages are going extinct at a rate relatively faster than species? Currently, scientists are seriously questioning humanity’s ability to survive through the end of this century. If this is not war, what is?
Before I go on, I want to make it clear that I am not against keeping guns out of the hands of some people. I do think people with certain histories of violence and mental illness should be barred from guns. It just so happens that many of the people who I think should be barred from guns (many men, for their inability to overcome toxic masculinity, for example) also happen to be cops and soldiers.
To make this more personal, I cannot own a gun because of a failed suicide attempt in California. It makes no difference to the State that I tried to kill myself with pills and that I currently have enough pills with me right now to finish the job. I also engage in frontline resistance and my writing has earned me some nasty messages from people I’m truly afraid of. I would like a gun, but I cannot own one.
I dream of a world where guns cannot exist. But, it is one thing to dream of that world, and another to take action in the real world to bring about that dream. Unfortunately, cops, soldiers, and rapists are not going to give up their guns, so I am firmly against allowing them to come take ours.
***
Frankly, I find most versions of the argument for more gun control to be racist. I do not mean racist in the typical “but I don’t hate anyone for the color of their skin” conception, but racist in the physical, systemic, and real sense of the word. I have argued before that hatred does not need to be felt to have devastating consequences.
Adolf Eichmann, executed for his role in organizing Nazi concentration camps, explained, “I was never an anti-Semite…my sensitive nature revolted at the sight of corpses and blood…I personally had nothing to do with this. My job was to observe and report on it.” Eichmann did not personally hate Jews. He simply helped exterminate millions of them.
Local, state, and federal governments are staffed by thousands of little Eichmanns engaged in institutional racism. We know that the cops who are shooting unarmed people of color around the country shrug and say, “Look, I’m just doing my job.” We see over and over again cops joined by their friends in district attorney offices doing their level best to keep cops from facing justice.
Additionally, Michelle Alexander has pointed out that there are more black men in prison today than were enslaved in 1850. I imagine this sort of insidious racism would be Hitler’s wet dream.
Then, again, I find it hard to believe that the cops who are raping women while on-duty in the backs of squad cars, in gas station restrooms, and in their offices do not personally hate women. And what about all this news of American torture tactics? Are we to believe that the soldiers performing water-boarding and rectal feeding on people of color do not feel hatred for their victims?
Many people subscribe to what I call the bad-apple theory of the police and the military. They say no system is perfect. They say we’re always going to have a few bad apples in the bunch. The truth is, however, we do not live in a broken system. We live in a system that was designed to perpetuate power and hatred.
How many more women need to be raped by cops before this is clear? How many more unarmed people of color will be killed before we notice the roots of this apple tree are poisoned? How many more plates of nuts, raisins, and hummus will be pureed and forced through tubes inserted into the anuses of torture victims before we cut this tree down?
So, let’s bring this back to gun control. When we talk about gun control laws, who is going to enforce these laws? Is it going to be the same criminal justice system that imprisons more black men than were enslaved in 1850 supported by the same government that is defending the use of rectal feeding? Or is this system going to magically transform itself on the way through our front doors to confiscate an effective tool for fighting back?
Are these the people – people who will not be giving up their own guns – that we want coming into our communities to take guns away?
***
I also find the argument for more gun control to be ignorant of history. Perhaps, the most typical argument for more gun control follows the general misunderstanding of the nature of non-violent resistance in this country. This argument says that we do not need guns in this country just like we do not need violence. Martin Luther King Jr.’s use of non-violence is thrown up as a lazy example.
Dr. King, however, was a victim of exactly the type of racist applications of gun control laws I fear when he applied for a concealed carry permit in Alabama in 1956 after his home was bombed. Adam Winkler, professor of law at UCLA, explains for the Huffington Post that Dr. King was the perfect candidate for a concealed carry license, but his application was rejected by the local racist police force.
Many gun control advocates forget the integral role guns played in the Civil Rights movement. Groups such as the Deacons for Defense and Justice, Robert F. Williams’ Monroe, NC branch of the NAACP, and the Black Panther Party regularly carried guns in public. Even Dr. King was not dogmatic about his non-violence and agreed to march next to gun-wielding black men in the Deacons for Defense and Justice during the 1966 March Against Fear.
Many gun control advocates also forget the way indigenous peoples resisted the theft of their lands with guns. Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull protected their lands from Custer and the 7th Cavalry at Little Big Horn with lots of guns. Geronimo carried guns against Mexican and American invaders of Apache homelands. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce defended himself with rifles as he fled the US Army over a 1170 mile retreat in 1877.
I remember the prophetic words of Tecumseh when he called on native peoples in the American Midwest to join him in armed resistance to American expansion. Tecumseh begged the Choctaws and Chickasaws to “Let us form one body, one heart, and defend to the last warrior our country, our homes, our liberty, and the graves of our fathers.”
Then, Tecumseh pointed to history and asked, “But what need is there to speak of the past? It speaks for itself and asks, ‘Where today is the Pequod? Where the Narragansetts, the Mohawks, Pocanokets, and many other once powerful tribes of our race?’ They have vanished before the avarice and oppression of the white men, as snow before a summer sun.” Tecumseh spoke these words over 200 hundred years ago, and the extermination of indigenous peoples in North America only got worse.
In light of this history, do any of us honestly believe that this culture will voluntarily agree to stop killing indigenous people? And if this culture will not stop the murdering, why would we try to take guns out of the hands of people who need them?
***
Finally, I would like to propose a compromise to the mainstream gun control movement. I fully expect that most will reject this compromise out of hand and I will ask why later. I commend those who abhor gun violence. In fact, I commend those who abhor all violence. I think my compromise will address more violence than the elimination of guns from the hands of oppressed communities.
As we know, one in four women in this country is raped and another one in four fend off rape attempts. This means women are more likely to be raped or to fight off a would-be rapist than they are to be shot. Similarly, men are not being shot by women at a rate of one in four.
Additionally, the US Department of Justice reports that close to 100% of rapes are committed by men. Of course, rapes happen in different ways, but for the most part the common weapon in a rape is a penis.
I propose, then, in the interests of fairness that before we take guns away from women, men should give up their penises. Men with penises are, after all, hurting more women than women with guns are hurting men (or anyone, for that matter).
I know that most will not take my compromise seriously and I want to know why. Penises and guns have been used to inflict devastating amounts of pain and they have also been used in ways that benefit communities. Many do not view penises as inherently evil while they do view guns as inherently evil, but in each case is it not the character of the person using each that determines the goodness or evilness of the object?
Penises and guns have also come to symbolize power. The mere fact of being a man in this culture, the mere fact of possessing a penis, grants men access to arbitrary privileges that harm women. A gun on the hip of a policeman or on the shoulder of a solider is enough to scare most people into subservience.
If the gun control movement is going to take power away from women in the form of the right to own a gun, then they should ask men to give up their power in the form of their penis. Penises for guns, weapons for weapons. It’s only fair.
Will Falk
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Why did the SD Free Press print this?
Because it brings up lots of valid issues. Even if I think that the author’s compromise is not a serious statement, I does make a point. We need to control violent acts of people not take tools needed for self defense from innocent people ( or any person for that matter)
GUN CONTROL – The theory that a woman, raped and strangled to death with her own pantyhose, is morally superior to a woman explaining to the police how her attacker got those fatal bullet wounds in his chest and forehead!
You and Falk are advocating the arming of women. So is the NRA. Whaddaya think of that?
Falk is arguing that we should outlaw the penis. Whaddaya think of that?
Really, what makes my teeth ache is this high holiness you both invoke; you’re advocating retribution and vengeance and acting as if you’d like to see us wage civil war against the gun culture.
This is just self-indulgent indignation. You’re both talking to the mirror. And I still wonder why Falk’s piece was published.
I do have a question for you Bob. Not that I agree with Will or Lee on this (I really don’t), but there is a growing # of women who are choosing to carry a concealed weapon (whether or not it is legal). What about the women who live in an area that has had a high degree of sexual or other violent attacks and have lost concern about possible future consequences (like mistakenly thinking someone is going to attack them and shooting them only to find out it was an innocent victim)? Do you think they are bad people for doing so?
You’re trapped in the same bloody f’ing rationale for open or concealed carry as the gun nuts. They think they’re at risk too. The more guns, the more shootings. Whoopee, we’re all going to hell.
I didnt say I agree with it. Regardless I take it they won’t be on your nice list.
I often hear from gun-control advocates that we need to control guns and gun owners because (or something along the lines of) “gun owners are law abiding, until they area not”.
It’s the same as saying “all men are not rapists, until they are”.
“Unfortunately, cops, soldiers, and rapists are not going to give up their guns, so I am firmly against allowing them to come take ours.”
Sorry Will, in all due respects I kind of have to laugh at the soldier part. I’m assuming by solders you are using it generically for all military personnel. If not feel free to correct me. Solders (and all other military members) are issued weapons while on duty and that’s the only time they have them in their possession. In fact the majority DO NOT have them even on duty. I did 20 years in the Navy and the only time I had one was while standing shipboard watch. Off duty they are no more armed than you are. Even the boots on the ground infantry are not carrying while off duty on liberty or leave. You express this fear of soldiers as if you feel they my potentially harm you which again sort of cracks me up.
“Are we to believe that the soldiers performing water-boarding and rectal feeding on people of color do not feel hatred for their victims?”
Not excusing the water boarding or rectal feeding but solders are not the people who are performing these acts. Just sayin.
Just look at the two Fort Hood mass killing and the Washington Naval Yard for examples of military people not having access to arms, even on base and on duty.
Detachable penis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byDiILrNbM4
I can’t resist this.
Or . . . how’s THIS for compromise:
I forgot about that one.
If (maybe more like when) injunctions are granted to the oil corporations that want to build pipelines over unceded Unist’ot’en territory and the Unist’ot’en refuse to leave the lands they’ve lived on for 12,500 years, who will come for them? Police and soldiers with guns. How many massacres of indigenous peoples on this continent do I need to cite before that point is taken?
I am personally afraid of the guns soldiers carry because they will be trained on my chest when I refuse to leave the side of the Unist’ot’en. You certainly have less to fear from police and soldiers if you’re not putting your body in the way of the destruction. Women, people of color, and indigenous peoples are perpetual victims of state-sponsored violence. That is my point. It’s only through great privilege that you can laugh at a fear of police and soldiers.
You are talking about a completely different scenario than everyday people in regular circumstances. Soldiers are not walking around armed in San Diego (yeah I know you are not in SD) or any other city and have no jurisdiction over any other citizens. Also plenty of soldiers are not white and privileged any more so than the most downtrodden “people of color” you defend. As for the police, that’s a different matter because when they are on duty they’re not confined to a base and are in fact out and around patrolling while armed. Believe it or not, many military people are just as afraid of them
And yes there are exceptions like the National Guard being mobilized in civilian communities but they are also not regular soldiers.
Perhaps what it takes is becoming that indigenous person of say 200 years ago to put things in perspective for some people. Walk a mile in their shoes as they say. Or over 1100.
I will say this. You should be afraid of me. If you ever return to San Diego and I see you I may jump out at you and yell “BOOGA BOOGA!!”.
Hi Will,
A Gal here, and I have to say that I totally agree with you. I am opposed to all forms of violence and force, but I recognize that others are not. So, one reacts to the world one finds herself in. Self-defense, and the possibility of offensive resistance have to be part of that picture. For me, in the age of the Predator Drone, a gun is more a symbol than an effective form of self-defense – at least, against a government. We’re in a pathetic age, where the ordinary resistance of persons is too weak to work. That being said, I’ve been in more than one situation in which I was in physical and sexual danger and I was acutely aware of my physical inability to fight back and win. The heart, the courage, one’s damn knees fail when one already knows one cannot win. ISIS sweeps across the middle east and every crime is worse than their last. When I think I’m suffering, I think of the Yazidi women. If all the decent people on the ground embraced my ideology or sense of inevitability as respects violence, they’d all be dead. I’m not a fighter, it horrifies me too much, but I am one who recognizes the right of others to fight. Good men, good women, armed is nothing to be afraid of. I’m more afraid of the lack of conscience on the part of those who set themselves up as authorities and protectors and are not.
Thank you for writing this and sharing your perspective. You express – from a place of personal experience – what I was trying to in my article. Thank you.
Of course, no problem. Keep writing. I, for one, really enjoy it. There’s a subtle tyranny of ideas afoot in media and culture in general that says, “at all costs, don’t say what you really think; it’s much safer to conform to the plastic statistic of accepted/acceptable ideas. Don’t open yourself up to potential criticism.” If you refuse to dissemble about what you really think, what you’ve really learned, or what you’ve experienced and the conclusions drawn therefrom, then someone will get your crucifix ready. Well, that’s garbage. Authenticity is dangerous, but no true consensus was ever formed in a room full of people lying to each other. And now to disgust you, I’ll add that I say this as a person much more likely to virulently disagree with you than not (this isn’t the first of your articles I’ve read)! You are a rare voice. Definitely keep writing.
“I am opposed to all forms of violence and force, but I recognize that others are not.”
People who haven’t given this subject sufficient consideration use the word “violence” as a uniformly evil term. Violence (like guns) is devoid of moral coloring, save for the intent of the human behind it.
Aggression is a crime. Defense of yourself and your family is a human right. Both involve violence.
One who says, “I am opposed to all forms of aggression” earns my respect for having understood the issue properly. One who fails to adopt the distinction should be aware that being willing to call the police (men with guns, to do proxy violence on one’s behalf) exposes the hypocrisy of their position.
I think you should read what I wrote a second time. If you gleaned that I’m a pacifist, you’re right. If you gleaned that I would impose that on you, you’re wrong. I have actually called the police before, but they never came, so the point is moot.
This is the first definition of “violence” from the OED: “a. The deliberate exercise of physical force against a person, property, etc.” The word, just sitting there on the page, does lack “moral coloring,” but when a person takes that word and balls it up his/her fist and punches someone, it is not exactly a caress. Violence that harms another person, or other living being, IS immoral, not as defined by The Bible, maybe, but as defined by my own moral compass. Even if I’m defending myself or my loved ones, I will not be thinking kind thoughts as I release my violence on someone else. The word “violence” cannot be separated from an act of violence. The bond is too strong.
“People – mainly white, male people – tell me that I take too extreme of a view. They tell me they just do not see the violence.”
You’re hanging out with the wrong White males.
Will- thanks for being provocative. You have illustrated a key point: the vast majority of shooting injuries and deaths in the US are not caused by “black on black” violence. And certainly not “women on women” violence. It is most often white men, often young adults, using guns which they have easy access to, to kill and injure people who are not like them.
Add: the rabid, hateful responses from many men re women like Gabby Giffords who have the temerity to speak out about gun violence. Or the anger generated by the mothers who effectively organize to stop open carry (see below).
That Ms. Gifford and other women are increasingly willing to do so, even (especially) after having directly experienced being shot, or having loved ones shot and killed, is testimony to their courage.
Perhaps that’s why the reaction is sometimes so hateful and, often, fearful: these women are powerful voices. They refuse to be silenced. They are a force to be reckoned with.
Consider this article: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/09/moms-demand-action-guns-madd-shannon-watts-nra
It reminds us:
“Moms Demand Action has also campaigned aggressively for laws to disarm domestic abusers—legislation categorically opposed by the NRA until it quietly began moderating its stance this past year. **Every year more than a million women are physically assaulted by an intimate partner, and when a gun is present, the likelihood of their being murdered goes up more than fivefold.** Women regularly are shot to death even after obtaining court protection orders against their abusers, according to a New York Times investigation last year. The phenomenon was on grim display again in July, when a man who’d had multiple restraining orders against him shot to death six of his ex-wife’s family members in Texas, including four children.”
So thank you for being provocative, and also honest, about who is doing all this killing with guns, and who is most likely to become the victims.
Thank you for clearing up one of my points, Lori. I could have done much better to explain as long as male violence against women proliferates any gun control measures should be controlled by women as a class. I have no problem with taking guns out of the hands of domestic abusers. I do have a problem with suggestions that taking guns from the general public while allowing police and soldiers to carry them somehow makes us all safer.
Here is a photographic commentary on this same issue.
http://tinyurl.com/ndpz6ls
Note the confidence, even arrogance, in the eyes of these women. That is the effect of possessing a firearm. Perhaps there should be a different set of rules/laws for women from men to possess handguns.
As the 4th anniversary of the shootings of frmr US Rep. Gabby Giffords and her staff in Tucson approaches, I may write more on how authoring a major gun safety bill on open carry in 2010 impacted my final year in the legislature.
Meanwhile, here’s this from Frontline:
Don’t Call It “Gun Control”
Advocates have also started to rethink the way they talk about their goals. Today, none of them actually use the term “gun control.” “That’s a phrase that was pointed to as divisive, or didn’t have the right tone or implications,” said Shannon Watts, who founded Moms Demand Action.
They talk instead about “gun safety,” “common-sense gun laws,” or more simply, “keeping guns out of the wrong hands.” They underscore that even as Americans support firearm ownership, 91 percent also want mandatory background checks.
“This framing of pro-gun versus anti-gun, or pro-restriction versus Second Amendment rights, is not a healthy way of looking at this issue if our goal is to save lives,” said Dan Gross, head of the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence. “We need to look at the opportunities that clearly exist to prevent gun deaths and crime while being consistent with the Second Amendment and the desire of law-abiding citizens to own guns.”
http://tinyurl.com/m6p34km
Having been an educated, professional man for three decades, I have not experienced many arbitrary privileges, injurious to women or not. In our uber-politically-correct society I find being male more of a liability than a benefit, both personally and professionally.
Perhaps you are unaware of how much you benefit from being male, both personally and professionally.
As a male, you receive $1 and your female counterpart doing the same work, earns 77 cents.
As a male, if you are a sexually active heterosexual and don’t have a vasectomy, you do not have the expense or need to control your fertility for decades of your adult life if you don’t want children. If you are raped, you won’t get pregnant.
As a professional, how often does a customer or client say to you “Why aren’t you smiling?” Do your customers or clients try to give you a massage in your work setting? Have you ever had a boss who tried to cop a feel?
Does your seat mate on public transportation rub his leg against yours and get pissed off if you tell him to stop it?
Have you ever stood on a street corner alone at night and weighed whether it is better to walk home on the shortest route with few street lights or along a well lit street further away?
Have you ever sat on a public bench and have someone drive up and ask you if you’re working?
No benefits to being male? Really?
and get mad and call us feminists like its a bad word we dont hate men its they’re actions
and it is their character that and i quote “but in each case is it not the character of the person using each that determines the goodness or evilness of the object”
Thank you so much for this article. When we women talk about this subject we are often trivialized; sometimes called “man-haters”. No one really wants to talk about it or even acknowledge it. It is good to hear a man speak and acknowledge this issue of violence against women. Thank you.
I’m not advocating any kind of gun restrictions here, but I think we should be wary of anyone claiming that gun ownership will make women safer. The opposite seems to be true. Higher rates of gun availability are associated with higher rates of female homicide. An article looking at various studies can be found here: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/02/having-a-gun-in-the-house-doesnt-make-a-woman-safer/284022/
I think this article supports one of my points – it’s not so much the presence of a gun that puts the woman at risk, it’s the presence of a man.
Hey Will,
Thanks you for standing up for the incredible number of murdered women – they usually have no voice.
I also find it incredible that a white man can kill a black boy without any reason and a woman who fires some warning shots inside off her room to scare away her attacker will get 20 years in a Texas jail! Without hurting anyone!
The message is: white men have the power over your life, unless you are also a white man.
Thank you for standing up for women, Will! You are definitely “part of the solution”.
Thanks for saying this, Sophia. It really means a lot. I don’t know if writing can be a big part of the solution, but it’s how I understand the world. I want men to pledge their allegiance to women unconditionally and to attack the institutional and physical means by which patriarchy perpetuates itself.
From the point of view of a woman who has been raped and owns guns this article hits the nail right on the head! Men cannot begin to comprehend what it is like to be made to feel completely powerless and unsafe in your own skin, nor do most men bother to try to understand! “Here’s the math. According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)–there is an average of 293,066 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year. There are 525,600 minutes in a non-leap year. That makes 31,536,000 seconds/year. So, 31,536,000 divided by 293,066 comes out to 1 sexual assault every 107 seconds.” That is 1 sexual assault every 1.7 minutes. That is roughly 35 rapes or sexual assaults every hour. So, if you typically work 8 hours a day, remember at the end of your work day, every day 280 people have been sexually assaulted.
I and women like me do not seek to commit violence against anyone. I am not looking to get revenge against my rapist with a gun. I know who he is and where he lives, just as most victims of sexual assault know their perpetrator. However, I do have a right to defend myself with a gun from anything like that ever happening to me again or to someone I love.
So you can yap yap yap about gun control all you want, but for myself and others like me, you can have my guns when you can pry them from my cold dead fingers and not until!!