I’ve only ever lived in societies where guns play no part in daily life.
It leaves me feeling as though part of my life’s foundation has been within a quiet pool, washed by eddies from a fast flowing river but away from the rapids.
Quick anger affects us but the knowledge that my neighbour, colleague or the bloke walking by may be carrying a gun adds a level of slightly anxious awareness to the process of life that I could do without.
Talk about a slippery slope.
When television was introduced, commercials were placed at the beginning and the end of a program. Public awareness was at a level where the commercial interests involved absolutely had to stress this aspect of programming.
Not only would additional commercial breaks destroy the continuity of the program - that’s obvious to everyone - but ... be unacceptable ..... at that time.
Everything has changed in fifty years and now programs are made with commercial breaks plotted into the program itself and at shorter and shorter intervals.
This is only mentioned to demonstrate the truth behind the idea that only one generation is needed to mould, manipulate and change the norm. What is considered acceptable standards.
The right to bear arms makes sense within a fledgling society threatened by real and perceived enemies. But like the commercials in television, guns proliferate, becoming the equivalent of a private army in the hands of one human. Being able to spray machine gun clips of ammunition at a whim wasn’t the intended consequence of the right to bear arms and yet - America isn’t a country that the Founding Fathers would recognise or embrace. And yet again - about twelve thousand deaths from firearms last year while tobacco killed over five hundred thousand and medical errors - close to two hundred thousand.
Desperate people with nothing to lose, lose it.
On an individual level it’s apparent that people, by and large, respond with humanity to crisis and help where they can.
From a distance America is becoming an overtly sinister, Disneyland version of a concentration camp where the inmates are armed and don’t yet know that they’re inmates - apart from airport security and the like..... and then there’s the something ‘other’ - drones. Bad enough that they’re in military hands but wait - in private hands and with weapons attached, they’ll eventually be coming to an area somewhere nearby.
The Homeland - what an ominous resonance that word carries..... and so it should with enough hollow point bullets purchased by that agency recently to spray the population many times over.
‘Grandson’ was talking about the ‘killshot’ the other day. He’s got a good grasp of the possible implications of a major solar flare penetrating our magnetic shield and essentially frying the world’s electrical systems.
Everything stops and life doesn’t get back to normal. It would be a ‘game changer’.
A more cheerful game changer would be the low cost technology now becoming available which works with ambient heat rather than with solar cell activity. Neither dust nor cloud stop the activity and, if it works, it would be a wonderful replacement for the dependence upon oil and upon an energy grid.
That’s the thing - while very little on the world stage happens by accident - chance, unusual events and game-changers do occur.