MOTHERING

Time to Get Rid Of the Guns

by Fern Kupfer

The guns. We have to get rid of the guns. It's hard to believe thiscountry is going to accept the massacre of children by armedschoolmates with the same defeated resignation as we view automobileaccidents and teenage vandalism. But we might. Too many people think theright to own a gun defines America as much as freedom of the press andthe right to vote. My question is why are the rest of us so bullied bythis view that we don't demand change?

I know teenagers pretty well. I've raised three. I know theirfriends. And I've taught thousands of young people in English classes.I've had my students keep journals and often they've shared their mostprivate thoughts. Among the ordinary reflections -- about family andfriends, about the tensions of school and work, complaints about dormfood and the weather -- is an occasional revelation of such anguishthat it takes my breath away. Students write about abject loneliness. Orself-loathing. Some share thoughts about suicide. There is a reason, Ibelieve, that they write about their pain. And that reason is they wanthelp. Often I have added the telephone number of the student counselingcenter on the bottom of the page. I have written: "You do not have tofeel this way . . . " But I never know what works and who actually getsthe help that is needed.

I have noticed that unhappiness manifests itself differently bygender. Girls tend toward self-criticism. They write about how they arenever smart enough or pretty enough or thin enough. They may write howthey can't get along with their mothers or their roommates, but theirdespair is mostly directed at their own feelings of inadequacy, whichmanifests itself in eating disorders, promiscuity and depression.

Boys may be equally unhappy, but their negativity shows itself asanger toward the outside world: the stupid bosses who fired them, theteachers who had it in for them, the girls who dumped them. Theirself-hate - reflected in anger and blame - has an incendiary qualitythat can be frightening. More frightening perhaps is that these unhappyboys have access to guns. An angry boy who wants to get back at someonecould call him names, slash his tires, throw a punch. But what about anangry boy with a gun?

I've thought about this a lot with regard to the recent rash of highschool killings and the publicity that surrounds them. The pictures onthe front page of newspapers. Live coverage on CNN. Interviews ofweeping teenage girls and boys in front of the high school. A memorialof flowers and teddy bears left in tribute along a fence. How many timesthis year have we witnessed this scene? How many unhappy young men haveseen this as well and can envision themselves going out in a blaze ofnotorious glory?

Many of my students who own guns come from rural backgrounds andfamilies who enjoy hunting as a sport. They would say that most gunenthusiasts are responsible people who want to continue to enjoy aprivilege granted to them by the Bill of Rights. Should they be deniedthis right because of a criminal element and a few mentally unstableindividuals? I say, yes.

The constitution (if one interprets the right to bear arms as anindividual right rather than the declared freedom to organize themilitary against a repressive government) is a living work that we havefrequently modified to fit the needs of society. We've added amendmentsto give women the right to vote. And limited the term of a president.And abolished slavery.

Guns remain as available in this country as fast food. Some peoplewho do not own guns and might support gun control are also part of asilent majority who want to respect the rights of other Americans. Butas more massacres take place, I believe these folks are going to rethinkthis. I hope they do. I believe that gun control is not a rights issuebut a public health issue. Same as AIDS, or cystic fibrosis, or all theother diseases that require our charitable attention. Violence isdecimating a population of innocents.

We don't have to continue to accept this. Guns kill. That's whatthey're made for. Other countries -- New Zealand, Great Britain,Australia, Japan -- record under a hundred gun fatalities a year. Inthis country almost 10,000 people a year die as a result of gunfire.

Every columnist, every social analyst, every parent, every armchairpsychologist can give suggestions for curbing the epidemic of violence.Yes, we should have more socially responsible movies and television.Yes, we must listen carefully to the messages that our children aresending us. Yes, we must intervene more assertively in troublingsituations.

But before anything else - the guns. We have to get rid of theguns.

Fern Kupfer is a novelist and writing professor at Iowa State University. She is a frequent contributor to Working Moms' Internet Refuge.

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