Speaking of common threads... [View All]

[rrneck]

Americans have an unhealthy penchant for seeking simple solutions to complex problems. It is a myopia born of self righteous arrogance and laziness that kills meaningful change before it can begin.

Life is hard? Pull the trigger and blow your brains out. No hope for the future? Take your family with you. Wife leaving you? Pull the trigger on her. Bullied at work? Pull the trigger on your boss. Some punk kicks your door down? Fuck him. He made a bad decision. Pull the trigger on him. Problem solved in a flicker of an instant.

Tired of reading about the misery caused by senseless violence? Outlaw triggers. Fearful when you take out the properly separated and collated trash? Ban triggers. Sight of a weapon remind you how quickly human beings can become barbaric animals? Dehumanize and ostracize the owner of the trigger.

The moment when the trigger is pulled is an event horizon that stands between a catastrophic collapse of lives on one side and an catastrophic reshuffling of them on the other. Nothing good ever leads to pulling a trigger. No good ever comes from it. The trigger just is, and it will never go away because sometimes there is no other choice but to pull it.

This juvenile and ghoulish fascination with the trigger does nothing to heal the walking wounded that will surely suffer from it. Nor does it help us assume responsibility for our actions after we pull it. We waste so much effort on lock time entire lives wither for lack of attention.

When we learn to manage our lives and assume responsibility for the lives of others the triggers will take care of themselves.