The New York author details the disastrous, unique, and growing consequences of a minority of American’s love of guns in this short pithy essay/book. The pagination cited above includes 10 completely blank pages and 33 pages of grainy black-and-white photographs that contribute no useful information.
After discussing his own relationship to guns in his youth in marksmanship, skeet shooting, and the secret shooting of his grandfather by his grandmother, he launches into the bigger picture. Much of the essential information is contained in the front cover blurb continued on the back cover. He delves into the history of the second amendment and asserts that the original meaning of the “right to bear arms” was clearly meant to apply to a government-controlled militia, contrary to the NRA, firearms industry and modern supreme court’s interpretation. He points out that much could be accomplished by enforcing existing regulations such as those that apply to interstate commerce, rather than trying to introduce new restrictions in a deeply divided Congress.
After comparing gun ownership to driving a car or smoking cigarettes, he notes: “…not every gun owner will use his gun to maim or kill himself or someone else. But people shoot other people because they have guns, and people commit suicide with guns because they have guns, and the more guns there are to be bought and the more people there are to buy them, the more people will kill themselves and others with guns. This is not a moral or political statement- it is a question of pure mathematics.” But that cannot be entirely true as it does not take into account multiple mitigating factors.
As a smug Canadian ex-hunter and marksman, I see no workable solution to our neighbour’s major ongoing folly, and am grateful that it has not spilled over the border.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/10.
Thanks, The New Yorker.
The Passionate Reader 