VIOLENCE + POLITICS

Every Tweet Is A Bullet

Sesame Street and the changing face of gun ownership

“It was not the path I was to take. Because of my deeds, I will never know peace again.” — Hiawatha

The mother grabbed her gun and shot him dead. He was attempting to break into her home where she was inside with her two young children. He was a convicted felon out on parole. He had just committed a carjacking.

How we look at this story depends on where we want to enter the narrative. No matter how we look at the incident, it is tragic.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we are partially responsible.

And Sesame Street has the solution.

Escalation

While this is another gun shooting incident in America, the story applies everywhere from Palestine to Sudan, Ukraine to Myanmar. There is nuance to each situation. At the core is violence.

And violence begets violence.

From the mother’s point of view, if she hadn’t owned a gun she and her children might be dead. She has also removed a violent felon from the streets so he will never hurt anyone again.

But we also cannot ignore the felon’s story. Most criminals have grown up in violent circumstances in extreme poverty. They had harm done to them, they in turn utilized violence as a tool.

This does not justify the actions of the felon. And in the moment few if any would argue that the woman should have just let the felon into her home, risking the life of her and her children. Even the most extreme anti-gun activist would not choose the felon over the mother.

But in every case the pattern is exactly the same. A small incident generates a stronger response and the blame and escalation begins.

Every tragedy can be traced back to a trigger that caused the action and each related action before it.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most classic example where both sides blame the other and have argued their points back to over 4,000 years ago. It is an impossible scenario to reconcile unless one side decides to take a higher moral position.

Enter Ernie and Bert.

Dripping Faucets

Gun ownership is changing drastically. Sales are being driven by women and people of color. This is a vastly different narrative than the ones we have grown up with over the past fifty years of the white male armed with a weapon.

The major reason new owners cite for buying a gun is safety. They have lost trust in society to protect them so they are going to protect themselves as the mother above did with her children.

Only time will tell if an approach of mutually assured destruction will at least stop the innocent people in schools, homes and malls from being killed.

Currently, however, we are on a path of incremental escalation and the solutions are not working.

In an episode of Sesame Street, Ernie and Bert are getting ready for bed when a dripping faucet keeps them awake. To address the noise, Ernie gets up and turns on the radio to cover up the dripping sound. Burt complains about the noise to which Ernie then turns on the vacuum cleaner to cover up the loud radio. Ernie is fine with the cacophony as he feels he has addressed the problem. Bert, now frustrated, gets up and turns off the vacuum cleaner and radio and simply shuts off the faucet.

Bert, happy with the silence, puts his head down only to now be dealing with a snoring Ernie.

There are two insights from this story: 1) Escalation didn’t fix the issue and 2) there will always be another problem.

For many now in America the solution to the violence happening in their neighborhoods is to turn on the radio and vacuum. It may create other problems but it at least fixes the issue of the sound of the dripping faucet.

Turn Off the Faucet

Just like most wars and acts of violence, getting to the source of the issue is complicated. The debate revolves around whether society should side more with the victim or with the perpetrator. Then an added layer of argument is whether the perpetrator was a victim as well.

I grew up as a devoted San Francisco liberal Democrat. I have voted in support of every social measure that has come onto the ballots. Over the last ten years I’ve started to see that many of the policies I’ve supported to address crime, homelessness, drugs, addiction and mental health simply aren’t working. I don’t believe the opposing policies address the issue either.

The problem is that the answer, as always, sits in the middle but we refuse to work together to address the situation.

Calling all illegal immigrants rapists and felons was irresponsible, dangerous and false. It created hysteria. At the same time, those calling to defund the police and remove security from the streets was equally irrational.

As we are seeing now, people are taking matters into their own hands as our policy makers cannot reconcile their differences. The answer is very simple: just turn off the dripping faucet. Then we need to accept that there will be another issue for us to address together.

The solution to violence is compassion. If a child is loved and supported when younger, then they will not grow up to be committing acts of violence.

But in our compassion, or rather passion, we lose our compassion. We are blinded by our anger and hatred which is in turn fueled by the media.

What we don’t realize is that every negative comment we post on social media is a bullet and we are the ones pulling the trigger.

Violence ultimately cannot be stopped with violence. We just need to turn off the faucet with compassion. But until there are any better solutions, a mother with a gun might be the best choice.

Sadly.

Peace.

🦋 🙏 😢

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