Of Guys, Guns and Gas

(Renewed gun legislation talk on Nashville’s Capitol Hill reminded me of the piece below initially written in 2010.  This morning I discovered I never posted it.  So here’s an updated Musing from the comic in my shadow as to something deep that some will find extremely threatening and others will judge as shallow.)

Either I’m just awaking or I haven’t kept up with the news, but many Americans seem to have become obsessed.  Many corporations, lobbyists and politicians fearing loss of power have found a way to make millions and maintain power while stirring our fear of one another as many have become gun obsessed.

As of the November 2012 election, seventeen states now have constitutional amendments regarding the right to hunt.  In 2010 Tennessee joined this group.  Ironically the right to hunt wasn’t actually threatened but the pro-gun campaign was so slick and good that some of my non-hunting, non-packing friends voted “Yes” to the amendment because they thought hunters were about to loose their right to hunt.  

Now the 'battle' as it's called is over whether business and property owners should be allowed to ban employees and the public from bringing guns stowed in locked vehicles onto their properties.

Amidst all this talk of guns, I was reminded of a gun reference from my childhood.  Often when a male member in the family had gas, the phrase was used, “He shot his gun.” I don’t recall that phrase being associated with the females, but of course being a female I may have blocked that out.  And I don’t know the origin of this phrase just that it was periodically used.

This prompted me to wonder if somewhere around adolescence this shooting of the bodily gun gets shut down and traded for a need by many men to shoot a literal gun.

Think about it.  Some folks laugh when a two or three year old 'shoots his gun.'  It's less socially acceptable at least outside the home when these noises come from an adolescent. 

Thus I'm proposing one root of the gun issue is connected to a man having to disown his insides and in turn stifle his bodily experience resulting in the disconnection from his body and a sense of true potency.

Think about it.  Food goes in and gas comes out.  Fear goes in and the guns are brought out.  Guns are brought out because men, the traditional protectors of family, feel unsafe and vulnerable.  Unfortunately still in our society, a man’s labeled feminine when he owns his vulnerability and wants to talk things out.

Contrary to what you may think, I am not anti-guns or anti-hunting.  My intent is not to oversimplify things or make light of serious matters.

I’m concerned about the twisting of truth, epidemic these days as powerful corporations and their lobbying arms try to turn descent gun-carrying, meat-eating folks against descent animal-loving, vegetarian folks.     

Lobbyists and politicians who benefit from this manipulation measure their potency in terms of the billions of dollars they reap by stirring fear.  They’re strategically using these times to their benefit while trying to convince the common man that it’s for his benefit.   It appears they’ve done a good job especially in this time when the American citizenry is blending as never before and white folks especially white men are declining dramatically in proportion to the population. 

Everyone wants to feel safe.  Most folks want to feel potent or good at something from one's contributions at work or caring for one's family.  Many have been convinced they're not safe and that potency lies in guns rather than stepping outside one's stereotypes and comfort zones and getting to know strangers.  

Real potency starts with owning one’s insides.  Until the internal stuff of our insides is as valued as the external of our appearances and looks, we are vulnerable. We will be easily manipulated and made to feel fear until we connect our thoughts, feelings and actions. 

The greater vehicle for increased safety isn't found in a gun.  Increased safety is found in connected body, mind and heart which in turn is willing to relate not retaliate and respond rather than react.

Even though it would increase harmful greenhouse gases, maybe if men (and women) needing to prove their manhood with guns returned to regularly shooting their bodily guns we’d have less violence in the world.  "Shooting ones gun” freely and loudly might be the best start at real self-defense. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 6 December 2012

dawn@imaginetheshift.com