Here it is, another Saturday night, and I am watching the TV coverage of the shooting in Allen, Texas. My son, Ted, was murdered by a handgun at a Halloween party in Austin in 2017. We are overwhelmed by a gun culture that is out of control.
Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, we had a culture of cigarette smoking. It was normal — “everybody” did it. Advertisements and people smoking cigarettes were everywhere (magazines, TV, movies, newspapers).
Finally, we realized it was killing us, and Congress took action to “break” the culture by banning the display of smoking and advertising for smoking products.
We now live in a gun culture. They are everywhere. They appear in every movie “trailer” that is shown on TV; they appear in innumerable TV shows. We sell them at gun shows in towns large and small. Their use is the theme in innumerable video games. They are everywhere, and their use is “normalized.” Why can’t we “break the culture,” like we did with cigarettes? Why can’t we remove them from being displayed incessantly?
I am a gun owner. I use guns to hunt. But we should not have guns available to shoot humans.