Ann's Column: Have we become numb to displays of violence?

Homo sapiens means the thinking species, but these days I am scratching  my head trying to understand a lot of the thinking about guns. Why are  so many glorifying guns, putting them on neon signs, on billboards, toting them to center stage, using them in advertisements for political office? Why glamorize them? Why appearing to worship them  like “golden idols”? Have we become numb to displays of violence? Can we afford to ignore this trend toward more and bigger and faster weapons?

My first memories are of war, maybe far away, but also at home too with blackouts, ration books, scarcity of many things such as rubber, metal, cars, gasoline;, an Aunt dying and myself in the hospital for three months because of no penicillin for civilians; an Uncle killed in France, a family friend disabled for life. I know that during my earlier life, I have had many discussions with friends my age about ordinary Germans and how they could have let all those horrors happen? When was all control lost?  THERE WAS SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF GERMANY! Why didn’t they stop the madness? How could they miss what was happening? How could they just stand by?

When did people in the USA  start advertising and adoring soldiers’ weapons, putting them up front and center on our Main Streets, putting  them in bright lights for all to see?

My father was an avid small game hunter for many years. He talked of hunting all over Beech Mountain long before it became a resort. We had birddogs and beagles galore. He bought a 70 plus acre farm and we lived out of town for a decade.  There it was safe to shoot rabbits and squirrels.  I usually took a BB rifle when I went down to Coddle Creek where I knew I would find the biggest blackberries and who knew what else.  Many years later, I shot squirrels when they started eating my house here in Davidson County.  I am not opposed to guns.  Guns were common when I was growing up, but they were not prominently displayed. Usually they were  hunting rifles in locked cabinets somewhere in the house. Today, most people I know own weapons of some kind. Somewhere in my house, I still have that old pellet gun I used to shoot squirrels nibbling on my house. What I am opposed to are the military type guns that are not only used by civilians but also being glorified by ordinary people. 

I think we have to stop just asking questions, writing columns, debating, arguing. It is past time to talk, and time to act.  We are the “thinking species.” We can do it; we have worked out so many huge problems in the past. Machine guns have been out lawed for over 90 years; the old cliché “guns don’t shoot people, people do” is just an excuse for not thinking rationally. I think more emphasis on mental health is a good point, and currently I am beginning to question who should be included in that mental health program.  Where is Shakespeare when you need him? I am pretty sure he would write “THERE IS SOMETHING ROTTEN IN THE STATES.”