Dusting Guns

I decided to do some real dusting yesterday and that included the two rifles that hang on the wall of our bedroom. I got to thinking about those guns and how guns and "fictional violence" have played a role in my life.

First, those guns brought DP and me together in a romantic, red-neck lesbian sort of way. We’d known of each other for years, but got reacquainted at a hand gun workshop for women.

There was a time I called myself a pacifist. In college I heard a lecture from an organization called No War. It was so powerful I balled like a baby.

Gradually something in me changed.

It's not that I advocate war or military action or that I'm a member of the NRA, even though my father was a lifelong member, it's more that I understand the people who are.

I still have the basic moral conviction that taking another human's life is completely wrong, but I've let go of the idea that I (or even a larger movement) can change all of humanity's morals.

I've come to believe that humans are inherently violent, which I did not think was the case before. When you take my toy, I’ll smack you. 

I believe only individual conviction or cultural identity can prevent violent behavior. It's up to each individual to change themselves.

For me I know, hand-to-God, I became desensitized to violence from television shows I was watching, and the books I was reading. And in truth, I became attracted to it. I watched a lot of television and movies, to the exclusion of many events and people (but that is another essay entirely). Though I could not tolerate TV police or crime dramas, one of my favorite genres of television was the fantasy/comic book farce that was prevalent on cable channels back in the late 90's. Hercules: The Legendary Journeys spun off several shows of which Xena: Warrior Princess was my favorite. To say I was a fanatic fan is an understatement.

My reading material was also fantasy. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice (the first book is now a new series on HBO called A Game of Thrones) are just two authors that kept me reading and still do.

These genres are full of sword slashing, cudgel bashing blood, guts and violence. I soaked it in like a sponge filling a dark need to touch the basest and shared primal part of my humanity…without getting my hands dirty.

When I took television out of my daily life, the light of love spilled into the quiet and dark places. In fact it was soon after partnering (for lack of a better word) with DP (when I also gave up TV) that I became fascinated with the Law of Attraction and The Secret. These teachings reminded me that I was in charge of my thoughts (dark or light) and taught me how to change them.

So the rifles are hung on the wall because we still enjoy target practice. That's all they've ever been used for.