STAND UP AND SAY NO TO VIOLENCE

I am writing this a day after an 18 year old killed 19 fourth grade children and 2 teachers. He had recently [after turning 18] purchased two AR-15 [assault] rifles and carried one into the elementary school. These rifles that the NRA calls "America's rifle"can rapidly fire 40 bullets and are easy to reload. They were banned in 1994 after they were used in mass schootings and they were labeled "assault rifles." However people who already had these weapons could keep them and keep their large capacity magazines [allows someone to shoot a lot of bullets rapidly and reload rapidly]. In 2004 the law ended because of congressional inaction and the number of mass shootings in the US dramatically increased. This increase was likely in part because of the availability of large capacity magazines that have contributed to the number of people killed in mass shootings. Data on mass shootings from the National Institute of Justice's Public Mass Shootings Database shows that assault rifles were used in 25.1% of mass shootings, while handguns were used 77.2% of the time. 77% of the shooters purchased at least some of their weapons legally. In K-12 school shootings over 80% of the time the weapons were stolen from family members. Mental health issues are common in mass shootings with psychosis being noted to have a minor role in nearly 1/3 of the shootings and a primary role in 10% of the shootings. 31% of shooters had experienced severe childhood trauma and 80% were in crisis. In addition, 30% of the shooters were suicidal before the schooting and 39% were suicidal during the shooting. 92% of college age and younger shooters were suicidal. 64.5% of the shooters had a prior criminal record and 62.8% had a history of violence. Frequently the response by people who are against any restriction on what weapons can be owned is that it is really a mental health issue. It is like the notion that guns don't kill people, it is people with guns that do. It is true that mental health issues are common and yet access to weapons plays a very significant role. This is seen clearly in suicides using guns as access to guns matters since the time between a decision to kill oneself and acting on this happened in less than 3 hours 73% of the time in a paper by Laura Paashaus et al. Clin Psychol Psychother. 2021 Nov. entitled: "From decision to action: Suicidal history and time between decision to die and actual suicide attempt." This is even more significant considering that more than 50% of deaths from guns are suicides. In 2020 45,000 Americans died from guns so over 22,500 were suicides. If a wait of more than 3 hours could prevent suicides then a wait for a background check is long enough to prevent a suicide. It seems very clear that restricting access to guns would save a lot of lives including a lot of children's lives, especially as suicides are increasing in children and adolescents.

So, background checks, limits or a ban on assault type weapons, limits or bans on large capacity magazines and so called "red flag" laws taking guns away from people who are a danger to themselves or others would save a lot of lives. So, why isn't this happening? Do gun advocates not care about all these deaths, including children killed in mass shootings. I don't believe that. Something else must be keeping gun advocates from supporting laws that would save many lives. I think that it must be related to fear. This fear may be connected to messages that many of us give our brains. The focus on rights to own guns and even to conceal them, gives our brains the message that it is ok to have and to use guns, otherwise we wouldn't have so many and they wouldn't be so easy to get hold of and it wouldn't be ok to conceal that we have them. Significantly, lies are being spread that people will try to take your right to own a gun away from you and take away other rights so that you will end up being like a slave. This fear is translated into messages to our brains that we must have the right to have and to use our guns to protect ourselves, our families and even our country. This message puts our brains on high alert and the amygdala part of our brains will constantly scan our surroundings for danger and we will respond to a percieved threat in a nanosecond when we feel threatened. That nanosecond [one billionth of a second] is the speed that the amygdala in our brain responds to a perceived threat to us. When this reponse is activated we are responding before we are even aware that we are. When we are responding out of fear that fear is the number one priority for us [and for our brains] and nothing else matters. This is one reason that intelligent and compassionate people can respond to mass shootings by denying that it is related to access to guns and denying that assault style weapons are not needed to protect ourselves because their fear tells them that they must have guns to protect themselves. For people with this type of fear it feels like a matter of life and death.

So how do we help each other not to be afraid? Listening to one another's fears can help reduce them as people then don't feel as alone and are less likely to believe that other people are out to get them. Also, it can help to openly talk about fears that people of color want to make whites become slaves. These fears are ungrounded and actually the more racism and income disparity can end, the better the world will be for everyone. Even the ultra rich will be better off as they will realize that they don't need to be afraid that they don't have enough money. We feel divided by fears and to let go of the fears will allow us to let go of the "us against them" way of coping.

What do you think?

RECIPROCITY: RENEWAL OF THE WORLD FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF BREATHING

The above title is a quote from Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book Braiding Sweetgrass. She feels that we are meant to have a reciprocal relationship with other living beings [all living creatures]. A sharing, mutual enhancement, caring and being with each other that fills up our daily lives. This she calls reciprocity and will lead to a renewal of the world as we learn to share this wonderful world with all living beings. We are indebted to many kinds of living things, especially trees in forests, for providing us humans with the oxygen that allows us to breathe and thus to live. So, what do we give back to other living things? One way is to carefully leave trees that will allow the forest to be healthy when we thin out the forest. This is in stark contrast with clear cutting that always kills forests as the seedlings they plant won't grow as what they need to grow has been stripped away with the clear cutting. 

There are many ways we can give back to our planet and establish a reciprocal relationship with living things as we share with and help to take care of our wonderful earth. Isn't this whart we are all supposed to do?

WE SHALL ALL, IN THE END, BE LED TO WHERE "WE BELONG. WE SHALL ALL, IN THE END, FIND OUR WAY HOME"

The above is from The Beatryce Prophecy by Kate DiCamillo. It is a book about faith in oneself [Beatryce in herself] and this allows you to trust and have faith in others to help you. It is about being brave [doing what we know is right] so that we do not turn away from what is right for us to do and brave to go forward and brave to love ourselves and others. So, knowing and believing in ourselves leads to trust in ourselves and others, and this leads to having faith in others and this leads to love. Kate DiCamillo in talking about her books says that it is our job to love the world. So, this clarifies that "this leads to love" written above, means to love the world. 

Is this possible? Yes, it is. Will this help us to not worry and to not hate others but actually care about them? Yes, it will. Is it that simple? Yes, it is. It appears that it is up to us to choose to know ourselves and take responsibility of ourselves. No one can be responsible for us, it is actually impossible. However, it is fairly easy to delegate responsibility for ourselves to others. It would seem that we do this because it temporarily reduces our anxiety about the future and yet it make it certain that we will continue to be anxious. Anxiety will not stop anxiety and no one else can make us happy.

So, is it really up to us? Yes, it is. So, what does this have to do with the quote noted in the title to this blog? Maybe it means that since it is impossible to delegate responsibility for ourselves to others, we will all choose to know ourselves and this will then lead us to where we belong and to home. 

IT IS SO SAD...THAT WE ARE SO SEPARATED FROM EACH OTHER

Recently I have been having moments of intense sadness that I realized were connected to hearing about conflicts between people that ends up reinforcing them being separate and even feeling against each other. Sad, because it is sad when people feel separated from each other. It does not need to be this way. 

I believe that this separateness is fueled by fear of not having enough as if everything that we need is in limited supply and if others have things we will not have enough. This is not true but if someone believes this then they will be anxious and see others as taking from them. This will inevitably separate these people from others and result in loneliness. 

We can help ourselves by refusing to judge others and listening to others without our own reactions. This will help us to feel and be connected to others and feel less alone. It really willl.

ARE WE A SOCIETY OF PICKPOCKETS?

The title refers to a quote from Thomas Jefferson about people who do not take responsibility for themselves and are thus like pick pockets are robbing others. The quote is referring to freedom of religion as an example of something that does not injure anyone when someone expresses their religious preference. "It neither picks your pocket nor breaks your leg." according to Jefferson. Thus, it is not the business of government to get involved as the government's role is to get involved only if someone does things that are injurious to others. Jefferson also concludes that freedom must be balanced by responsibility to others or it is not freedom but a cheapened version of the golden rule, namely "I can do what I wish and I don't care about anyone else." 

So, to be free we must be responsible for ourselves and responsible for what we do to others. Is this being responsible to others achieved by taking responsibility for ourselves and what we do? How does this influence other people? If you are responsible for yourself and your actions then you are aware of how you influence others and how what you do impacts others. Your being responsible will not allow you to hurt others as hurting others is being irresponsible to others and to yourself. How does one know that they are hurting others? We humans know this and if we don't then we are denying that fact and denial takes a lot of brain energy and that is exhausting. If groups of people collectively deny that they are hurting others then this can be more easily maintained for awhile but it is still draining and leaves the person feeling isolated and afraid. Why does not being responsible for ourselves lead to isolation and fear. Well, when we are not responsible for ourselves we put that resonsibility onto others. This alienates us from others and therefore isolates us. It also makes us afraid of others whom we judge as being against us.

What do you think?