It Makes Them Feel Brave

Since going to South Africa last fall my all-too-smart phone has fed me a steady stream of nature video clips, whose invitation to click and watch can be quite irresistible. Some I find amusing, but many others tie my stomach into a knot in their stark realism. Who would have thought that a biology major and once-aspiring zoo director would become queasy seeing animals kill each other? I’ve long understood the predator-prey interrelationship that governs life in the natural world. Yet a sentimental side to my personality has never relished watching nature’s most graphic and uncensored depictions. Predators must hunt, kill, and devour prey to survive. And while some creatures fight back, a few even managing to escape the stings and jaws of their assailants, most of them seem resigned to their fate, stoically accepting death as the counterpoint to life in nature’s kill-or-be-killed drama. We may prefer to see the natural world through blissfully Disneyesque glasses where lion kings and wart hogs are BFFs, and we expend much time and money teaching these paradisiacal values to our children. But life in the natural world, the world untouched by civilization—the jungle if you will—is both amoral and unfair. Perhaps it is fitting, then, that the modern American city, with its gangs, syndicates, rogue cops and deranged killers more closely resembles the natural world than we might want to admit.

It was early in our safari tour of Krueger National Park that someone in our vehicle asked our tour driver/guide if he carried a pistol or rifle. It was a reasonable inquiry from one who sat trustingly behind him in a rather open and unprotected Toyota land cruiser navigating the paved and dirt trails over which we searched for wildlife in the South African bush. But each of us wondered how easy a mark we might be for an opportunistic lion or ill-tempered elephant crossing our path. His reply set in motion a string of thoughts which have inspired this essay. 

“Guides don’t carry guns in Krueger because a gun would make them feel brave, and they’d be more likely to do something foolish.” 

I inferred from his explanation that, with guns on board, guides might be inclined to get out of their vehicles and press an issue with an animal that could prove disastrous. I suspect this policy was the result of tours that had gone off the rails, zealous guides with weapons in hand eager to satisfy the desires of thrill-seeking tourists with cameras in hand, taking risks which none of them would consider if unarmed. So, preferring to let sleeping lions lay and giving ill-tempered elephants or buffalo a wide birth, guides at Krueger have mastered the art of keeping both animals, and tourists, safe. It isn’t quite Disney, but it affords those with little more than a spectator’s investment in the world’s remaining wild kingdoms a close-enough brush with nature to satisfy their curiosity.

“…a gun would make them feel brave,”

In the months since returning home, I’ve had many moments to think about the wisdom of the words spoken by our safari guide. His voice now adds a thoughtful narrative to the televised and online menu of news stories I try to digest each day, too often headlined by firearms and death. In the first four months of this year alone our nation has endured more than 13,000 gun-related killings. I’m not sure what it says about us as a people that more than half of these were suicides. Neither am I certain what the carnage we see and hear about 24-7 says about us, a country that

likes to think of itself as the capstone of greatness in human development. Is it that we have too many people whose guns make them feel brave, empowering them to brandish their weapons against friends, colleagues, strangers, and even helpless and innocent children in our schools? The effect of persistent killing with guns is both heart-breaking and paralyzing to all of us, and the well-intentioned remedies we propose in knee-jerk reaction to tragedy after tragedy just seem too little, too late, and too impotent to be of much consequence.

Many of us are old enough to realize that America wasn’t always like this. We easily and gladly recall childhood memories when we played outside without parental supervision, took trips to big cities with our families, and went to school each day fearing nothing more than a teacher’s corrective scold or a peer’s embarrassing tease. Sometimes my memory of these seemingly idyllic times makes me wonder if they ever really happened, given how things are today. I wonder what our stories of yesteryear must sound like to grandchildren who have had no first-hand experience of such scenes or possibilities. And what would generations of Americans no longer with us think of today’s national culture, marred as it is by such recurring violence?

In theory at least, all of us Americans are joined in a belief in and allegiance to a Constitution to which we give our tacit consent. This remarkable legal and moral compact was created to protect our right to those freedoms upon which our happiness depends. Yet herein lies a great dilemma, one that threatens to tear apart the delicate fabric holding our communities and nation together. Our freedoms include the right to bear arms for our collective protection—you know, in service to the well-regulated militia of the 2nd Amendment. Yet the arms at our disposal in the 21st century bear little resemblance to the muzzle-loading, single-shot muskets that were state-of-the-killing-arts in the 18th Century. Today’s firearms come in short and long barreled models capable of firing high velocity, steel and flesh penetrating projectiles with killing power that far exceeds what our founders ever saw or could conceive. And today’s guns are not restricted to armories or exclusively shouldered by farmers to kill the marauding predators that threaten their livestock and to put meat on their tables. Firearms have become ubiquitous across our country, our 466 million guns representing one-third of the world’s entire stockpile not shouldered by armies and police. Given our current population, that means there likely are 120 guns for every 100 Americans. Considering that only 46% of American households report owning guns, that leaves quite a few caches of firearms in the hands of people whom we can only hope have a collector’s or a sporting interest in ballistic weaponry. Escalating crime statistics suggest a more troubling reality.* 

Standing as a counterpoint to our right to bear arms is another liberty as old, if not older, than those codified in the 2nd Amendment: the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In fact, these essential freedoms serve as the foundation upon which all of our laws and amendments have been constructed. And they require that we work together to protect each other from those lesser angels of human nature that emerge whenever ambition, jealousy, or the love of power stir the caldrons of our discontent. There are times when those stirrings may seem righteous and justified. But often, and perhaps now more than formerly, they reflect an irrational or unhinged temperament wrecking havoc on those unlucky enough to be in their way.

Like all the devices and technologies of our making, guns are neutral in any calculation of responsibility they may have in making sense of an act of violence. Yet in our hands they promise quick and lethal outlets to our frustrations, our alienation and our outrage. What that means is that the precious freedom to bear arms must always accept and respect the fact that it is never unconditional nor unlimited. Like all of our freedoms, it is constrained each and every time my fist touches your nose**, or by extension, each time a bullet fired from my gun penetrates your car, your home, or your skin. Whenever any of us abuses that freedom, not only are lives and social stability put in jeopardy. The entire balance of power in our communities is tipped in favor of those wielding the gun. Ironically, the right to bear arms in such cases reflects neither the intelligence nor the courage of those who use firearms. Rather it confirms their rashness, their insecurity, and their cowardice.

I wish I could make sense of what is happening to us today. I wish there were  enlightened solutions to this problem of gun violence that seems to defy our best minds and most sincere legislative initiatives. Should we repeal the 2ndAmendment, reversing over 400 years of social and cultural custom and practice? An unlikely if not impossible proposition. Should we license more people to carry firearms to work, to school, and into every public venue, hoping that openly carried or concealed weapons will both deter potential attackers and offer lethal resistance to any assailant? That scenario would return us to an era of might makes right, when gunfights and vigilante law enforcement prevailed in the wild west.

As it is our right to bear arms remains a front-and-center issue that doesn’t seem to be going away, at least not any time soon. While I personally don’t own or use guns, I’ve known too many good people from families where hunting was both a joy and way of life. And I’ve shared many friendships with men and women who enjoy target and skeet shooting or value collecting guns much like those who collect automobiles, works of art, or vintage wines. None of these folks ever made me think they might turn their weapons on me or any other unsuspecting victim. While it may be an inconvenient truth in some circles, I suspect there are more people in our country who own and responsibly use guns than those who misuse and terrorize us with them. But as is often the case in life, the actions of the few have a way of driving and directing what the many must then try to accommodate, correct or repair. Perhaps that applies to our gun problem too.

In the meantime I am left with that twinge of doubt that now interjects itself each time I contemplate leaving the house or entering a place where I’ll be in the company of many people whom I don’t know. Should I be cautious and suspicious around them, or trusting and comfortable? Will I be safe today in my comings and goings? Will I and those I love return home after school, after work, after running errands? I suspect I’m not alone in feeling this way.  

In Kruger National Park, those most responsible for the wellbeing of the animals and the humans; those who are, in essence, the guardians of their peaceful coexistence, bear arms only when apprehending poachers or culling out animals that pose a threat to the fragile ecosystem they are entrusted to maintain and protect. For the sake of my children and grandchildren I hope I live to see the day when those who guard our coexistence in legislative halls, judicial courtrooms and police departments will exercise the same wisdom in caring for the people they have been entrusted to serve. Perhaps then we will be able to proudly sing, without smirk or doubt, that our country is a land where the free and the brave, happily, feel at home.

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*Statistics used in this essay were gleaned from the online site, American Gun Facts, March 31, 2023.  Images came from Gun Violence Archive website.

**Sayings often quoted in legal precedent, which are broadly attributed to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.