Nafisi, Wilkinson on Guns

I don't think it would be much of a surprise to learn that many of the authors we read would support President Obama's new initiatives for gun safety or Amnesty International's campaign to pass the Arms Trade Treaty, but you might be surprised to learn that Azar Nafisi's (Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books) call to reopen the debate on the seccond amendment is prompted not by her early life in Iran but by her son's experiences as a student at Virgina Tech during the massacre there.

I could not help reminding myself that our children had survived a war and a revolution only to be so near death in a small friendly town called Blacksburg. In Iran the only people with guns, the only ones we were afraid of, belonged to the regime. Over the 18 years I spent in the Islamic Republic, I was filled with anxiety about the Revolutionary Guards raiding our schools, universities, malls, movie houses, restaurants, and coffee shops. Never in those years did I or anyone I knew worry about ordinary people going on killing sprees.

Also worth reading, Alec Wilkinson (The Protest Singer, A Violent Act) who briefly held a job in law enforcement probes the psychology of the weapon in a New Yorker post, The Dark Presence of Guns,

I don’t think there is any mystery to understanding the passionate feelings people have for guns. Nobody really believes it’s about maintaining a militia. It’s about having possession of a tool that makes a person feel powerful nearly to the point of exaltation. What argument can meet this, I am not sure...

Take action to stop the spread of small arms to human rights abusers around the globe here.