Gun control can be a frustrating issue to discuss with different people. Lawmakers continue to ignore the issue, despite the frequent and deadly threat that guns pose in our society. And every time you try to discuss it, Jason flexes his arm and says, “Oh you mean like these guns? Heh heh heh,” completely derailing the conversation. If you want to talk about gun control without Jason comically kissing his bicep, here are some facts to consider.
Mention all the death.
It’s easy to beat around the bush, arguing about semantics or gun rights in the constitution, or getting distracted by the fact that Jason is once again rolling up his shirtsleeves in anticipation. But the fact is an average of 93 American citizens are shot every day, seven of whom are children, and Jason is about to kiss his biceps again so you better stop him because this is embarrassing.
Mention more of the death facts.
“The world is full of bad people,” some will say. “Look at these guns,” Jason will say. But the fact is that America’s gun homicide rate is more than TWENTY FIVE times the average of other developed countries. That means for every one person killed in another developed country by guns, 25 people are killed here. Maybe that will get Jason to put his stupid arm down?
Mention how laws prevent death.
Background checks have blocked nearly three million gun sales to prohibited people. That literally saves lives. But we could do better. And Jason could stop making this about his stupid muscles. Because this is about people dying.
Mention other reasons to not want to get shot, besides death.
For every one person killed with guns, two more are injured. Those might seem like the lucky ones but it’s actually pretty inconvenient and sometimes debilitating to have a hole ripped through your body. So maybe the person who’s lost a lot of their mental function wouldn’t find Jason’s joke about his arm strength funny.
Jason might be a little distracted by less important things, but we as a country need to figure out how to do something about rampant gun deaths, through a variety of simple laws including improving background checks, banning assault weapons and large capacity magazines of ammunition. These are the guns we’re talking about, Jason.
