AR Power! How Could We Miss This?

"They don't know what it is like to stare 
down the barrel of an AR-15...I DO!"

The AR-15 is the weapon of choice.  We all know of this weapon but it is words.  Words in a visual age!

Watching CNN Saturday, a reporter went to a shooting range with a former military ranking officer.  He was firing an AR-15.  I immediately heard a familiar sound, but not from a movie like Black Hawk Down, it was from watching "Breaking News!"

The shooting last year with a gunman hunting Senators, Republican Senators practicing for a softball game.  Thanks to Youtube, a video from a witness uploaded his account of this shooting from his phone.  The gunfire through my computer speakers was intense.  It was clear.  It was the same sound I just heard on CNN this morning.

The latest shooting at Parkland then came to mind.  Another video from the classroom.  The first time I played it on Youtube I thought I was going to burst my computer speakers it was so loud!  The exact same sound and cadence.  It was like listening to a drummer--there is a rhythm to this pattern.

Why are we not having reports of this on TV?  Why aren't the students of Parkland promoting videos of what this assault rifle really does?  They often sum all their arguments by saying, "They don't know what it is like to stare down the barrel of an AR-15!  I DO!!"

I understand this might be too difficult for them, but someone needs to have politicians and others promoting this weapon become intimately aware of its power.  This is just like getting a drunk person to watch their behavior on video.  It gets them out of their head, out of their mind!

Watch this video and if you are like myself, you will immediately have flashbacks listening to this weapon shoot (the videos above are not usually part of the conversation).  It sounds EXACTLY like the audio from past shootings!  It brings it home.  It gets out of head and into reality.

This needs to be played on the Senate floor!

We must grow up!  We must get out of playing games and focus on reality.  Reality here is boys like to play with their toys!  This is fun.  It is a rite of passage into manhood in many cultures.  This is why I argue the NRA is a religion and when you argue with someone about the 2nd Amendment to a religious person the reasoning always falls on the ground like a bullet out of a cartridge.

Yet what reaction do we always get from the talking heads?  Division and separation.  They dig in deeper to their held positions of reason--their tribes!  You never hear someone say, "Wait...wait a second, there is something else going on here, I can't say what it is, but we are missing something!"

What they are missing is the emotional connection to the experience of shooting an AR-15 and other weapons!  What they are missing is what Amy Chua calls Tribes.  She also argues elsewhere how the "American Dream" is an illusion for most which creates tribes.

Listen to this Yale law professor discuss tribes and think of the NRA.

I often use the Upton Sinclair quote to communicate tribalism;
You can't get a person to understand something when their career 
depends upon them not understanding
Substitute career for tribe or ideology or religion or political system or sport team.

What is Tribalism?
* a modern identity driven group
* intense identity allegiance bound up to that group
* formation of having "my people"
* it is hardwired in us all
* it becomes a problem when it excludes all other tribes
* it insulates and isolates a group against all others when we feel threatened
* facts become irrelevant

I would argue Chua is still not going deep enough here.  She needs to outline how normal this is as part of human behavior, that our ultimate tribe is our family first, then our race.  This is similar to the Dog Whisperer saying a dog is first an animal, then a canine, then a specific breed , then your pet Toto.  A dog cannot not be something else!

We need to develop awareness of what we all FEEL inside in order to move forward in our national conversation.  Most arguments fall flat because we are not aware of who we are,
You cannot impart what you don't possess!

We are all part of some type of tribe.  Isn't it interesting that many of the "lone shooters" have no tribe.  They have disconnected from a tribe and usually live in their head.  Many times it is someone who has felt disconnected for a very long period of time, years or decades.  A male who cannot form personal relationships with both male and females.  They are always alone, even surrounded by others.

Could all of this simply be a result of extreme loneliness leading to what we call "crazy or mentally ill"?  Anyone in D-Block in prison will go "insane" over time.  Imagine if your life felt like living in a D-Block cell day-after-day, month-after-month, year-after-year?  Along this route bad habits are developed, ways to survive from someone who feels trapped within themselves. 

Our culture has little to no compassion for these types of people, many will shame them for being weak or selfish.  Most completely miss this is a troubled person battling daily toxic loneliness and have no felt hope.  This is a time bomb waiting to implode or explode.  This type of individual has completely shut down emotionally.  Even if you tried to help, you would get no response.  They feel betrayed.  They cast a shadow on everyone. 

How many of these broken people are among us?  Maybe they sit next to you in church or live across the street?  Almost always there were warning signs missed or ignored.  As our culture becomes more and more "phone centered" with social media, disconnected from each other in real time, this will continue to grow.  When we try to talk to someone and they are checking their phone for Facebook responses, we are not present anymore.  We have become a culture of social addiction!