I'm surprised more people are not up in arms (pardon the pun) about the number of guns in the U.S. I've read figures ranging from 300 million to 400 million guns in the U.S. One has to wonder why there aren't more shootings in our country.
It seems like you couldn't go 10 feet without bumping into a firearm. That's amazing.
***
It does seem like we are reaching a tipping with mass shootings. I agree with Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker that we will see the day when the gun problem will look quite different. I sense that will happen, even though I am not sure the exact path it will take to get to that point.
As I see it, the NRA, in due time, will be eviscerated. They will make a lot of noise but it will signify very little.
The American people as a whole are getting fed up. We have taken in too much death from guns.
***
I just felt in the mood to write some writing I deem euphonic:
--"a corrective emotional experience"
--"human, all too human"
--"Therapist disclosure begets patient disclosure."
--"displayed in living color in the here-and-now"
--"want to slough off their facades and become intimate"
--"there swirls considerable controversy"
--"whose courage has left me gaping in admiration"
--"The fear of death always percolates beneath the surface."
--"a last-second reprieve from a firing squad"
--Heidegger say death is "the impossibility of further possibility."
"Burridan's ass, which starved to death between two equally sweet-smelling bales of hay."
I took all these phrases from Irvin Yalom's excellent book, The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients.
It does seem like certain topics in society don't get people's attention. For example, climate change. Of course it's gotten the attention of a core group of people (e.g., scientists, activists, most liberals, etc.), but it seems to fly under their radar for the masses.
I presume one major reason is because of the mitigating forces against noticing the issue, particularly big corporations who think dealing with climate change would be bad for the bottom line.
It will be interesting when the bulk of society does catch on. It will probably be a mixture of reasons given for why they didn't respond earlier: "it was because the liberals didn't give us the real facts," "well, it's not too late, really," and "it's not because of big business, they didn't cause this."
I'm rambling, but I think I'm on the right track.
***
