TOW #24- Nonfiction: "Guns are designed to kill. So why do we express shock when they do?"

Our global guns problem

School shootings. Accidental deaths. Mass killings. Guns in America have recently led to a number of national controversies arguably tearing our nation apart. On one hand we have a large number of Americans who argue that these weapons are necessary for our own safety and according to the constitution everyone with the proper intent has the rights to one. All the while, that side is backed by the brick wall force that is the NRA advocating for the right to bear arms. On the other hand we have a mass amount of Americans, broken families, concerned citizens, people in fear of their lives and the lives of their loved ones in our country where death by gun has occurred so often lately it is almost expected. These people are fighting to raise gun control and at the very least ensure they don't get into the wrong hands. However, preventing deaths from a weapon specifically designed to kill is extremely hard to do, and it poses the question; if guns are designed to kill, why do we express shock when they do? Peter Manseau, author of several books, including "Melancholy Accidents: Three Centuries of Stray Bullets and Bad Luck" and editorial writer of the New York Times addressed this very question in this weeks TOW. Manseau's use of vivid imagery and amplitude of disastrous accident stories help express a common pattern in the stray bullets of bad luck which continue to take the lives of many Americans. He successfully proves that while each death is a tragedy, we should not be surprised when these weapons of destruction, destroy. Manseau begins his piece with two very descriptive antidotes about a woman in California who accidentally shot herself while moving a gun from her husbands closet and a mother who lost her two year old daughter after she accidentally got a hold of the family's means of "protection" and accidentally took her own life. Manseau also mentions that these two incidents had not only happened in the last three months, but they also happened withing 24 hours of each other. His use of description helps the reader place themselves in the shoes of the people involved. When he describes "the sound of a gunshot in a Sacramento home" that "led a mother to discover her 2-year-old daughter bleeding on the floor", it puts the reader at the scene and brands them with the devastating image a single gunshot can induce. The number of cases that Manseau mentions is terrifying, revealing and dauntingly unsurprising. He also continuously talks about each one in a very nonchalant manor, making them seem repetitive and normal. Whether he is discussing "a man who 'somehow' caught the bullet intended for a bulls eye at a shooting range" or "a butcher in Philadelphia who accidental got his brains shot out of his own head by a shop hand gun" he does in a way that makes each death appear frightening a chillingly normal. In doing this, Manseau points out a major flaw in our country which often looks to guns a symbol of "liberty and autonomy, self-determination and control". While each death effects every person in a different way, many Americans have grown numb to the thought of death, even the cruel misfortune of an accidental death by our own means of "protection".