Arm Every Teacher? Just Shoot Me

Writing at the Huffington Post, actor and standup comedian D.L. Hughley challenges the logic of those who think a free society involves having armed guards everywhere.

This is why it is so difficult to have a national conversation on guns in this country. One side is interested in reasonable solutions to violence that protect people and protect gun rights. The other side is interested in living in a delusional fantasyland where President Obama is a Marxist, a Nazi, a Kenyan and now, apparently, King George. They argue that guns are the only thing keeping us from reverting to a 1776 situation -- the very same situation that they regard as the apex of American freedom. If the reasoning is hard to follow, that's because there isn't any. It's no wonder they fight tooth and nail against getting guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. What would that do to their personal arsenals?

The fantasyland they live in extends to their solutions to the recurring American problem of assault-weapons mass murder. They argue that we should have a country where every schoolteacher is armed, to prevent a Newtown from ever happening again. And they thought negotiating with the education unions was hard before? So they want to trust teachers with Berettas, yet they won't trust them with some books. Ain't that a bitch?

But these shootings weren't just in schools, so it wouldn't just be the teachers who need guns. We've had shootings in mosques, we've had them in movie theaters, we've had them on college campuses. Would we have armed guards in all these places? If your vision of a "free society" involves armed guards everywhere, maybe you need to check your prescription. I've seen that movie. We all have. It describes every film that features a failed apocalyptic society, a nightmare come to life ...

Rather than have an honest conversation, these paranoid nuts constantly muddle the issue. They claim violent video games are the cause. I don't know if playing a violent video game will make you violent, but I do know that playing them all day will make you unemployed -- and that will make you broke, and that will make anyone violent. Yet these same video games are safely played by broke, unemployed men in other countries. The difference is, those men don't have access to assault weapons. Our broke, unemployed men do.

Read D.L. Hughley's entire piece at the Huffington Post.

The Root aims to foster and advance conversations about issues relevant to the black Diaspora by presenting a variety of opinions from all perspectives, whether or not those opinions are shared by our editorial staff. 

Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

 

Tweet