Guns and Rabbits

This morning when I woke up there was a turkey buzzard sitting on one of our fenceposts with a dead rabbit in its feet. We've had the pleasure of seeing a few little cottontails around these last several weeks (they are very cute in small numbers), which is unusual. In the six years since we moved here, we've only seen an occasional jackrabbit as far as the species leporidae is concerned. The gully-washing rains of last year resulted in increased fecundity in a lot of smaller rodents, however, and so this year we're seeing more of everything -- more gophers, field mice, and of course rabbits.

But seeing the dead rabbit got me thinking about rabbits in general, who are predators to nothing except grass (and occasionally, irrigation lines), but prey to almost everything else.  And it's just a fact of life that the better predator you are, the less likely you are to be prey. Bears and mountain lions need fear nothing except man. Rabbits need to fear everything, up to and including man.

So then it occurred to me ... what if the 2nd Amendment extremists -- the assault rifle collectors, bump stock advocates, and guys who hold fast to their ability to kill 300 people in less than five minutes -- are merely responding to some primitive instinct that tells them that the better predators they are, the less likely they are to be prey? In other words, for those of us who favor sensible gun control, what if we're not fighting a constitutional interpretation as much as a primitive survival instinct?

I mean, obviously, if cottontails could arm themselves, they probably would, as would any prey animal. You are less likely to be killed if you are capable of killing your predator. Strikes are mitigated on the ability to preemptively strike and/or counterstrike against your opponent, whether in the wild, on the battlefield, or in the business world. It's how the planet works.

My point is that if we're arguing against survival instinct, however much exaggerated and extreme it is, we're going to be in for an uphill battle all the way and even beyond that. It doesn't make me hopeful for the long-term progress of taking AR-15's out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them. And the angry, vitriolic response we get when we try and push this agenda forward is coming from people who are fearful above anything else..."if I don't have this, I will be the prey and not the predator." This from a group of people who already feel (justly or not) that there is a mandate to eliminate their way of life. 

How do you argue against survival instinct, however irrational and misplaced it is? Because let's face it, the odds are far greater that your AR-15 will be stolen from you in a burglary, or lifted by a family member who hears voices in their heads than it will be used to successfully defend yourself. The statistics on that one don't lie.

But in some mindsets, people see themselves as cottontails, rather than the bears we actually are in the world of predator and prey. 

Switzerland and San Bernardino

Switzerland has a guns-per-household ratio almost as high as the United States does. Semi-automatic arms are completely legal, and people are allowed to carry firearms as long as they are not concealed. Most of the firearms are provided by the government, but you can also purchase other guns if you like, up to three per person.

Yet Switzerland is a country that has one of the lowest rates of death by firearms in the world...not so much because everyone has guns, but rather because everyone is responsible enough to have guns and not allow them to either fall into the wrong hands (little children, mentally ill folks) or become tempted to participate in some bizarre mass murder of innocent people.

I don't understand this. Is it our shoot-'em-up, violence-loving culture, or that we're just less mature as a nation, or something else which makes us so very different from them? Are they smarter, wiser, or less reactionary than us? How can weapons that cause HUGE problems in one country not even register a blip on the radar screen of violence in another?

Either way, I am sad to see things like what happened in San Bernardino yesterday happening more and more in our land -- and in more and more odd places for violence. And looking at Switzerland, I can honestly say that I don't think guns are the problem. But I'm not sure what is.