Stop fetishizing guns

I’ve always really liked metal.

It isn’t pretentious. It has more musicianship than most genres these days. But above all, it’s loud and aggressive, just like me.

The band Pearl Jam is a great example of all the reasons I just listed.

Ever since I started listening to Pearl Jam, I’ve basked in vocalist Eddie Vedder’s talent. No other singer sounds anything like him.

This week, I have another reason to love Vedder, and this time, it has nothing to do with his singing.

In a interview with the Huffington Post, Vedder spoke out against gun enthusiasts.

“The fact that we’re living in a country where 90 percent of the people want further gun laws — to maybe somehow put a dent in some of this insanity that’s happening — and yet there’s no further legislation taking place, it’s very frustrating and upsetting,” Vedder said.

His rant continued.

“It seems like every week I’m reading about a 4-year-old either shooting their sister, their dad, their dog, their brother or themselves, because there’s fucking guns laying around. But I guess it’s ‘fun,’” said the Pearl Jam frontman.

Bravo, Vedder. Bravo.

I shy away from making my weekly column about gun control, because, frankly, everyone’s sick of it.

But as someone with a platform that reaches thousands of people, I have a duty and an obligation to use my voice for positive social change, however small it may be.

I’ve become so desensitized to gun violence, that now, after not looking at my phone for an hour, then checking it only to see an alert telling me of a shooting, I’m not phased.

That’s disgusting.

Every week there’s a new mass shooting, and we don’t even care.

Shortly after a mass shooting, gun fanatics yell for all to hear about how they’re keeping their guns, because this is America, dammit!

Our nation’s fetish with guns convolutes our demands for children’s safety.

Owning a fully automatic weapon in the United Kingdom is illegal. In the United States, it’s glorified.

The United Kingdom has one of the lowest rates of gun homicide globally. The United States has the highest among developed countries.

Mental health is an issue, but so is gun ownership. I understand that people kill people, but they use guns to do it.

To me, people who take the Second Amendment at face value are as bullheaded and ignorant as those who take the Book of Genesis and Earth’s six-day creation
literally.

The Constitution was written hundreds of years ago, when people actually needed guns to hunt and protect themselves.

This is 2013. We do not, in fact, need a gun in almost all circumstances. We have Kroger for our meat and police for our defense.

Every time you defend the right to own a gun, you’re justifying the hundreds of millions of guns our country senselessly owns, and therefore, you’re contributing in a small way to the next mass shooting.

Let’s start the end of this madness. Put logic over obsession.

­— ihajinaz@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.