ifeminists.com: A central gathering place and information center for individualist feminists.   -- explore the new feminism --
introduction | interaction | information

 
ifeminists.com > introduction > editorials
 


We've Gone the Wrong Way, Baby:
Take Two!

August 19, 2003
by Resa LaRu Kirkland

I think I missed a memo in my journey through womanhood. I mean, at what point did being female become synonymous with being anti-gun? As I've pondered that question, I've come to the conclusion that it must have been somewhere around the time that society began kow-towing to the feminist tendency to abandon logic and reason in favor of the emotional free-for-all that has come to define these Stalinist Suffragettes.

And like the rest of feminism, this one makes absolutely no sense. It is just as annoying, outrageous, and perilous to society as all their other narcissistic ideologies have been.

Leave it to feminism to blame an inanimate object for animated behavior.

The argument against guns raised by these Shrieking Sheilas is right in line with leftist lingo. Given the horrendous and horrifying increase of children who commit violent crimes against each other and adults in the past 20 years, these self-styled paragons for the pre-pubescent scrambled to place the blame anywhere but on themselves. After all, their battle cry--Mrs. Lovejoy style--of "Won't someone puhlease think of the children?" was looking thin and shaky at best in the face of such un-childlike behavior. How could those within society who are the most tender, the most precious, the most given to spontaneous expressions of ardent love, become these cruel, hardened, and criminal creatures we now see on Court TV, staring back at us with hollow faces, angry eyes, and hurt hearts? Surely it had to be some enormous act of evil, some overwhelming world plague of malevolence that caused this sorrow of the modern day. Logic dictates that for so radical a change to take place in so short a time, it had to be a force so awesome, so sudden and new and perverse that no society on earth could have overcome or prevented. Oh but whatever could this force be?

If you ask the feminists, the answer is as simple as their minds--guns. Yes, according to the left's pin-ups, that which caused this horror to be released upon the world was an inanimate object, incapable of movement or force or a will of its own. That makes sense, right?

Yeah, right.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that it is flat-out wrong. If guns are at fault, how do feminists explain that 100 years ago, every ten year old in America had a gun that he used on an almost daily basis? Hell, you don't even have to go back that far. Only sixty years ago, my father and his friends were running around the deserts of El Paso, TX. He and every other ten year old on the planet had a .22. In fact, most parents bought them for their kids. Back then, even a child could take his nickels and dimes into the corner store and buy the rifle himself. And not once did it ever occur to them to turn that rifle on another.

How can this be?

Back then, mothers and fathers taught their children to respect a gun, to clean it and care for it, to never point it at anything they didn't intend to shoot, and most of all, that the gun was not a toy, but a tool to be used wisely. It was a rite of passage for these boys to be taught the value of a gun, and how to use it. And on that golden day that they received their gun, it was the first step toward manhood. The sight of a group of boys running with rifles in hand was an everyday event, and no one thought evil of it. Back then, before guns were registered, before you had to be 18 to even get a rifle, before laws and regulations limited which of these tools you could use or not use, children handled guns everyday, and handled them wisely.

How can this be?

Back then, the most popular movies were war-based and action thrillers where there was a lot of fighting and killing going on. In those days-as my father has told me over and over again!-a child could work for a couple of hours for some neighbor and earn enough for a Saturday double feature, a giant candy bar, and a big soda. Going to the movies was done at least once a week. They saw violence ad nauseum. And yet it never occurred to them to go home and use a real gun to act out the on-screen violence.

How can this be?

According to the left, it is the fault of the gun for the increase in children's violence. By their logic, somehow, just the sight and feel of a gun causes an otherwise innocent child to become possessed of a raging demon, hell-bent on murder and mayhem. Yes, it is that wretched concoction of metal, oil, brass, and gunpowder that is responsible for children gone wild. Add to that their claims that the violence seen on TV and at the movies seals the deal, and surely there is enough blame for both the gun and television. Yeah...it's their fault.

What a load of crap.

If that were true, why has gun violence among children increased at an alarming rate since the advent of restrictive gun laws 30 years ago? By their own left-wing arguments, restricting guns and keeping them from children will greatly decrease violence from and against our children, and yet the murders and beatings and rapes have multiplied at a horrifying rate. What is wrong with this picture?

According to A Citizen's Guide to Federal Firearm Laws, "...if anything, gun laws are more restrictive now than they were thirty years ago. Prior to the 1968 Gun Control Act, a firearm could be purchased through the mail. Even a child could purchase a rifle or shotgun this way (by lying about one's age). Virtually anyone could walk into a gun store and purchase a firearm. Nowadays you must be 18 years of age for the purchase of a shotgun or rifle and 21 to purchase a firearm other than a rifle or shotgun. Violation of these laws can include up to 10 years imprisonment."

I'll tell you what's wrong with this picture. Children have precious few years to form their thinking. Their brains gain 80% of its knowledge about the world and human behavior by the age of 5. During this short time, they are forming forever the brain tracts that will determine how they will respond to any given stimulus. Most children are in daycare from infancy until public school, and due to the huge turnover in daycare workers, the average child will have at least a dozen different adult workers influencing their brains before they even enter kindergarten-adults who are there only for the lousy pay, who are usually looking for the Bigger Better Deal, who leave the instant the BBD comes along, and who don't love, treasure, adore, or have a vested interest in your child and his feelings, potential, and the world which he will someday inherit. The messages flying toward the undeveloped brains from a plethora of sources causes confusion, frustration, and the build-up of anger so prevalent in today's youth.

The human child is not meant to learn under this type of stress until he is much older. They are designed for the one-on-one teachings that have taken place between parent and child since man stepped out of the garden. This is the way they grow, learn, and love, and in turn, this is the way society thrives.

Thanks to the feminist Great Home Exodus of 30 years ago that caused the standard of living to escalate to such a point that families can no longer live a middle income lifestyle on one salary, this ideal is no longer the world in which our children must live and form their opinions. They are now raised by institutions with a myriad of adults, all with different beliefs, styles, and messages assaulting their fragile psyches. As Bernard Goldberg reported in his best-seller Bias, our children are becoming cruel and violent. They have lost their natural tenderness, are easily angered, increasingly aggravated, and taking it out on the world around them. And the only significant difference in the life of children between when my father was being raised--handling guns every day and never attacking his school--and the children of today--who steal guns and mow down their friends--is the absence of the mother in the home. And worst of all, according to Goldberg, the feminists know this and have gone out of the way to hide the truth from the world, because that would make them appear evil. It would make their enemy--conservative Americans, men, and the family unit--appear right. And with all of their cries that women are creatures of immeasurable strength, they have yet to gain the potency to admit the horrible truth--that they sold out their own offspring for the corner office, the fancy title, and the fatter paycheck. This, apparently, is the way society dies.

Oh if it was only the appearance of evil! Time is proving that it has gone way beyond that point--feminism doesn't just appear evil...it is evil. And I have a newsflash for them: It isn't guns that have forced crime rates up, it's mothers who have let their own flesh and blood down.

Children act out when they're hurt, when they want attention. The acting out now is just more violent, but the reasons are the same. We have begun drugging our children and labeling them with phoney-baloney diseases rather than accepting the fact that God and nature were right when they handed women the children and the responsibility to raise them right. We took the easy way out because being around kids, taking responsibility for what they learn and how they are raised is hard, and thanks to feminist rhetoric, is supposed to be a cause for embarrassment. Because of this, our children have turned to drugs, gangs, and earlier sexual activity, all in a desperate desire to attain what they should have been given--the unconditional love and firm guidance of a mother who is there for them, in every meaning of the word.

Women, it's our fault our babies are using guns. It's our fault they're using drugs. It's our fault they are engaging in sex. It is NOT the fault of the gun, the drug, or the bed! These are objects which are merely subject to the will of a human. It is that will with which we should be concerned, because it is our awesome responsibility to help shape and guide the person behind that will. Stop blaming inanimate objects for objectionable behavior and get animated and object loudly enough to change society. It's been done before--30 years ago. The only way this will change is to undo this evil, and the only way to do that is to get off your fat butts and go home. Your child is worth more than you. Start behaving as if you actually believe that.

The force that has changed society is radical, overwhelming, and perverse all right, but it isn't guns...it's mothers, and the lack thereof.

Keep the faith, bros, and in all things courage.


Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.


 
ifeminists.com > home | introduction | interaction | information | about

ifeminists.com is edited by Wendy McElroy; it is made possible by support from The Independent Institute and members like you.