The Cost of Firearm Abolition

47th and North Avenue. Neighborhood advertisement.

I title this entry as such and have taken care to choose the word “firearm”, but lack greatly in my choice for the word “abolition”. That is, “firearm” is chosen to set boundaries on what objects I intend for “abolition” to act on, but “abolition” is lacking in that it acts legislatively–not necessarily via heart, desire, or will. More specifically, “firearm” is to mean any fashionable device or object that can be managed by an ambulatory individual (and his or her partner in a direct supporting role) to execute physical harm or death upon another individual.

Aside: I highly doubt definitions will actually matter in this post, so you can basically skip the first paragraph.

My best friend in college had some unique ideas that I might accurately describe as outrageously founded in love. He once suggested that, organizationally, we might express apology and love to a certain member through a “love” tunnel (I forget if he actually called it a “love tunnel”). The idea of the love tunnel was that every member would line up–one person across from another, each pair adjacent to another pair. Each pair would lift their hands and join them with their partner’s. The idea was that a certain individual would come into the room, see the tunnel, be invited into the tunnel, and would feel the cheesiest yet (somehow) most genuine expression of our love for him or her. When my friend shared the idea, I gawked. I did not want to be associated with such a juvenile act.

But now I sort of do.

I was walking out of the mall parking lot onto the sidewalk near Panera the other day, and I saw an armored truck on the other side of the street. My beautiful twisted dark fantasy mind began to think about how I might rob the truck, what kind of living I could manage if I entered theft fulltime, and whether I would have the audacity and character to pull off a heist. Then my moral conscious took a turn and begged that I consider the moral implications of such activity, that I consider how an armored vehicle might exist in an America of firearm abolition.

Thieves would reign. Armored vehicles and their staff would have no defense against individuals that somehow gained inventory of firearms. This, of course, is why armored vehicle transporters require firearms–for defense.

But there is another defense–founded in outrageous love–and I completely imagined my friend suggesting this as the new minister of the Department of Defense: instead of a love tunnel, armored vehicle transporters would employ the “love wall”. The love wall is a wall of individuals committed to non-violence. Any and every time an armored vehicle must make a collection, a wall of individuals would join elbow to elbow and enclose the armored vehicle and their staff, creating a closed tunnel of sorts (I suppose the “love wall” is the daughter idea of the “love tunnel” literally) for the armored vehicle transporters to safely travel through and make their collection. The idea is that this wall would deter individuals with hot red hands–and hopefully those with a violent inclination.

Threatening or killing an individual guard is not as intimidating or easy (in any sense) as threatening or killing a mass of individuals. The love wall demonstrates true non-violence. Too often, I think we are misled by the idea that non-violence means being the weaponless armored truck driver and carrying boxes full of cash, hoping that we won’t be the helpless victim to a firearm wielding thief. That’s hardly non-violence. That’s being a stupid and ignorant dweeb. Non-violence requires that we be outrageously creative in love.

If more people were committed to the idea of non-violence and were willing to actively (non-violence is NOT passive) surrender their lives for this idea, maybe the love tunnel and love wall would not be such a cheesy idea. Perhaps my friend’s outrageous ideas would be the norm in a firearm free world. And maybe I would owe my friend an apology for gawking.

• Love
• non-violence