Simplification is junk food.

The gun control debate is a symptom of a bigger problem.

I grew up in a gun family.

My parents own 300 acres in rural Georgia, land my not-at-all-rich grandfather bought for a steal when my dad was a kid. My dad grew up on the land, a buzz-cutted young’n with a pet duck named McClellan. I grew up in a brick house in a nearby neighborhood, but we spent nearly every weekend at what we called “The Pond”—building deer stands, fishing with cane poles, planting pine trees in neat rows. My dad hunted deer and ducks there. At family reunions, while fried chicken sizzled in a deep vat of oil near the log cabin, my dad and uncles and cousins recreationally shot skeet over the pond. And when my little brother was old enough, so did he.

I live in South Carolina now, and my husband hunts deer and ducks. He owns a few shotguns and rifles. They are stored in a gun safe in our basement garage, accessible with a code only my husband knows.¹

Hunting is a thing men do in the south, the way they watch football and play golf. It’s a hobby, and I don’t share or understand it any more than I do football or golf. I’ve seen my brother skin a squirrel on the tailgate of his pickup in three minutes flat; I’ve roasted marshmallows right next to slick pink, skinless deer suspended from hooks; and I’ve eaten more than my fair share of venison chili, venison steaks, and venison jerky.

The south has a gun culture, and I won’t glorify that for one second. I am personally opposed to owning handguns, I have to turn away from photos of dead deer with their tongues lolling to one side and their antlers raised like trophies by men in camo (ubiquitous where I’m from), and I will ask whether guns are kept in the house before my kid spends the night. As with many things, I disagree with the men in my family on the particulars of gun ownership.

But, for the most part, we don’t disagree on gun reform. And it turns out lots of gun owners are in favor of legislation (background checks, mandatory waiting periods, a ban on assault rifles)—even the ones who support the second amendment. The major arguments for gun ownership (what I understand as self-interest—safety and autonomy—buried underneath upholding the second amendment) do not in any way conflict with these safeguards. My dad and brother and husband can still hunt, string up, skin, and eat deer… without assault rifles.

I am an idiot for writing about guns in a newsletter that was supposed to be about… I don’t know… poems? feelings? psychology? I understand how dangerous this is. I don’t have a million subscribers, but I have enough that I feel compelled to address this. I also have enough to make more than a few people very angry.

The statistics on American mass shootings offer overwhelming—in my opinion indisputable—evidence for gun reform. 

But I’m not arguing here for gun legislation. It’s essential, but it’s not the point of this newsletter.

What makes me crazy is the lazy thinking and lack of nuance baked into the debate. My husband is proof that not all gun owners are members of the NRA, nor do they all break out in a sweat and start wailing that the libs are coming for their guns every time the issue is raised. My husband, who might be the greatest dad on the planet, is as angry and sad about school shootings as any other justice-oriented human being.

What I’m arguing for is nuance.

Look! Here we are again, attempting to hold tension.

This time, between American freedom and the lunacy that is young adults legally acquiring assault weapons immediately before breaking into elementary schools.

I am almost too exhausted to write it again:

• Fiscal conservatives do not have to oppose gun reform.

• People in favor of gun reform do not have to vote Democrat.

• Christians do not have to be Republicans. 

• Not all gun owners want to kill people.

Shall I continue? Oh, what the heck.

• Republicans can have complicated views on abortion.

• Democrats can hope for some abortion regulation.

• Christians can be gay affirming.

• Democrats can go to church.

• Democrats sometimes own guns!

• The entire south is not red.

• Social justice does not exclusively align with Democratic policy.

• People can be reasonably affiliated with no political party.

• Moderates exist.

• Two spouses or two neighbors can cast “opposing” ballots.

• The same person can switch parties year-to-year—or on a single ballot!

• No political party can accurately reflect every nuance of every position of a thinking American.

• Lib and RINO and snowflake and bigot are catch-all terms slung maliciously at dissenters to stoke the flames of emotion and instinct—not accurate categorizations of heterogeneous groups of people.

• Policy-making for a gigantic and diverse populace is complicated.

• <Political parties> and <faith groups> and <feminists> and <people with mental illness> and <minorities> are not monoliths.

• Binary thinking is bullshit.

I am almost too exhausted to write it again:

This is not about politics.

This is about thinking.

Or failing to think. This is about what happens when Power divides nations into rudimentary categories… and about what happens when people let Power do that because in-group thinking is easier and safer than objection. 

This is about what happens when people drink the Simplification² Kool-Aid.

Why do they? Because a quick hit of simplification allows room for busyness and distraction. It leaves plenty of time for scrolling. It bypasses painful self-reflection.

Simplification is the goes-down-easy, ultra-processed junk food of existence, and we’re addicted to it.

Binary, this-or-that thinking encourages people to defy their own common sense (or become entirely incapable of accessing it) because they don’t ask questions of themselves OR their worldview OR the people in power OR the people with the loudest voices.³ They just… go along. Life is a true-or-false quiz, and all the answers are obvious. So why study?⁴

If you are fiercely aligned with a political party because you think politics is going to save you, you are swallowing whole the narrative proffered by divisive and greedy people and institutions. ⁵ You are paying attention to your presumed rightness instead of the presence and dignity of other, diverse human beings.

If you have the exact same reasons for opposing gun laws (or supporting them, for that matter) as everyone in your family or your Bible study or your town, you may be deeper into tribalistic groupthink than you realize.⁶

There’s a reason every staunch Republican spouts the same sound bite on repeat, and every diehard Democrat offers lock-stepped sound bites in response. When we parrot the talking points of the loudest voices, we are being swindled out of our own God-given reasoning skills. And if you’re as worried about fascism as you say you are (I am), logic dictates that you relentlessly interrogate the logic of the powerful and the wealthy and the loud.⁷

I have been there. I am very familiar with the thinking that someone else out there (someone I’ve been encouraged to trust) is smarter and better informed than I am, so my own dissent is not merely ill-informed but dangerous. I know well the ways compliance is rewarded.

I know how good it feels to be right all the time, even when you are wrong.

But on this issue, I think it’s time we divorce the political narrative from the dead bodies. It’s time we eat our vegetables.

When it comes to gun reform, perhaps there are valid arguments for not intervening. I haven’t found a convincing one that prioritizes common interests over personal ones; but if you are convinced, I can hold space for you.⁸

I am (most days) a left-leaning moderate, and I want some version of gun reform.⁹ 

My husband is a fiscal conservative with social justice priorities, and he wants some version of gun reform.

And if we don't enact gun control laws, I need it not to be because we clung too tightly to our categories.

I need it not to be because we swallowed the lie that we have only two options—that our common lives must be reduced to the check-boxes of Agreement or Disagreement.

I need it not to be because Instagram or Twitter told us what we believe or, worse, who we are.

1. I literally do not know this code.

2. Despite its clunkiness, I used this word instead of “simplicity” because simplicity in another context can be a wondrous thing. Some things are simple; community life and politics are not. (I could even more accurately use “oversimplification” here, but that’s just clunkier than I’m willing to get.)

3. It is also how societies consent to being controlled by dictators.

4. I think opting out of political discourse used to be an option—before it all went internet-public. Now opinions have been (for better or worse) democratized, and policy is decided in the public sphere. I need breaks from involvement and discourse and even empathy as much or more than anyone, but in general I’m not sure “leaving it to the politicians” is a responsible choice anymore. Furthermore, wanting or needing to avoid the discourse is different than refusing to ask questions of even yourself.

5. Sorry, but not many of these people ascended to power on the basis of their spotless morality.

6. “Social bonding is cemented by shared emotion, shared emotion generates social bonding. It’s a feedback loop from which reflection is excluded.” —Alan Jacobs

7. Also, for the record, what Jesus did.

8. I understand the arguments that “background checks aren’t effective” or that “criminals don’t care about gun laws.” I just don’t understand what possible harm those things could do. It seems to me like we’re having the wrong argument because we’re so loyal to our tribes.

9. Like, all of it.