Baraka_Guru

The idea that gun ownership is the linchpin of individual freedom baffles me, especially when you consider the level of sophistication we get in Western governments. If you observe things on multiple levels, you will find that governments maintain power (you might even call some of it "suppression") by structuring itself around the idea that individuals are entitled to freedom and autonomy. It governs the people through this freedom. We aren't merely free people; we are required to be free. This is something Foucault observed in his concept of governmentality. Essentially, these governments "build" their citizenry as people who have access to free enterprise and private property, and they do this so that they can empower the policies they want to enact or already have in place.

We are all accounted for, both in policy and in the spaces in which we live—geometrically and mentally. Guns don't make us any more or less free in a system of this nature. We are all subjects, regardless. Actually, taking away all the guns would be counterproductive to the power structure of the government in the United States. Any legislation related to guns is not so much about limiting individual freedom as it is about the management of our perceptions of a stable society in which it is our inescapable duty to be free. It's all about keeping the tax dollars flowing, really.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot