Want to promote gun control? Appeal to parents

What is the best argument for much stronger gun control in the United States?

Thus far, appeals to statistical evidence on rates of gun violence and gun massacres in the U.S. being exponentially higher than in all advanced countries seem not to have made much of a political or policy dent in the context of an American debate etched more in the symbolism, mythology and emotion of freedom than in the cold calculus of numbers.

Let me propose that the powerful emotive, even tribal, posture of the U.S. gun lobby must be met with an equally powerful argument from emotion from the opposite camp well before any comparative ledger of deaths by guns can hope to move broad swaths of the population.

To this end, the best argument from emotion is not the horrific sight of the brutalized corpses of innocent civilians, including kids, in various states of indignity brought about by a final bullet (or many bullets) from an automatic weapon. Having been exposed so regularly to such images over the last decade, in particular online, even the most awful pictures of death may well be transitioning into the banality of everyday sensory experience.

Instead, a more potent appeal should be made not just to our common humanity, but to the overwhelming commonality among most adults of the experience of being a parent. Let’s call this the argument from parenthood or, more to the point, the argument from child rearing.

Every parent in America and the world over knows how much time and energy are spent putting little children to bed daily for the first 10 or so years of their lives. New mothers and fathers will often go nights on end with next to no sleep in order to tend to the needs and fancies of capricious babies and infants. Diapers need to be changed, bottoms and other orifices and crevices cleaned, and lullabies sung. Order must be imposed, even at the cost of bad backs and diminished patience developed from lugging little beings around against their will.

Nurseries and daycares must be found and paid for. Wounds small and large must be nursed, and emergency visits to the doctor or hospitals are par for the course. Languages must be learned, reading must be taught, and good manners fostered — slowly but surely.

The toddler who becomes the young child must, in today’s America, often be driven to soccer, gymnastics, ballet, hockey, baseball or football practice several times a week. Piano lessons must be squeezed into the schedule. Why not chess or karate lessons on the side? Anything to allow your child to get ahead. Recitals must be attended, homework monitored, rosters of friends managed. No sacrifice is too great.

Meals — endless meals for fickle little customers — must be prepared for growing bodies and minds. Homes must be cleaned of all signs of conspicuous chaos. Moods must be managed, identity and independence fashioned, and rebellion parried.

The job of the American parent is, as always, a miraculous marathon. It is paid for less in money (although a modern child is very expensive) than in sweat and tears — and mostly tears of pure joy at that. For life knows no joy or privilege or blessing like that of raising a child, of watching him or her grow be- fore your eyes, and of labouring in the service of his or her success.

In today’s America, the joy and journey of parenting are too easily juxtaposed with the notion that a child’s life can be snuffed out by gun in the most innocent of places — the school, the movie theatre, the restaurant. The labour of the parent is disrespected by the swiftness with which an individual — criminal, fanatic or deluded — can kill the fruits of that labour. The love of the parent is served the indignity of having the love of his or her life exterminated by the caprice of someone simply wishing to have a weapon and wishing to use it on a given day and in a given place.

The macabre gun violence in today’s America is less a disgrace to the national dignity (although it certainly is that) than an affront to the sacred human calling of being a parent. It trivializes the raising of children because it tells us that the country’s inability or unwillingness to protect them is apparently a consequence of other values or freedoms that are, according to the statistics, cherished more. To say that this must inevitably be so because it is a way of “life” is surely an abuse of the term.

The job of the American parent is, as always, a miraculous marathon