View From a Prairie Home

by Hege Hernfindahl, Columnist

Yesterday I was on a Zoom call with a grief therapist named Gary Roe. I am reading his book “Shattered” and it is excellent. The Zoom call was entitled “The Rising Tide of Anxiety.” In it, Gary told us that if we grieve, we will experience anxiety. It is a given. We should not shy away from it, but learn to deal with it to the best of our ability. His techniques were amazing. Things to avoid and things to try. I know I have written a lot about anxiety, so I decided that would not be the topic of this column. Freedom would.

We live in an anxiety-ridden world. And we were told to avoid media if we could. Grieving people have enough to deal with. But how can you be totally blind to what goes on in this world? War. Poverty. Hate. And shootings. Shootings everywhere. The flags hang almost permanently on half-staff in town. To grieve another mass shooting. In a school. A theatre. A salon. A shopping mall. A concert hall. On the street. For every person who dies, there is a whole community in grief.  I have not lost my sons to murder, but their deaths were sudden and, for us, traumatic. So I watch the mothers of the victims of murder. The death of their children was pointless and random and caused so much pain. Needless pain. And all these horrific losses make me angry. Why do we need so many guns? There are people who believe that carrying guns is a right. Taking those guns away is taking away people’s freedom. Freedom to kill innocent children, teenagers, ordinary people going about their business? Why do we need semi-automatic guns to be available for anyone over 18? For hunting? Target practice? In my limited knowledge of guns, target practice is supposed to challenge us, make us better at hunting deer or geese or ducks. What challenge is it to spray a target with bullets from an automatic weapon and see how many bullets hit the target? And how good would it be to eat a deer riddled with bullets? I don’t get it. Having some sort of gun control will not take away the freedom of hunters of animals or target-shooters with ordinary hunting guns. 

And then we deny that things happened. Like Sandy Hook. With parents grieving forever for the death of their precious children. And we deny election results and demand spending tax payers’ money on needless recounts. Because things didn’t go our way. We think we have the freedom to choose our reality. What do we want then? Anarchy? We even feel that we have freedom to have an armed revolt against legitimately elected officials. That reminds me again of anarchy. Like in Somalia where there is no elected government and hordes of gangs roam the streets shooting at random. Is that what freedom looks like?

No and no. Freedom is a peaceful country where laws are obeyed that guarantee the rights of people to go about their business without being fearful of being shot. Freedom is the right to peacefully demonstrate for or against something we strongly believe. But freedom is not carrying weapons and hurting people to prove our point. What about the people who are hurt? Where is their freedom? Freedom is also being able to express our opinion without fear of being prosecuted. But to incite people to armed rebellion. That is again stepping over the line.

In a democracy we have the freedom to vote. But the results of those elections have to be respected. Otherwise elections make no sense. What if “the other side” objected to the election results that you promoted, and they called for an armed rebellion? Again, it would be anarchy.

Many of us have parents, grandparents, siblings and friends who fought wars against tyranny to defend our democracy. Automatic weapons were used in those wars. That is what those weapons are meant for. Not civilians filled with hatred. We are all vulnerable humans. Many of us live with anxiety. Isn’t it time, we laid down our weapons and felt compassion, not hatred, for each other?